Blog Archive

Gaia Prepares for Ultimate Galactic Census

Posted by Jason Davis on 2013/10/06 10:42 CDT

The European Space Agency's Gaia spacecraft is set to embark on a five-year, billion-star census next month.

Concept Network of Nanosats in Orbit Around Earth

Origami Nanosats: The Future of Space Telescopes?

Posted by Casey Dreier on 2013/10/01 05:04 CDT | 1 comments

We interview Dr. Franck Marchis from the SETI Institute about nanosats that can unfold in space to create sensitive telescopes that are orders of magnitudes cheaper than current hardware.

Astronomy Enters a New Era
Join us for a live webcast about thrilling new tools that will come online in the next decade.

Posted by Mat Kaplan on 2013/05/26 08:45 CDT | 3 comments

A live conversation about just a few of the powerful new instruments that will revolutionize our knowledge of the cosmos once again.

Fomalhaut b, an eccentric directly-imaged exoplanet

Report from AAS: Exoplanets (and exo-asteroids, and exo-comets) everywhere

Posted by Emily Lakdawalla on 2013/01/08 06:52 CST | 7 comments

This year's American Astronomical Society meeting featured tons and tons of news on exoplanets. They're everywhere! And not just planets, but also asteroids, comets, and more....

Successful launch for NuSTAR on a Pegasus XL

Posted by Emily Lakdawalla on 2012/06/13 11:50 CDT

NuSTAR, the most sensitive X-ray telescope ever developed, launched successfully at 16:00 UT. This was a fun launch to watch, because the launch vehicle was a Pegasus XL air-launched rocket, dropped like a bomb from open bay doors of an L-1011 airplane.

Infographic: Viewing our universe's colors

Posted by Emily Lakdawalla on 2012/02/14 03:08 CST

An infographic explains in what "colors" of electromagnetic radiation we been able to observe our universe, over the length of the space age.

NuSTAR telescope to get close look at black holes, supernovae

Posted by Jason Davis on 2012/02/07 02:40 CST

The NuSTAR X-ray telescope will enable scientists to get a much-improved look at black holes and supernovae in both the Milky Way and other galaxies.

PAMELA finds some antimatter

Posted by Jason Davis on 2011/08/19 11:58 CDT

A team of international scientists has discovered an antiproton belt around the Earth, using data obtained from PAMELA, a particle identification instrument aboard a Russian Earth observation satellite.

Hubble's Millionth Observation

Posted by Bill Nye on 2011/07/05 05:15 CDT

The Hubble Space Telescope has recorded its millionth observation. The planet is designated HAT-P-7b.

Congratulations to the WISE team on a beautiful "First Light" photo!

Posted by Emily Lakdawalla on 2010/01/06 12:51 CST

Congratulations are due to the Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer (WISE) team on their lovely "First Light" image, unveiled at the 215th American Astronomical Society meeting.

Cassini RADAR continues to gaze at Titan

Posted by Jani Radebaugh on 2009/07/27 07:08 CDT

The Cassini spacecraft made its 59th flyby of Titan, Saturn's largest moon, on Friday, July 24, and in the last few hours we have received images from the RADAR instrument in SAR (Synthetic Aperture Radar) mode.

Io and Europa from New Horizons (Emily Lakdawalla's version)

Aloha, Io

Posted by John Spencer on 2009/06/08 01:49 CDT

Taking a look at Jupiter's moon, Io, from Hawaii.

The Deep Impact Impact onto Tempel 1 as witnessed by Hubble

Views of Tempel 1

Posted by Emily Lakdawalla on 2005/07/04 10:47 CDT

It looks like the European Space Agency was busy overnight -- lots of great Earth- and space- based images of the impact have been appearing on various websites.