Blog Archive

Artist's depiction of Eris and its moon, Dysnomia

Salacia: As big as Ceres, but much farther away

Posted by Emily Lakdawalla on 2012/06/26 12:27 CDT | 10 comments

A newly published paper shows trans-Neptunian object Salacia to be unexpectedly large; it's somewhere around the tenth largest known thing beyond Neptune. It has a companion one-third its size, making it appear similar to Orcus and Vanth.

A composite photo of the 2004 Transit of Venus by Fred Espenak.

More Venus transits in 2012

Posted by Jay Pasachoff on 2012/06/07 04:44 CDT | 3 comments

A transit of Venus as seen from Jupiter may be observed by Hubble on September 20 and a transit of Venus as seen from Saturn will be observed by Cassini on December 21.

NRO gives NASA two hand-me-down telescopes

Posted by Jason Davis on 2012/06/07 08:28 CDT | 4 comments

The National Reconnaissance Office has donated two, partially-completed space telescopes to NASA, revealed at a National Academies' Committee on Astronomy and Astrophysics meeting this week.

During the second close passage, the cores of the Milky Way and Andromeda appear as a pair of bright lobes. Star-forming nebulae are much less prominent because the interstellar gas and dust has been significantly decreased by previous bursts of star formation.

Artist's views of a night sky transformed by a galaxy merger

Posted by Emily Lakdawalla on 2012/06/04 12:25 CDT | 2 comments

A measurement of the Andromeda galaxy's proper motion shows it's coming directly at us, and will collide with the Milky Way in 4 billion years. The event will transform the appearance of our night sky.

Hey amateurs! ESA's running an image processing contest: "Hubble's Hidden Treasures!"

Posted by Emily Lakdawalla on 2012/03/27 04:26 CDT

Here's a newly announced contest that is right up my alley and, I hope, of interest to regular readers of this blog. ESA has just announced "Hubble's Hidden Treasures," a contest to encourage what I've been trying to get people to do for years: trawl through the Hubble archives to find unappreciated tresures of photos and make them pretty for public consumption. They have two categories, one for newbies (who can use image processing tools provided on ESA's website) and one for more serious amateurs (who can use other software).

Looking down on a shooting star

Posted by Emily Lakdawalla on 2011/08/15 06:19 CDT

Looking down on a shooting star