5 Sky Events of the Week: Stellar Peak-a-Boo and Leo Paws at the Moon
With a change of seasons only days away, mid-March skies offer celestial sights that even the novice stargazer will find easy to enjoy. Lunar rectangle. After nightfall on Monday, March 10, look for the waxing gibbous moon to form a corner of a rectangle with Jupiter and the Gemini twins, Castor and Pollux, high in the southern…
Comet Collisions Spotted Around Distant Star
Violent comet crashes are occurring around a star easily visible to sky-watchers, astronomers report. The star is one already known to harbor a burgeoning solar system. Astronomers using the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA) Telescope in northern Chile announced this week that they have found a giant clump of carbon monoxide gas in the dusty disk…
Asteroid Sails Between Earth and the Moon Tonight
A newly discovered asteroid will hurtle through the Earth-moon system on Wednesday night. Everyone around the world can watch the event unfold through large telescopes that will broadcast live online. Asteroid 2014 DX110, discovered only on February 28, 2014, thankfully poses no danger since it will be missing our planet by 218,000 miles (350,837 kilometers).…
4 Sky Events This Week: Seven Sisters and a Stellar Sandwich
A final glimpse of the seventh planet from the sun comes this week, and the moon takes sky-watchers on a celestial tour of some stunning star clusters. Last-chance green giant. After dusk on Monday, March 3, the razor-thin crescent moon acts as convenient guidepost to the fast-fading planet Uranus, which will hang just below the moon.…
Cosmic Peanut Points to Ancient Mystery
Our solar system is full of strange objects. One particular asteroid dubbed 624 Hektor, the largest known “Trojan” asteroid, takes the prize. SETI Institute astronomers now report that not only does the asteroid have a weird peanut shape and sport its very own moon, but it may also have been born of an ancient, unlikely collision between…
Spacewalk Mishap Tied to Clogged Helmet Filter
An International Space Station mishap that nearly killed an astronaut last year happened because of a clogged spacesuit filter, a NASA investigation board said on Wednesday. The report also pointed to mission controllers not adequately investigating earlier signs of the problem. On July 16, 2013, during a two-man spacewalk, Italy’s Luca Parmitano reported that water was…
Sun Unleashes Monster Blast—Biggest in a Year
A powerful solar blast uncorked late Monday was the biggest one in a year, report space-weather officials.
Brightest Lunar Impact Ever Recorded
This artwork depicts the blast formed from an impacting meteor on the lunar surface. Credit: NASA Anyone looking up at the right moment on September 11, 2013, may have caught sight of a brief flash of light on the moon. The flash was the biggest and brightest lunar impact ever observed by astronomers, a new Monthly…
4 Sky Events This Week: Venus at Dawn and Gemini’s Double Jewel Box
A crescent moon snuggles up to the innermost planets this week, while sky-watchers will also see mythical twins reveal two stellar wonders. Zodiacal lights. With the moon out of the early evening sky this week, ideal sky conditions prevail for hunting down the elusive zodiacal lights. This ethereal glow across the sky is caused by sunlight…
Ancient Cosmic Collision Marked Dwarf Galaxy
Astronomers report evidence of an ancient merger between two “satellite” galaxies, ones that circled our own galactic big brother, the Andromeda Galaxy. Even larger than our own Milky Way Galaxy, Andromeda is located some 2.5 million light-years away. According to the study released by the journal Nature, evidence of an ancient galactic collision there comes from…
Lopsided Supernova Blasts Uncovered
Some jumbo stars commit stellar suicide in surprisingly lumpy explosions, according to a new study in Nature. Scientists led by Caltech’s Brian Grefenstette looked at Cassiopeia A, a supernova that first appeared in nighttime skies around the year 1670. The supernova’s wispy remnants rest some 11,000 light-years away from Earth, stretched across some 59 trillion miles (95 trillion…
Photo: Scorpion’s Stinger Studded With Diamond Sash
In the high desert of Chile, a giant telescope’s eye has opened ours to the true beauty of a well-known star cluster. Best of all, the starry bauble strikes the observer’s eyes from near the tip of a mythical Scorpion’s stinger. One of the more popular deep-sky objects for backyard stargazers, Messier 7 is a brilliant…
Watch Potentially Hazardous Asteroid Whip Past Earth
A giant space rock three times the size of football field is about to sail past Earth. Its passage will be broadcast live around the world via the web. Near Earth Asteroid (NEO), 2000 EM26, measuring 885 feet (270 meters) across and traveling at a speed of 27,000 miles per hour will zip by our planet on Monday, February…
5 Sky Events This Week: Red Planet, Lord of the Rings, and Space Mountain
The bright moon moves into late-night skies this week, offering backyard observers some early-evening opportunities to hunt down celestial sights ranging from a fading supernova to a giant asteroid. Last-chance supernova. For Monday, February 17, and the rest of the week, the exploding star SN 2014J will be visible in darker skies in the early evening, thanks to the…
China’s Lunar Rover Comes Back to Life
Reports of the demise of China’s Jade Rabbit (Yutu in Chinese) lunar rover appear greatly exaggerated. The rover looks to have survived a long, cold night on the moon. According to state-run media Xinhau, Chinese mission engineers managed to restore communication with the moon buggy late this week, after much angst over a technical malfunction…