The Sky Tonight

May 08, 2016

The 2016 Transit of Mercury
Huntsville AL (SPX) May 08, 2016
Solar Scientists are accustomed to seeing spots on the sun - irregular islands of magnetism that sometimes erupt, producing strong solar flares. On May 9, 2016, they will see a spot of a very different kind - a dark circle moving across the solar disk. This spot is no ordinary sunspot. It's the planet Mercury, making a rare transit of the sun. Mercury passes directly between the sun and Earth about 13 times every century. The last time it happened was ten years ago in 2006, and the next time will ... read more

Previous Issues

May 07

May 05

May 04

May 03

May 02

Scientists discover potentially habitable planets Is there life beyond our solar system? If there is, our best bet for finding it may lie in three nearby, Earth-like exoplanets. For the first time, an international team of astronomers from MI ... more		Measuring a black hole 660 million times as massive as our sun It's about 660 million times as massive as our sun, and a cloud of gas circles it at about 1.1 million mph. This supermassive black hole sits at the center of a galaxy dubbed NGC 1332, which is 73 m ... more		MIT compiles list of potential gases to guide search for life on exoplanets A new approach intended to maximize the chances of identifying planets orbiting nearby stars that support life focuses on creating a comprehensive list of the molecules that might be present in the ... more
				DSI and Luxembourg partner to commercialize space resources Asteroid mining company Deep Space Industries, together with the Luxembourg Government and the Societe Nationale de Credit et d'Investissement (SNCI), the national banking institution in Luxembourg, ... more		NASA research gives new insights into how the Moon got inked A powerful combination of observations and computer simulations is giving new clues to how the moon got its mysterious "tattoos" - swirling patterns of light and dark found at over a hundred locatio ... more

Space Tech Expo - Design - Build - Test - Pasadena CA - May 24-26, 2016

Anyone can try IBM's powerful quantum computer IBM on Wednesday opened its quantum computer processor to anyone who wants to try what is expected to be a new kind of computing with enormously improved power and speed. ... more		May meteors: Eta Aquarid shower peaks Thursday and Friday The Eta Aquarid meteor shower will peak on May 6, but sky-watchers will likely be able to spot meteors on the day before and after. ... more		U.S. defense in free fall Saudi Arabia and Pakistan sign mutual defense pact Brazil, Chile sign defense agreement		Three Earth-sized planets An international team of astronomers composed of UC San Diego astrophysicists has discovered three Earth-sized planets orbiting near the "habitable zone" of an ultracool dwarf star, the first planet ... more
				Fermi telescope helps link cosmic neutrino to blazar blast Nearly 10 billion years ago, the black hole at the center of a galaxy known as PKS B1424-418 produced a powerful outburst. Light from this blast began arriving at Earth in 2012. Now astronomers usin ... more		Interstellar spacecraft sails could slam on Brakes for exoplanet flybys Scientists in the UK and Germany have come up with a quicker way to brake spacecraft on interstellar missions, by combining magnetic and electric sails. Interstellar spacecraft will be able to ... more

Human 2 Mars Conference May 17-19 2016 - Washington DC

Transition from Operations to Decommissioning by Preparing a Safe, Cost-Effective Shut Down and Waste Management Strategy

