Universe Updates

[Nacky]

NASA's 100-Year Starship Project Sets Sights on Interstellar Travel...

Shooting for the stars will first require a lot of down-to-Earth elbow grease, as NASA's new 100-Year Starship project illustrates. The effort, to journey between stars in the 2100s, began with a workshop and now is in the study phase.

www.space.com/11200-nasa-100-year-starship-interstellar-travel.html

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Tarantula Nebula's Cosmic Web a Thing of Beauty

What looks like a cosmic wonderland to some resembles a spindly space spider to others. The Hubble Space Telescope has just captured a new close-up picture of the famous object, known as the Tarantula Nebula.

www.space.com/11180-hubble-telescope-photos-tarantula-nebula.html

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Cosmic Rose Blooms in Star Cluster Photo

A bright star cluster surrounded by iridescent red gas looks like a blooming cosmic rose in a new photo from the European Southern Observatory's Very Large Telescope.

www.space.com/11251-photo-red-rose-star-cluster.html

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NASA Spacecraft Snaps 1st Photo of Mercury from Orbit

The first spacecraft ever to circle Mercury has beamed home the first-ever photo taken of the small rocky planet from orbit, showing a stark landscape peppered with craters.

www.space.com/11254-nasa-photos-mercury-orbit-messenger-spacecraft.html

[Nacky]

Spiral Galaxy Glows Like a Cosmic Spider Web

A spiral galaxy's starlight and delicate pattern of dust evoke a bright, swirling spider web in space in a newly released image from NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope.

www.space.com/12408-galaxy-dust-stars-spider-web-spitzer-telescope-photo.html


Hint of Higgs Boson? 'God Particle' Buzz Rises

A few anomalous blips of data are giving scientists hope that the elusive Higgs boson, or "God" particle, might soon be found, though it's too early to say whether a discovery is imminent.

www.space.com/12426-hint-higgs-boson-god-particle-buzz-rises.html

[Nacky]

First Asteroid Companion of Earth Discovered at Last

The first in a long-sought type of asteroid companion to Earth has now been discovered, a space rock that always dances in front of the planet along its orbital path, just beyond its reach.

www.space.com/12443-earth-asteroid-companion-discovered-2010-tk7.html


How to Spot Giant Asteroid Vesta in Night Sky This Week

With all the publicity on NASA's final space shuttle flight a few weeks ago, some people may have missed another cosmic milestone: On July 16, NASA's Dawn spacecraft entered orbit around the asteroid Vesta to spend the next year orbiting the space rock before heading off to an encounter with the dwarf planet Ceres.

www.space.com/12537-asteroid-vesta-skywatching-tips.html/


How to Keep Lonely Exoplanets Snug: Just Add Dark Matter

Dark matter is perhaps not the first thing that comes to mind when considering how life can be supported on another planet, but to Dan Hooper and Jason Steffen of the Fermilab Center for Particle Astrophysics, dark matter could be a contributing factor in allowing life to evolve and survive on distant worlds outside of our solar system.

www.space.com/12446-alien-planet-life-dark-matter-particles.html


How Astronomers May Hunt for Life on Alien Planets

Any sulfurous molecules that astronomers spot on alien worlds might be a way to reveal whether or not those distant planets host life, researchers suggest.

www.space.com/12449-alien-planets-life-signs-sulfurous-molecules.html

[Nacky]

Moon, Saturn & Star Form Last Evening Sky Triangle for Now

The ringed planet Saturn will soon say goodbye to the evening sky for awhile, but only after taking one final bow this week with two companions: the moon and the bright star Spica.

www.space.com/12523-moon-saturn-star-triangle-night-sky.html/


Of course I'm posting this AFTER August 3rd, which means I'm a few days late on getting this here, and I've seen Saturn, Luna and Spica in the night sky, so I at least didn't miss it and hope everyone saw it too! But I'd like to save the article here for historical purposes.

[Nacky]

Target: Jupiter - Missions to the Solar System's Largest Planet

NASA is launching its most advanced probe yet to study the planet Jupiter on Friday (Aug. 5). But the new mission, called Juno, is standing on the shoulders of giants, its managers said - specifically the eight robotic spacecraft that visited the gas giant planet previously.

www.space.com/12550-jupiter-missions-nasa-history-solar-system-largest-planet.html/


NASA Launches Spacecraft on Journey to Jupiter

NASA's Juno spacecraft blasted off Friday (Aug. 5), kicking off a five-year journey to faraway Jupiter, the largest planet in the solar system.

www.space.com/12553-nasa-juno-spacecraft-jupiter-rocket-launch.html/

[Nacky]

'Fluffy' Spiral Galaxy Shines in New Photo

The long, coiled arms of a spiral galaxy can be seen in rich detail in a new photo from the European Southern Observatory.

