Sunday, July 31, 2016

Students Discover a Galactic Eye of Horus

Eye of Horus in pseudo color. Enlarged image to the right. The yellow object at the center is a galaxy about 7 billion light-years away and bends the light from two background galaxies.
NAOJ
Undergraduate students in Japan stumbled on a rare lensing of two distinct background galaxies.

See article at SkyAndTelescope

Saturday, July 16, 2016

Farthest Known Object Orbiting the Sun

Observers calculate that Kuiper Belt object 2015 RR245 has an elliptical path that takes 733 years to go around the Sun and carries it from near Neptune's orbit out to 129 astronomical units.
Alex Parker / OSSOS team


First spied last year, an object designated 2015 RR245 turns out to be one of the largest and most distant objects yet found orbiting the Sun.

Complete story at Astronomy

Friday, July 8, 2016

NASA’s Juno Probe Successfully Reaches Jupiter

An artist's conception of Juno performing a 35-minute-long engine firing to enter orbit around Jupiter.
NASA / JPL
NASA's Jupiter probe, Juno, has completed a critical braking maneuver and has entered orbit around the gas giant.  Juno carried out a scheduled 35-minute-long burn that slowed its velocity by 542 meters per second (1,212 mph), enough to become a captured satellite of Jupiter with an initial 53.5-day orbital period. Arriving at 58 km per second (129,742 mph) with respect to the planet, Juno also performed the fastest orbital insertion to date.

Full details can be found at Astronomy.com

Monday, July 4, 2016

Join us at the Soldiers Delight Star Party - November 16, 2024

Soldiers Delight Star Party - November 16, 2024 "Exploring the Wonders of Our Solar System: A Journey Across Planetary Realms." To...