The Sky Tonight

January 11, 2015

Dawn of a strange new world
Los Angeles CA (SPX) Jan 12, 2015
NASA's Dawn mission is closing in on a mysterious, unknown world in the asteroid belt. The dwarf planet Ceres named after the Roman goddess of agriculture awaits to unlock its secrets. So far, we've only had a glimpse of this enigmatic orb using the Hubble Space Telescope, so it's more than intriguing what we will find there after Dawn's arrival. Marc Rayman, the Mission Director and Chief Engineer at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, can't hide his contagious excitement: "Everyone should be excit ... read more

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Jan 06

See comet Lovejoy with the naked eye this weekend Comet Lovejoy - or more officially, C/2014 Q2 Lovejoy - is named for the Australian amateur astronomer who spotted the glowing green ball just last year. Terry Lovejoy spied the comet through his eight-inch telescope in his backyard. ... more		Machines Teach Astronomers About Stars Astronomers are enlisting the help of machines to sort through thousands of stars in our galaxy and learn their sizes, compositions and other basic traits. The research is part of the growing field ... more		Map of Mysterious Molecules Sheds New Light on Century-old Puzzle By analyzing the light of hundreds of thousands of celestial objects, astronomers from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS) have created a unique map of enigmatic molecules in our galaxy that are res ... more
				Novel vision of the death of massive stars An international consortium, in which the University of the Basque Country (UPV/EHU), Ikerbasque and CSIC are participating, has published in a single article a compendium of data obtained after the ... more		Juno on its way to unveil Jupiter's mysteries The gas giant Jupiter safeguards many secrets crucial to our understanding of the evolution of our solar system. It could also provide insights on how giant planets form and the role these titans pl ... more

Tempur-Pedic Mattress Comparison & Memory Foam Mattress Review

Where Did All The Stars Go Some of the stars appear to be missing in this intriguing new ESO image. But the black gap in this glitteringly beautiful star field is not really a gap, but rather a region of space clogged with ga ... more		"Assassin" Targets Supernovae in Our Neighborhood While many astronomical collaborations use powerful telescopes to target individual objects in the distant universe, a new project at The Ohio State University is doing something radically different ... more		EU states to hold talks on 'drone wall' to protect bloc Denmark military intel fails to identify source of drone flights Lithuania eases rules on shooting down drones		Andromeda Hints at More Violent History than Milky Way A detailed study of the motions of different stellar populations in the disk of the Andromeda galaxy has found striking differences from our own Milky Way, suggesting a more violent history of merge ... more
				Disappearance of a Cosmic Spinning Top Scientists measured the space-time warp in the gravity of a binary star and determined the mass of a neutron star - just before it disappeared. "Our result is important because weighing stars ... more		New light shed on electron spin flips Researchers from Berlin Joint EPR Lab at Helmholtz-Zentrum Berlin and University of Washington derived a new set of equations that allows for calculating electron paramagnetic resonance (EPR) transi ... more

Startup in the Land of the Rising Sun; A Japanese Solar Venture - by Bradley L. Bartz

Scientists Pinpoint Saturn With Exquisite Accuracy Scientists have paired NASA's Cassini spacecraft with the National Science Foundation's Very Long Baseline Array (VLBA) radio-telescope system to pinpoint the position of Saturn and its family of mo ... more		Will the Real Monster Black Hole Please Stand Up? A new high-energy X-ray image from NASA's Nuclear Spectroscopic Telescope Array, or NuSTAR, has pinpointed the true monster of a galactic mashup. The image shows two colliding galaxies, collectively ... more		NASA ISRO radar satellite beams first Earth images from space Morocco High Atlas whistle language strives for survival China warns Papua New Guinea over Australian defence deal		Flashes from faster-than-light spots unveil astronomical secrets If you sweep a laser pointer across the Moon fast enough, you can create spots that actually move faster than light. Anyone can do it. At a meeting of the American Astronomical Society in Seattle, R ... more
More accurate Saturn positioning helps improve astro navigation Scientists have used the National Science Foundation's Very Long Baseline Array (VLBA) radio-telescope system and NASA's Cassini spacecraft to measure the position of Saturn and its family of moons ... more		A New, Public View of the Sky For the first time, scientists and the public are beginning to see the large-scale structure of the universe, thanks to the Sloan Digital Sky Survey. UA scientists provide scientific expertise and c ... more		SDSS: Sloan Survey Opens New Public View of the Sky Today, the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS) issues its latest public data release, the final release of the third epoch of the survey (SDSS-III). Weighing in at more than 100 terabytes, "Data Release ... more		Rosetta in 2015 Before the Christmas break we left you with a bounty of comet images to create a movie - if you took on the challenge, do post links to your videos on the relevant post: CometWatch - the movie. We a ... more

	CfA: Eight New Planets Found in "Goldilocks" Zone Astronomers have announced that they have found eight new planets in the "Goldilocks" zone of their stars, orbiting at a distance where liquid water can exist on the planet's surface. This doubles t ... more		Comet Lovejoy Glows Brightest During Mid-January Comet Lovejoy, already being tracked by backyard astronomers worldwide, is entering its best and brightest two weeks for viewing. From about January 7th through 24th the comet is predicted to be glo ... more

JUNO begins decade-long mission to probe neutrino mysteries

SFL Missions to Deliver Spacecraft Buses for HawkEye 360 RF Signal Detection Expansion

Voyager debuts first space based multi cloud region to advance orbital data processing

Planet-hunting satellite observes supermassive black hole		Unusual Light Signal Hints at Distant Black Hole Merger		NASA closer than ever to finding Earth's 'twin'		Eight new planets found in 'Goldilocks' zone		New technology enables ultra-fast steering and shaping of light beams
Comet probe in race against time to crown stellar feat		Philae probing comet with hours left on battery		Andromeda On Screen In HD		Kepler Marks 1,000th Exoplanet Discovery		'Iron Sun' is not a rock band, but a key to how stars transmit energy

Gemini Planet Imager produces stunning observations in its first year

Volunteer 'Disk Detectives' Classify Possible Planetary Habitats

Astronomer Detects Record-Breaking Black Hole Outburst

Chinese spacecraft to return to moon's orbit

Chandra Detects Record-Breaking Outburst From Milky Way's Black Hole

Hubble Discovers That Milky Way Core Drives Wind At 2 Million Miles Per Hour

Philae lander still missing on comet

Galactic Herding: New Image Brings Galaxy Diversity To Life

Hubble Goes High Def To Revisit The Iconic Pillars Of Creation

Smashing Results About Our Nearby Galactic Neighbors

Acoustic levitation made simple

Neutrinos can deliver not only full-on hits but also 'glancing blows'

New Instrument Reveals Recipe For Other Earths

Comet probe 'may revive in March': French space chief

South Korean Satellite Faces Collision With Space Junk: Reports

Lawsuit accuses Apple of storage sleight of hand

Terrestrial Gamma-ray Flashes, More Common Than Previously Thought?

A simulation of the universe with realistic galaxies

Super-Earths Have Long-Lasting Oceans

Stars' Spins Reveal Their Ages

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