www.space.com/12589-fluffy-spiral-galaxy-ngc3521-leo-constellation.html


Moonless Earth Could Potentially Still Support Life, Study Finds

Scientists have long believed that, without our moon, the tilt of the Earth would shift greatly over time, from zero degrees, where the Sun remains over the equator, to 85 degrees, where the Sun shines almost directly above one of the poles.

www.space.com/12574-moonless-earth-life-habitable-alien-planets.html

[Nacky]

Colliding Galaxies Form Exclamation Point in Space

Two NASA space shuttles, each on the road to retirement, posed nose-to-nose Thursday (Aug. 11) while switching places at the space agency's Florida spaceport.

www.space.com/12625-colliding-galaxies-exclamation-point-photo.html


When Galaxies Collide: A Q&A on Our Milky Way's Future

After about 5 billion years, the Milky Way will be no more. Our galaxy is set to collide with our neighbor Andromeda to create the so-called Milkomeda galaxy.

www.space.com/12642-milky-andromeda-galaxy-collision-interview.html


Cosmic Crashes May Give Habitable Planets the Boot

Long-ago collisions between clouds of gas and dust could explain why many alien solar systems have planets with strange, highly tilted orbits - and why habitable worlds may be rare in the universe, a new study suggests.

www.space.com/12687-interstellar-crashes-habitable-alien-planets.html

[Nacky]

'Jaw-Dropping!' Crab Nebula's Powerful Beams Shock Astronomers

When astronomers detected intense radiation pumping out of the Crab Nebula, one of the most studied objects in space, at higher energies than anyone thought possible, they were nothing short of stunned.

www.space.com/13204-crab-nebula-high-energy-pulsar-beam.html


Triple Asteroid Crash Created Sudan Meteorites

Meteorites that fell over Sudan in 2008 could have come from a space rock that was formed by a triple-asteroid pileup - a collision between three different types of space rocks, a new study finds.

www.space.com/13215-triple-asteroid-collision-sudan-meteorites.html


'Pacman' Nebula Grows Teeth to Chomp on Space

A new infrared image of the Pacman nebula shows a sharp-looking set of teeth.

www.space.com/13429-pacman-nebula-stars-teeth-infrared-image.html

[Nacky]

Monster Black Holes Are Most Massive Ever Discovered

Two newly discovered black holes tip the scales at more than 9 billion times the mass of our sun.

www.space.com/13819-black-holes-largest-massive.html


Alien Planet Warps Its Solar System

Even as the planet orbiting Beta Pictoris twists and kinks the debris disk around the star, the disk drags and distorts the orbit of the planet.

www.space.com/13873-alien-planet-crooked-bend-star-debris-disk.html


SETI's Search for Intelligent Alien Life Resumes

The SETI Institute's Allen Telescope Array is back up and running.

www.space.com/13832-seti-ata-search-kepler-planet-candidates.html

[Nacky]

Asteroid Crash May Explain Mercury's Strange Spin

New research suggests a giant asteroid may have knocked into Mercury and changed its spin.

www.space.com/13889-mercury-spin-asteroid-collision-tidal-locking.html


Alien Planets With No Spin May Be Too Harsh for Life

Planets locked into keeping only one side facing their sun could be vulnerable to a process that could cause their climates to spiral out of control.

www.space.com/13950-habitable-alien-planets-tidal-lock-life.html

[Nacky]

Do Newfound Alien Planets Need Better Names?

Names like MOA-2007-BLG-192-L b don't exactly roll off the tongue.

www.space.com/14009-alien-planets-names-system.html


And I meant to get this posted on December 21, 2011 but just didn't get to it in time...

Winter Solstice Brings Shortest Day of 2011 This Week

Ancient skywatchers were fearful of the sun's unfathomable track across the sky.

www.space.com/14010-winter-solstice-2011-shortest-day-explained.html

[Nacky]

Milky Way's Color Is White As a Morning's Snow

The Milky Way, it turns out, has exactly the right name.

www.space.com/14248-milkyway-galaxy-white-color.html

[Nacky]

This is about five days old but it's interesting...

Another Earthbound Solar Storm?

A massive sunspot released a M9-class solar flare (one step below the most powerful x-class flares) on January 23, 2012. The resulting coronal mass ejection may set off geomagnetic storms on Earth by January 24th or 25th.

www.space.com/14315-earthbound-solar-storm.html

[Nacky]

And here are the results of the Solar Storm...

Spectacular Northern Lights From Solar Storm Wow Skywatchers

The auroras amazed skywatchers in Sweden, Finland and elsewhere Tuesday night (Jan. 24).

www.space.com/14346-spectacular-northern-lights-solar-storm-wow-skywatchers.html

[Nacky]

Bus-Size Asteroid Buzzes Earth in Close Flyby

The asteroid 2012 BX34 came within 36,750 miles of Earth.

www.space.com/14382-bus-size-asteroid-2012bx34-buzzes-earth.html