The Sky Tonight

December 19, 2012

Venus transit and lunar mirror could help astronomers find worlds around other stars
London, UK (SPX) Dec 19, 2012
On 6 June 2012 Venus passed directly between the Earth and the Sun, in a so-called transit where the planet appears as a silhouette against the solar disk, something that will not happen again until 5 December 2117. A team of Italian astronomers led by Paolo Molaro of the Instituto Nazionale di Astrofisica at the University of Trieste used the opportunity to perform an unusual and challenging experiment, looking at the sunlight reflected off the Moon ('moonlight') to see how it changed during the ... read more

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GRAIL Lunar Impact Site Named for Astronaut Sally Ride NASA has named the site where twin agency spacecraft impacted the moon Monday in honor of the late astronaut Sally K. Ride, who was America's first woman in space and a member of the probes' mission ... more		BepiColombo Mercury Transfer Module Mass Properties Measurement The mass properties of the BepiColombo Mercury Transfer Module Structural and Thermal Model have been measured. The transfer module's primary task is to provide solar-electric propulsion during the ... more		EU 'must respond' to Russia's 'hybrid warfare': von der Leyen Russia says missile strike kills three in Belgorod region: governor Trump unlikely to win Nobel Peace Prize, but who will?		China Makes First Asteroid Fly By China's space probe Chang'e-2 has successfully conducted a maneuver in which it flew by the asteroid Toutatis, about seven million km away from the Earth. Travelling in deep space, Chang'e-2 m ... more
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Venus transit and lunar mirror could help astronomers find worlds around other stars

Astronomers discover and 'weigh' infant solar system

Search for Life Suggests Solar Systems More Habitable than Ours

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New knowledge about the remarkable properties of black holes

Big Asteroid Tumbles Harmlessly Past Earth

Greedy black hole discovered in Andromeda

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British astronomer Patrick Moore dead aged 89

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Hubble's Glitter galaxy: The ESO 318-13 galaxy

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Hubble plumbs the universe, yields images of early galaxies

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Secrets of universe revealed thanks to AF research complex

X-ray vision can reveal the moment of birth of violent supernovae

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