The Sky Tonight

August 20, 2013

Radar Images of Asteroid 2005 WK4
Pasadena CA (JPL) Aug 20, 2013
A collage of radar images of near-Earth asteroid 2005 WK4 was generated by NASA scientists using the 230-foot (70-meter) Deep Space Network antenna at Goldstone, Calif., on Aug. 8, 2013. The asteroid is between 660 and 980 feet (200 and 300 meters) in diameter; it has a rounded and slightly asymmetric shape. As it rotates, a number of features are evident that suggest the presence of some flat regions and a bulge near the equator. The data were obtained between 12:40 and 7:10 a.m. PDT (3:40 ... read more

Previous Issues

Aug 19

Aug 16

Aug 15

Aug 14

Aug 13

Distant planet sets speed record by orbiting its star every 8.5 hours U.S. scientists say an exoplanet around a distant star has one of the shortest "years" ever observed, whizzing around its parent star in a little over 8 hours. ... more		Kepler planet hunter spacecraft is beyond repair: NASA NASA said Thursday it cannot fix its hobbled planet-hunting Kepler Space Telescope and is considering what sort of scientific research it might be able to do at half-capacity. ... more		Around the World in Four Days: NASA Tracks Chelyabinsk Meteor Plume Atmospheric physicist Nick Gorkavyi missed witnessing an event of the century last winter when a meteor exploded over his hometown of Chelyabinsk, Russia. From Greenbelt, Md., however, NASA's Gorkav ... more
				Newly found pulsar helps astronomers explore Milky Way's mysterious core Astronomers have made an important measurement of the magnetic field emanating from a swirling disk of material surrounding the black hole at the center of our Milky Way Galaxy. The measurement, mad ... more		Voyager 1 Has Left the Solar System Voyager 1 appears to have at long last left our solar system and entered interstellar space, says a University of Maryland-led team of researchers. Carrying Earthly greetings on a gold plated phono ... more

CubeSats, SmallSats and MicroSats

A magnetar at the heart of our Milky Way Astronomers have discovered a magnetar at the centre of our Milky Way. This pulsar has an extremely strong magnetic field and enables researchers to investigate the direct vicinity of the black hole ... more		Cosmic turbulences result in star and black hole formation Just how stars and black holes in the Universe are able to form from rotating matter is one of the big questions of astrophysics. What we do know is that magnetic fields figure prominently into the ... more		Denmark closes airspace to civilian drones amid rise in sightings Top diplomats of North Korea, China agree to oppose 'hegemonism' What is the high seas treaty?		Hubble explores the origins of modern galaxies The Hubble Sequence classifies galaxies according to their morphology and star-forming activity, organising them into a cosmic zoo of spiral, elliptical, and irregular shapes with whirling arms, fuz ... more
				NASA Voyager Statement about Competing Models to Explain Recent Spacecraft Data A newly published paper argues that NASA's Voyager 1 spacecraft has already entered interstellar space. The model described in the paper is new and different from other models used so far to explain ... more		NASA used satellite to follow plume left by exploding meteor NASA says sensitive instruments on a satellite allowed them to track the dust plume created by the meteorite that exploded over Russia in February for months. ... more

It's been 40 years since Apollo ... Time to go Back

Tempur-Pedic Mattress Comparison & Memory Foam Mattress Review

Growth of disorder of electrons measured in dual temperature system Researchers at Aalto University and the University of Tokyo have succeeded for the first time in experimentally measuring a probability distribution for entropy production of electrons. Entrop ... more		Quantum teleportation: Transfer of flying quantum bits at the touch of a button By means of the quantum-mechanical entanglement of spatially separated light fields, researchers in Tokyo and Mainz have managed to teleport photonic qubits with extreme reliability. This means that ... more		The first animals on Earth may have been sea sponges, study suggests Wildfire-induced thunderstorms recreated in Earth system models for first time Fengyun satellite strengthens China global weather forecasting capacity		NASA spacecraft on journey to Jupiter hits halfway point NASA's Juno spacecraft is halfway to Jupiter. The Jovian-system-bound spacecraft reached the milestone today (8/12/13) at 5:25 a.m. PDT (8:25 a.m. EDT/12:25 UTC). ... more
				Physicists propose Higgs boson 'portal' as the source of this elusive entity One of the biggest mysteries in contemporary particle physics and cosmology is why dark energy, which is observed to dominate energy density of the universe, has a remarkably small (but not zero) va ... more		Researchers Slow Light to a Crawl in Liquid Crystal Matrix Light traveling in a vacuum is the Universe's ultimate speed demon, racing along at approximately 300,000 kilometers per second. Now scientists have found an effective new way to put a speed bump in ... more

Pluto Science Conference Exceeds Expectations

SciTechTalk: Grab your erasers, there are more moons than we thought

NASA Hubble Finds New Neptune Moon

Reading a Message from ET

"Pandora" virus - covert threat from space?

