The Sky Tonight

February 05, 2016

The frigid Flying Saucer
Munich, Germany (SPX) Feb 04, 2016
The international team, led by Stephane Guilloteau at the Laboratoire d'Astrophysique de Bordeaux, France, measured the temperature of large dust grains around the young star 2MASS J16281370-2431391 in the spectacular Rho Ophiuchi star formation region, about 400 light-years from Earth. This star is surrounded by a disc of gas and dust - such discs are called protoplanetary discs as they are the early stages in the creation of planetary systems. This particular disc is seen nearly edge-on, and its ... read more

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First locks released from LISA Pathfinder's cubes Today, the lock fingers that kept the two test masses on LISA Pathfinder secure during the launch and cruise phase were successfully unlocked. As planned, the two cubes are still attached to the spa ... more		NASA's Juno Spacecraft Burns for Jupiter NASA's solar-powered Juno spacecraft successfully executed a maneuver to adjust its flight path today, Feb. 3. The maneuver refined the spacecraft's trajectory, helping set the stage for Juno's arri ... more		How Friendly Is Enceladus' Ocean To Life How acidic is the ocean on Saturn's icy moon Enceladus? It's a fundamental question to understanding if this geyser-spouting moon could support life. Enceladus is part of a family of icy worlds, inc ... more
				Turbulent times: When stars approach When we look at the night sky, we see stars as tiny points of light eking out a solitary existence at immense distances from Earth. But appearances are deceptive. More than half the stars we know of ... more		A violent wind blown from the heart of a galaxy tells the tale of a merger An international team led by a researcher from Hiroshima University has succeeded in revealing the detailed structure of a massive ionized gas outflow streaming from the starburst galaxy NGC 6240. T ... more

Inside Rosetta's comet There are no large caverns inside Comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko. ESA's Rosetta mission has made measurements that clearly demonstrate this, solving a long-standing mystery. Comets are the ic ... more		Millisecond Pulsars Likely Account for Signal in Galactic Center The puzzling excess of gamma rays from the center of the Milky Way probably originates from rapidly rotating neutron stars, or millisecond pulsars, and not from dark matter annihilation, as previous ... more		Europe commercial satellite life extension mission set for 2027 Atlas 5 rocket launches U.S. communications satellite USS Ford in Caribbean; Maduro blasts US-T&T drills		Luxembourg's ultimate offshore investment: Space mining Luxembourg positioned itself Wednesday to pioneer the potentially lucrative business of mining asteroids in space for precious metals such as gold, platinum and tungsten. ... more
				Philae comet probe: World prepares for final farewell In November 2014, a brave explorer on a daring mission strapped on a pair of studded boots and a hard hat, stuffed a cheese sandwich and a compass into a backpack, and leapt from a spacecraft. ... more		Small Asteroid to Pass Close to Earth March 5 A small asteroid that two years ago flew past Earth at a comfortable distance of about 1.3 million miles (2 million kilometers) will safely fly by our planet again in a few weeks, though this time i ... more

Military Radar Summit 2016 - Washington DC - February 29

Tempur-Pedic Mattress Comparison & Memory Foam Mattress Review

Galactic center's gamma rays unlikely to originate from dark matter, evidence shows Bursts of gamma rays from the center of our galaxy are not likely to be signals of dark matter but rather other astrophysical phenomena such as fast-rotating stars called millisecond pulsars, accord ... more		ASU satellite selected for NASA Space Launch System's first flight The first flight of NASA's new rocket, the Space Launch System (SLS), will carry 13 low-cost CubeSats, including one from Arizona State University, to test innovative ideas along with an uncrewed Or ... more		Iran begins cloud seeding operations as people pray for rain in Tehran Brazil Sees Massive Climate Protests as COP30 Hits Halfway Mark Death toll from Indonesia landslide rises to 11; Flood kills two in storm-hit Portugal		Heliophysics CubeSat to launch on NASA's SLS Just a bit bigger than a box of cereal, one of the first CubeSats to travel in interplanetary space will be NASA's miniature space science station, dedicated to studying the dynamic particles and ma ... more
Lunar Flashlight selected to fly as secondary payload on Exploration Mission-1 NASA's Advanced Exploration Systems Division recently selected the Lunar Flashlight CubeSat as a secondary payload to fly aboard the Space Launch System's Exploration Mission-1 (EM-1) flight. Lunar ... more		CuSP will observe solar energetic particles in outer space NASA announced that a miniature solar particle research spacecraft to be built by Southwest Research Institute (SwRI) will launch aboard NASA's Exploration Mission 1 (EM-1) rocket in 2018. The ... more		Saturn's rings: less than meets the eye It seems intuitive that an opaque material should contain more stuff than a more translucent substance. For example, muddier water has more suspended particles of dirt in it than clearer water. Like ... more		Blast from black hole in a galaxy far, far away The Star Wars franchise has featured the fictitious "Death Star," which can shoot powerful beams of radiation across space. The universe, however, produces phenomena that often surpass what science ... more

	Scientists debate likelihood of finding life on other planets In a debate hosted by the Department of Astronomy and Astrophysics, six scientists argued whether remote sensing will reveal evidence of extant life on an exoplanet-any planet outside our solar syst ... more		Will Space Debris be Responsible for World War III? In recent weeks there has been a bit of speculation that collisions between active satellites and space debris could spark WW III. Vitaly Adushkin from the Russian Academy of Sciences' Institute of ... more

Mechanical power by linking Earth's warmth to space

AI energy demand in US proves minor climate impact

COP30 climate pledges favour land-based carbon removal over emission cuts

Novel Calibration Tool Will Help Astronomers Look for Habitable Exoplanets		Bright sparks shed new light on the dark matter riddle		Space-Earth System Produces Highest-Resolution Astronomical Image		Polar vortices observed in ferroelectric		New Animation Takes a Colorful Flight Over Ceres
Phase of the moon affects amount of rainfall		Understanding the magnetic sun		Hubble Finds Misbehaving Spiral		Antarctic fungi survive Martian conditions on the International Space Station		A new magnetoresistance effect occurring in materials with strong spin-orbit coupling

Astronomers discover largest solar system

Giant gas cloud boomeranging back into Milky Way

Galaxy cluster environment not dictated by its mass alone

A new quantum approach to big data

LISA Pathfinder Thrusters Operated Successfully

Galaxy Clusters Reveal New Dark Matter Insights

Making new stars by 'adopting' stray cosmic gases

Ceres: Keeping Well-Guarded Secrets for 215 Years

The Milky Way's clean and tidy galactic neighbor

NASA assigns early design contracts for Asteroid Redirect mission

Anti-hydrogen origin revealed by collision simulation

Solving hard quantum problems: Everything is connected

Integral X-rays Earth's aurora

Cassini Heads for 'Higher Ground' at Saturn

Advanced Civilizations Could Thrive in Chaotic Star Clusters

The aliens are silent because they're dead

How to clock the beginning of the Universe

Watching electrons cool in 30 quadrillionths of a second

Lonely Planet Finds a Mum a Trillion Km Away

Understanding Universe's Secrets with Euclid Spacecraft

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