The Sky Tonight

April 30, 2015

First Version of Newest USNO Star Catalog Released
Washington DC (SPX) Apr 30, 2015
The United States Naval Observatory (USNO) has released the First Edition of its USNO Robotic Astrometric Telescope star catalog, URAT1. This catalog is the follow-on to the Observatory's previous USNO CCD Astrograph Catalog (UCAC4). The new catalog contains positional data on about 228 million stars with a magnitude range of 3.0 to 18.5 for a bandpass of 680 to 750 nanometers between declinations of +89.5 degrees and -15 degrees. Longer integration times and more sensitive, backside CCDs allowed ... read more

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Riddle of Galactic Thin-Thick Disk Solved A long-standing puzzle regarding the nature of disk galaxies has finally been solved by a team of astronomers led by Ivan Minchev from the Leibniz Institute for Astrophysics Potsdam (AIP), using sta ... more		MESSENGER executes last orbit-correction maneuver ahead of impact MESSENGER mission controllers at the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory (APL) in Laurel, Md., conducted the last of six planned maneuvers on April 24 to raise the spacecraft's minim ... more		Astrophysicists draw most comprehensive map of the universe Astrophysicists have created a 3D map of the universe that spans nearly two billion light years and is the most complete picture of our cosmic neighbourhood to date. The spherical map of galaxy supe ... more
				Solar telescope peers into Sun to track the origins of space weather Scientists at NJIT's Big Bear Solar Observatory (BBSO) have captured the first high-resolution images of the flaring magnetic structures known as solar flux ropes at their point of origin in the Sun ... more		Water could have been abundant in the first billion years How soon after the Big Bang could water have existed? Not right away, because water molecules contain oxygen and oxygen had to be formed in the first stars. Then that oxygen had to disperse and unit ... more

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

The World's Largest Commercial Drone Conference and Expo - Sept 9 - Las Vegas

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

Robotically discovering Earth's nearest neighbors A team of astronomers using ground-based telescopes in Hawaii, California, and Arizona recently discovered a planetary system orbiting a nearby star that is only 54 light-years away. All three plane ... more		Is the universe a hologram At first glance, there is not the slightest doubt: to us, the universe looks three dimensional. But one of the most fruitful theories of theoretical physics in the last two decades is challenging th ... 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		Astronomers join forces to speed discovery of habitable worlds UC Berkeley astronomers will lead one of 16 new projects funded by NASA to coordinate different exoplanet searches to more efficiently find habitable planets around other stars, and perhaps extrater ... more
				Astronomers Find Details about Star Formation in Ancient Galaxy Protoclusters Ongoing studies of distant galaxy protoclusters using the Multi-Object Infrared Camera and Spectrograph (MOIRCS) instrument on the Subaru Telescope is giving astronomers a closer look at the charact ... more		Saturn's Faint D Ring Not all of Saturn's rings are created equal: here the C and D rings appear side-by-side, but the C ring, which occupies the bottom half of this image, clearly outshines its neighbor. The D rin ... more

Army Network Modernization 2015 - Washington DC June 23-25

Astronomers find runaway galaxies We know of about two dozen runaway stars, and have even found one runaway star cluster escaping its galaxy forever. Now, astronomers have spotted 11 runaway galaxies that have been flung out of thei ... more		Strange supernova is missing link in gamma-ray burst connection Astronomers using the National Science Foundation's Very Large Array (VLA) have found a long-sought "missing link" between supernova explosions that generate gamma-ray bursts (GRBs) and those that d ... 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		Chemistry of seabed's hot vents could explain emergence of life Hot vents on the seabed could have spontaneously produced the organic molecules necessary for life, according to new research by UCL chemists. The study shows how the surfaces of mineral particles i ... more
Reducing big data using quantum theory Analysing the large volumes of data gathered by modern businesses and public services is problematic. Traditionally, relationships between the different parts of a network have been represented as s ... more		Russia Invites China to Join in Creating Lunar Station Russia and China are currently in talks on inviting the latter to become one of the main partners in creating a lunar station, Russian Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Rogozin said Tuesday. "The q ... more		Ultra-sensitive sensor detects individual electrons A Spanish-led team of European researchers at the University of Cambridge has created an electronic device so accurate that it can detect the charge of a single electron in less than one microsecond ... more		ORNL reports method that takes quantum sensing to new level Thermal imaging, microscopy and ultra-trace sensing could take a quantum leap with a technique developed by researchers at the Department of Energy's Oak Ridge National Laboratory. "Quite simp ... more

	Collaboration to Aid the Search for Life on Distant Worlds A new NASA initiative is embracing a team approach to the problem of finding life on planets around other stars. Termed NExSS (NASA Exoplanet System Science), this virtual institute will benefit fro ... more		Tau Ceti Probably not the next Earth As the search continues for Earth-size planets orbiting at just the right distance from their star, a region termed the habitable zone, the number of potentially life-supporting planets grows. In tw ... 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

Titan's Atmosphere Useful In Study Of Hazy Exoplanets		ASU team searching for signs of life in the stars		Virtual Telescope Expands to See Black Holes		UW key player in new NASA coalition to search for life on distant worlds		Search for Extraterrestial Life Included in Russian Space Program
First exoplanet visible light spectrum		Pulsing light may indicate supermassive black hole merger		"Comb" detects terahertz waves with extreme precision		Russian Mission Control Adjusts ISS Orbit to Avoid Space Junk		ICARUS neutrino experiment to move to Fermilab

Black hole hunters tackle a cosmic conundrum

Quantum model reveals surface structure of water

A cold cosmic mystery solved

ALMA reveals intense magnetic field close to supermassive black hole

Millimetre-sized stones formed our planet

Ceres' Bright Spots Come Back Into View

Design begins for ESA's Asteroid Impact Mission

IAU Launches Cosmic Light programme

Astronomers probe inner region of young star and its planets

Japan to land first unmanned spacecraft on moon in 2018

NASA Scientists Identify Missing Wave near Jupiter's Equator

New 'space trash' laser may tidy up Earth's orbit

A blueprint for clearing the skies of space debris

Life's building blocks recreated under space-like conditions

Dating the moon-forming impact event with meteorites

Dark Energy Survey creates detailed guide to spotting dark matter

SwRI team studies meteorites from asteroids to date moon impacts

Astronomers reveal supermassive black hole's intense magnetic field

White Dwarf May Have Shredded Passing Planet

Giant galaxies die from the inside out

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