Purple bacteria on Earth could survive alien light

Distant planet sets speed record by orbiting its star every 8.5 hours

Kepler planet hunter spacecraft is beyond repair: NASA

Astronomers Image Lowest-mass Exoplanet Around a Sun-like Star

Snapping Pictures of the Martian Moons

Mars Rover Opportunity Working at Edge of 'Solander'

MRO Swapping Motion-Sensing Units

	Cosmology in the lab using laser-cooled ions Scientists would love to know which forces created our universe some 14 billion years ago. How could - due to a breaking of symmetry - matter, and thus stars and galaxies, be created from an origina ... more		If We Landed on Europa, What Would We Want to Know? Most of what scientists know of Jupiter's moon Europa they have gleaned from a dozen or so close flybys from NASA's Voyager 2 spacecraft in 1979 and NASA's Galileo spacecraft in the mid-to-late 1990 ... more		Researchers identify 12 'easy' candidates for asteroid mining Researchers in Scotland say they have identified 12 easily retrievable asteroids that could be moved close enough to Earth for them to be mined. ... more		New NASA Mission to Help Us Learn How to Mine Asteroids Over the last hundred years, the human population has exploded from about 1.5 billion to more than seven billion, driving an ever-increasing demand for resources. To satisfy civilization's appetite, ... more

NASA ISRO radar satellite beams first Earth images from space

India plans mega-dam to counter China water fears

Breakthrough in UAV swarm intelligence as SRI redefines topology mapping

Reading a Message from ET		An infallible quantum measurement		First Hundred Thousand Years of Our Universe		Skywatchers readying for cosmic light show from meteor shower		Is Europa habitable?
The Sun's Magnetic Field is about to Flip		Looming weak solar max may herald frosty times		Hubble Space Telescope finds source of Magellanic Stream		Astronomers Image Lowest-mass Exoplanet Around a Sun-like Star		Explosion Illuminates Invisible Galaxy in the Dark Ages

NASA Selects Launch Services Contract for OSIRIS-REx Mission

The Sun's Magnetic Field is about to Flip

European countries to join in building particle accelerator in Russia

While shooting stars get noticed, cosmic dust hitting us all the time

Perseid meteoroids to produce great balls of fire

Hubble Finds 'Smoking Gun' After Gamma-Ray Blast

Chelyabinsk meteorite may have gang of siblings

Largest neuronal network simulation achieved using K computer

Observations tie colliding neutron stars to 'kilonova' phenomenon

New Explorer Mission Chooses the 'Just-Right' Orbit

"Pandora" virus - covert threat from space?

When galaxies switch off

Asteroid named as possible source of exploding Russian meteorite

'Blinking' stellar system may yield clues to planet formation

'Lazarus comets' explain Solar System mystery

When fluid dynamics mimic quantum mechanics

Making big 'Schroedinger cats'

Pulsating star sheds light on exoplanet

Dawn's Arrays Keep It Powering Along

NASA Completes First Internal Review of Concepts for Asteroid Redirect Mission

Free Newsletters - Space - Defense - Environment - Energy

Buy Advertising

Media Advertising Kit

Editorial & Other Enquiries

Privacy statement

The contents herein, unless otherwise known to be public domain, are Copyright 1995-2013 - SpaceDaily. AFP and UPI Wire Stories are copyright Agence France-Presse and United Press International. ESA Portal Reports are copyright European Space Agency. All NASA sourced material is public domain. Additional copyrights may apply in whole or part to other bona fide parties. Advertising does not imply endorsement, agreement or approval of any opinions, statements or information provided by SpaceDaily on any web page published or hosted by SpaceDaily. Privacy statement