The World's Largest Commercial Drone Conference and Expo - Sept 7-9 - Las Vegas

Directed Energy And Next Generation Munitions - 20-22 June - Washington DC

Winds a quarter the speed of light spotted leaving mysterious binary systems Two black holes in nearby galaxies have been observed devouring their companion stars at a rate exceeding classically understood limits, and in the process, kicking out matter into surrounding space ... more		Hybrid nanoantennas offer new platform for ultradense data recording A group of scientists from ITMO University in Saint Petersburg has put forward a new approach to effective manipulation of light at the nanoscale based on hybrid metal-dielectric nanoantennas. The n ... more		GUARDIAN Tsunami Detection Tech Catches Wave in Real Time Galileo daughter mission named Celeste to strengthen navigation resilience How quantum computers can be validated when solving unsolvable problems		Light Echoes Give Clues to Protoplanetary Disk Imagine you want to measure the size of a room, but it's completely dark. If you shout, you can tell if the space you're in is relatively big or small, depending on how long it takes to hear the ech ... more
Possible extragalactic source of high-energy neutrinos Nearly 10 billion years ago in a galaxy known as PKS B1424-418, a dramatic explosion occurred. Light from this blast began arriving at Earth in 2012. Now, an international team of astronomers, led b ... more		Powerful Winds Spotted From Mysterious X-ray Binaries ESA's XMM-Newton has discovered gas streaming away at a quarter of the speed of light from very bright X-ray binaries in two nearby galaxies. At X-ray wavelengths, the celestial sky is dominat ... more		Nearby supernova 30M years ago equaled detonation of 100 million suns A giant star that exploded 30 million years ago in a galaxy near Earth had a radius prior to going supernova that was 200 times larger than our sun, according to astrophysicists at Southern Methodis ... more		Russian Doll Galaxy Clusters Reveal Information About Dark Energy Astronomers have used data from NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory, ESA's Planck and a large list of optical telescopes to develop a powerful new method for investigating dark energy, the mysterious e ... more

	Space Microscope to test universality of freefall France's Microscope satellite, carrying a set of ESA high-tech thrusters, lifted off last night from Europe's Spaceport in Kourou, French Guiana, taking advantage of the same Soyuz launch that took ... more		One minus 1 does not always equal 0 in chemistry In the world of chemistry, one minus one almost always equals zero. But new research from Northwestern University and the Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS) in France shows that is ... more

Ohio State scientists advance focus on nuclear propulsion

Mixing neutrinos of colliding neutron stars changes how merger unfolds

China launches experimental satellites to enhance mobile space internet

Interstellar EmDrive gets boost from new theory of inertia		Hiding in the Sunshine: The Search for Other Earths		On the Road to Finding Other Earths		Elektra: A New Triple Asteroid		Fermi Telescope helps link cosmic neutrino to blazar blast
Could Earth's light blue color be a signature of life?		Japan abandons $250mn black hole satellite		Discovering the bath scum on Titan		Are we alone? Setting some limits to our uniqueness		Comet from Oort Cloud brings clues about solar system's origins

Weasel chews power cable, puts LHC experiments on hold

Physicists detect the enigmatic spin momentum of light

Superfast light source made from artificial atom

Profile of a methane sea on Titan

Hydrothermal systems show spectrum of extreme life on Earth

Einstein's theory of relativity faces satellite test

Dutch-German impulse for gravitational wave research

First rocket made ready for launch at Vostochny spaceport

Zip software can detect the quantum-classical boundary

The atom without properties

New nanodevice shifts light's color at single-photon level

Dark matter does not contain certain axion-like particles

Cosmic beacons reveal the Milky Way's ancient core

Kepler spacecraft recovered and returned to the K2 Mission

Herschel captures galactic panorama of the Milky Way

Microscopic 'clocks' time distance to source of galactic cosmic rays

Hubble sees a star 'inflating' a giant bubble

Microscopic 'timers' reveal likely source of galactic space radiation

Nearby supernova ashes continue to rain on Earth

Numerical simulations shed new light on early universe

Buy Advertising

Media Advertising Kit

Editorial & Other Enquiries

Privacy statement

The content herein, unless otherwise known to be public domain, are Copyright 1995-2016 - Space Media Network. All websites are published in Australia and are solely subject to Australian law and governed by Fair Use principals for news reporting and research purposes. AFP, UPI and IANS news wire stories are copyright Agence France-Presse, United Press International and Indo-Asia News Service. ESA news reports are copyright European Space Agency. All NASA sourced material is public domain. Additional copyrights may apply in whole or part to other bona fide parties. Advertising does not imply endorsement, agreement or approval of any opinions, statements or information provided by Space Media Network on any Web page published or hosted by Space Media Network. Privacy Statement All images and articles appearing on Space Media Network have been edited or digitally altered in some way. Any requests to remove copyright material will be acted upon in a timely and appropriate manner. Any attempt to extort money from Space Media Network will be ignored and reported to Australian Law Enforcement Agencies as a potential case of financial fraud involving the use of a telephonic carriage device or postal service.