The Sky Tonight

March 06, 2015

NASA space probe 'Dawn' enters orbit of dwarf planet
Washington (AFP) March 6, 2015
The US space probe Dawn began orbiting the dwarf planet Ceres on Friday on a voyage of discovery into the solar system's main asteroid belt, where it will collect a trove of data and photos, NASA said. The probe - the first to orbit a dwarf planet - will stay over the mysterious body for 16 months to study its structure and gather clues to help mankind better understand how Earth and the other planets were created. It took Dawn seven-and-a-half years and 3.1 billion miles to reach Ceres's orb ... read more

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Bright lights on dwarf planet perplex NASA as probe nears The discovery of another bright light on the dwarf planet Ceres has NASA scientists perplexed as the US Dawn probe prepares to enter the orbit of the largest object in the asteroid belt and possibly resolve the mystery. ... more		Pennies reveal new insights on the nature of randomness The concept of randomness appears across scientific disciplines, from materials science to molecular biology. Now, theoretical chemists at Princeton have challenged traditional interpretations of ra ... more		An explosive quartet Astronomers using the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope have, for the first time, spotted four images of a distant exploding star. The images are arranged in a cross-shaped pattern by the powerful gra ... more
				Astronomers see star explode 4 times Astronomers have glimpsed a far off and ancient star exploding, not once, but four times. The exploding star, or supernova, was directly behind a cluster of huge galaxies, whose mass is so gre ... more		Ceres' mysterious existence has long puzzled scientists In less than two days, NASA will provide the closest ever view of a dwarf planet in between Mars and Jupiter that has mesmerized, puzzled and tantalized astronomers for more than two centuries. ... more

Human 2 Mars Conference Mat 5-7 2015 - Washington DC

Nuclear Decommissioning Conference Europe May 2015

Fastest Star in Our Galaxy Propelled by a Thermonuclear Supernova A team of astronomers, including University of Hawaii at Manoa astronomer Eugene Magnier, used the 10-meter Keck II and Pan-STARRS1 telescopes in Hawaii to find a star that breaks the galactic speed ... more		Galactic 'rain' could be key to star formation Some of the galaxies in our universe are veritable star nurseries. For example, our own Milky Way produces, on average, at least one new star every year. Others went barren years ago, now producing ... 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		Comet flyby: OSIRIS catches glimpse of Rosetta's shadow Images from the OSIRIS scientific imaging camera taken during the close flyby on 14 February have now been downlinked to Earth, revealing the surface of Comet 67P/C-G in unprecedented detail, and in ... more
				Far from home: Wayward cluster is both tiny and distant Like the lost little puppy that wanders too far from home, astronomers have found an unusually small and distant group of stars that seems oddly out of place. The cluster, made of only a handful of ... more		UGR scientists provide new data on the nature of dark matter Recent research conducted by scientists from the University of Granada can contribute to determine the nature of dark matter, one of the most important mysteries in physics. As indirect evidence pro ... more

Why isn't the universe as bright as it should be? A handful of new stars are born each year in the Milky Way, while many more blink on across the universe. But astronomers have observed that galaxies should be churning out millions more stars, base ... more		Exorings on the Horizon Astronomers from the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics and the University of Antioquia (Medellin-Colombia), have devised a novel method for identifying rings around extrasolar planets (exo ... 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		Planet 'Reared' by Four Parent Stars Growing up as a planet with more than one parent star has its challenges. Though the planets in our solar system circle just one star - our sun - other more distant planets, called exoplanets, can b ... more
CU students probe magnetic reconnection with MMS tools The University of Colorado Boulder will serve as the Science Operations Center for a NASA mission launching this month to better understand the physical processes of geomagnetic storms, solar flares ... more		Subaru Telescope Observes Rapid Changes in a Comet's Plasma Tail Images from a December 2013 observation of the comet C/2013 R1 (Lovejoy) (Note 1) reveal clear details about rapidly changing activity in that comet's plasma tail. To get this image, astronomers use ... more		NASA's Chandra Observatory Finds Cosmic Showers Halt Galaxy Growth Using NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory, astronomers have found that the growth of galaxies containing supermassive black holes can be slowed down by a phenomenon referred to as cosmic precipitation. ... more		The first ever photograph of light as a particle and a wave Quantum mechanics tells us that light can behave simultaneously as a particle or a wave. However, there has never been an experiment able to capture both natures of light at the same time; the close ... more

	OSIRIS catches glimpse of Rosetta's shadow Several days after Rosetta's close flyby of comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko on 14 February 2015, images taken on this day by OSIRIS, the scientific imaging system on board, have now been downlinked ... more		NASA-Funded Study Finds Two Solar Wind Jets in the Heliosphere As the sun skims through the galaxy, it emits charged particles in a stream of plasma called the solar wind. The solar wind, in turn, creates a bubble known called the heliosphere that extends far b ... 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

US Military Satellite Explodes, Sending Chunks of Debris Into Orbit		How Would The World Change If We Found Extraterrestrial Life		Core work: Iron vapor gives clues to formation of Earth and moon		U.S. weather satellite explodes into 43 pieces		Taiwan snubs Alibaba funding pledge
Forbidden quantum leaps possible with high-res spectroscopy		OSIRIS-REx Mission Completes System Integration Review		Could Ionized Gas Do A Better Job of Sterilizing Spacecraft		An Old-Looking Galaxy in a Young Universe		Debris Fills Orbit as US Satellite Explodes

Living on the Edge: Stars Found Far from Galaxy Center

Astronomers Find Dust in the Early Universe

ALMA and VLT Probe Surprisingly Dusty and Evolved Galaxy

NASA Spacecraft Nears Historic Dwarf Planet Arrival

What Big Bang? Universe May Have Had No Beginning at All

'Bright Spot' on Ceres Has Dimmer Companion

The sun has more impact on the climate in cool periods

Life 'not as we know it' possible on Saturn's moon Titan

Dark Energy Camera catches breathtaking glimpse of comet Lovejoy

Guiding our Search for Life on Other Earths

New filter could advance terahertz data transmission

A solution to the puzzle of the origin of matter itself

Astronomers find impossibly large black hole

Tributes pour in for Leonard Nimoy, aka Mr Spock

New insight found in black hole collisions

The building blocks of the future defy logic

ALMA reveals mild environment around super black hole

Widespread winds and eedback from supermassive black holes

Japan's NTT to buy German data centre operator: report

'Bright Spot' on Ceres Has Dimmer Companion

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