A new instrument that combines two high-resolution telescope techniques – adaptive optics and interferometry – has for the first time resolved in visible light the individual stars in the binary star system Capella, 43 light years from Earth. Astronomers using the instrument say it holds great promise for eventually picking out and imaging planets around […]
The Chinese lunar probe Chang’e-3 has successfully touched down on the Moon in the Sinus Iridum crater (also known as the Bay of Rainbows) and its rover Yutu (Jade Rabbit) has sent back its first pictures of the surface of the Moon. The lunar probe began its soft-landing maneuvers at 9pm Saturday (Beijing time) and […]
The Hubble Space Telescope has discovered water vapor erupting from the south pole of Jupiter’s moon Europa. Astronomers have long suspected that Europa harbors a liquid ocean beneath its icy crust, and the new images are the first observational evidence of the existence of water on the moon. But whether the water is coming from […]
A manned mission to Mars doesn’t just depend on overcoming technological hurdles. With no magnetic field and only a thin atmosphere, the surface of Mars is exposed to much greater amounts of radiation than the surface of the Earth. Quantifying the health risks to astronauts from this radiation has been difficult, but thanks to the […]
A team of scientists who have been modeling the subsurface ocean on Jupiter’s moon Europa say that the ocean’s deep currents and circulation patterns likely create heat and energy transfers capable of sustaining biological life. The researchers behind the exciting new finding, from the University of Texas at Austin, the Georgia Institute of Technology, and […]
Peering into the atmospheres of planets many trillions of miles away using the Hubble Space Telescope, scientists have found the signature of water on five exoplanets. Although the presence of atmospheric water has been hinted at from previous observations of exoplanets, this is the first study to conclusively measure and compare the intensities of these […]
After several days of continued observations, NASA scientists still don’t know whether the bright spot seen moving away from the Sun was a cloud of dust or the remnant nucleus of Comet ISON, but they conclude that whatever it was has likely now disintegrated completely. Comet ISON, which began its journey from the Oort Cloud […]
\ When ISON failed to reappear after its close encounter with the Sun on Thanksgiving, NASA scientists thought it had disintegrated completely. Passing less than a million miles above the surface of the Sun would have exposed the comet to temperatures over 2,000 Celsius. However, a bright streak observed by the Solar and Heliospheric Observatory […]
Comet ISON, which was due to emerge from behind the Sun today, has failed to appear, indicating that the comet has broken up and evaporated during its close encounter with the Sun. Several solar observatories watched the comet throughout this closest approach to the sun, known as perihelion. While the fate of the comet is […]
As the comet ISON heads toward its closest approach to the Sun tomorrow (Nov. 28), scientists have been trying to work out if the comet might already have broken up from the intense heat and gravitational forces of the Sun. The latest image, taken by the ESA/NASA Solar Observatory, shows the comet entering from the […]
