The Sky Tonight

April 14, 2015

Scientists hold breath for comet lander to wake
Vienna (AFP) April 14, 2015
Europe's comet lander Philae has remained obstinately silent since a new bid was launched to communicate with it, mission chiefs said Tuesday, but chances for contact were improving daily. Philae's orbiting mothership Rosetta reopened communications lines on Sunday to listen for any call from the little robot, project manager Stephan Ulamec told reporters at a meeting of the European Geosciences Union (EGU) in Vienna. "At the moment the orbiter is in listening mode again," he said. "We are w ... read more

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Comet 67P springs magnetic surprise In a new twist in a landmark exploration, Europe's comet-chasing Rosetta mission has found that its target, 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko, has no magnetic field, scientists reported Tuesday. ... more		New clue sheds some light on mysterious 'dark matter' Scientists on Tuesday said they had found tantalising evidence suggesting "dark matter" - the mysterious substance believed to comprise most of the Universe's mass - may be more dynamic than thought. ... more		Launch of Europe's solar probe postponed to Oct 2018 Solar Orbiter, a probe designed to observe the Sun in unprecedented detail, will be launched in October 2018, around 15 months later than planned, the European Space Agency (ESA) said Tuesday. ... more
				'Dwarf planet' Ceres spawns giant mystery First classified a planet, then an asteroid and then a "dwarf planet" with some traits of a moon - the more scientists learn about Ceres, the weirder it becomes. ... more		On another planet: the weird ways of water Once every 20 or 30 years, a superstorm greater than Earth breaks out on Saturn and whips around the ringed planet in a violent spectacle that rages for months on end. ... more

Space Tech Expo - Design - Build - Test - Long Beach CA - May 19-21, 2015

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

Cosmic debris: Study looks inside the universe's most powerful explosions A new study provides an inside look at the most powerful explosions in the universe: gamma-ray bursts. These rare explosions happen when extremely massive stars go supernova. The stars' strong magne ... more		Accelerating universe? Not so fast Certain types of supernovae, or exploding stars, are more diverse than previously thought, a University of Arizona-led team of astronomers has discovered. The results, reported in two papers publish ... 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		Correction Maneuver Puts MESSENGER Right on Course The MESSENGER team is pulling out all the stops to give the spacecraft life far beyond its original design. On April 8, mission operators at the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory ( ... more
				Citizen Scientists Discover Yellow "Space Balls" Citizen scientists scanning images from NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope, an orbiting infra-red observatory, recently stumbled upon a new class of curiosities that had gone largely unrecognized before ... more		Flip-flopping black holes spin to the end of the dance When black holes tango, one massive partner spins head over heels (or in this case heels over head) until the merger is complete, said researchers at Rochester Institute of Technology in a paper pub ... more

Army Network Modernization 2015 - Washington DC June 23-25

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ALMA captures Juno traveling through space A series of images made with the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA) provides an unprecedented view of the surface of Juno, one of the largest members of our solar system's main aste ... more		Aliens Are Probably Huge 650-Pound Creatures New research proposes that if intelligent life outside Earth's atmosphere exists, chances are it's enormous. The findings from University of Barcelona cosmologist Dr. Fergus Simpson are based ... more		Our Sun came late to the Milky Way's star-birth party In one of the most comprehensive multi-observatory galaxy surveys yet, astronomers find that galaxies like our Milky Way underwent a stellar "baby boom," churning out stars at a prodigious rate, abo ... more		Comms system critical to delaying MESSENGER's Mercury impact MESSENGER's orbit-correction maneuver on April 6 was a nail biter. It was the 15th such maneuver since the spacecraft entered orbit about Mercury in 2011, and the third in a series of increasingly r ... more

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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

The Solar System and Beyond is Awash in Water		Hubble finds phantom objects near dead quasars		NASA Extends Campaign for Public to Name Features on Pluto		Dawn in Excellent Shape One Month After Ceres Arrival		ALMA Sees Einstein Ring in Stunning Image of Lensed Galaxy
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Dusty substructure in a galaxy far far away

Hunting Hidden Treasures: Antarctic Meteorites Arrive at JSC

Dawn orbiting high over the night side of Ceres

Supernova crime scene shows a single white dwarf to blame

Tunneling across a tiny gap

Life Needs An Atmosphere, But How Much Is Too Much

New research may improve solar storm predictions

Planned Maneuver Further Extends MESSENGER Orbital Operations

Europa's Elusive Water Plume Paints Grim Picture For Life

A Gold Mine of Galaxy Nuggets

NASA Releases Tool Enabling Citizen Scientists to Examine Asteroid Vesta

Astronomers solve decades-long mystery of the "lonely old stars"

As stars form, magnetic fields influence regions big and small

Will the moon's first inhabitants live in giant lava tubes?

Particle smasher starts up again, says CERN

Scary times for Europe's comet-chaser Rosetta

Astronomers discover likely precursors of galaxy clusters we see today

New explanation for Mercury's dark surface

Dusty substructure in a galaxy far far away

Soft Landing on the Moon an Extraordinary Challenge

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