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New comet C/2012 S1 (ISON) could be spectacular sight in fall 2013
Comet C/2012 S1 ISON was discovered on Sept. 21 in pictures taken with 15.7-inch reflecting telescope of the International Scientific Optical Network (ISON) in Russia. This photo was taken on Sept. 22. Credit: Ernesto Guido, Giovanni Sostero and Nick Howes
A new comet was discovered inching across Cancer the Crab in the morning sky may knock your socks off next fall. Based on a preliminary orbit, it could become a very bright object beginning in November 2013 for both northern and southern hemisphere sky watchers. C/2012 S1 (ISON), its formal name, was found by Russian amateurs Vitali Nevski and Artyom Novichonok of the International Scientific Optical Network (ISON), a network of observers who track man-made space debris.
Read more:
http://www.minorplanetcenter.net/mpec/K12/K12S63.html
Video of Jupiter Impact from Sept. 10, 2012
NASA Mars Rover Opportunity Reveals Geological Mystery: Spherical Objects Unlike Previously Found ‘Blueberries’
ScienceDaily (Sep. 14, 2012) — NASA’s long-lived rover Opportunity has returned an image of the Martian surface that is puzzling researchers.
Spherical objects concentrated at an outcrop Opportunity reached last week differ in several ways from iron-rich spherules nicknamed “blueberries” the rover found at its landing site in early 2004 and at many other locations to date.
Opportunity is investigating an outcrop called Kirkwood in the Cape York segment of the western rim of Endeavour Crater. The spheres measure as much as one-eighth of an inch (3 millimeters) in diameter. The analysis is still preliminary, but it indicates that these spheres do not have the high iron content of Martian blueberries.
“This is one of the most extraordinary pictures from the whole mission,” said Opportunity’s principal investigator, Steve Squyres of Cornell University in Ithaca, N.Y. “Kirkwood is chock full of a dense accumulation of these small spherical objects. Of course, we immediately thought of the blueberries, but this is something different. We never have seen such a dense accumulation of spherules in a rock outcrop on Mars.”
Read more: http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2012/09/120914154003.htm
Jupiter Impact of Sept. 10, 2012
Explosion on Jupiter by George Hall: Close-UpCredit: George Hall/George's Astrophotography
This image shows a close-up of the bright impact flash of an asteroid or comet slamming into Jupiter on Sept. 10, 2012. The image is a still from a video recorded by amateur astronomer George Hall of Dallas, Texas.
Location of Jupiter Impact of Sept. 12, 2012Credit: Pete Lawrence/DigitalSky.org.uk.
This graphic of Jupiter by UK astronomer Pete Lawrence shows the location of the Jupiter impact region from Sept. 12, 2012, as seen through an inverting astronomical telescope. The impact site is located at longitude system II 335, latitude +12..
Read more: http://www.space.com/17543-jupiter-impact-explosion-pictures-amateur-astronomers.html
Magnificent CME Erupts on the Sun with Earth to Scale
On August 31, 2012 a long filament of solar material that had been hovering in the sun’s atmosphere, the corona, erupted out into space at 4:36 p.m. EDT. The coronal mass ejection, or CME, traveled at over 900 miles per second. The CME did not travel directly toward Earth, but did connect with Earth’s magnetic environment, or magnetosphere, causing aurora to appear on the night of Monday, September 3.
The image above includes an image of Earth to show the size of the CME compared to the size of Earth.
Credit: NASA/GSFC/SDO
Stunning Mars Photo Shows Curiosity Rover’s Tracks from Space
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| Tracks from the first drives of NASA’s Mars rover Curiosity are visible in this image captured by the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter. The rover is seen where the tracks end. The image’s color has been enhanced to show the surface details better. Image released Sept. 6, 2012. CREDIT: NASA/JPL-Caltech/Univ. of Arizona NASA’s newest Mars rover Curiosity is taking its first tentative drives across the Martian surface and leaving tracks that have been spotted all the way from space in a spectacular photo snapped by an orbiting spacecraft. The newview of Curiosity’s tracks from space was captured by NASA’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter and released today (Sept. 6). It shows the rover as a bright, boxy vehicle at the end of two tracks that create a single zig-zag pattern in the Martian surface. Read more: http://www.space.com/17485-amazing-mars-photos-curiosity-rover-space.html |
Saturn and Its Largest Moon Reflect Their True Colors
ScienceDaily (Aug. 29, 2012) — Posing for portraits for NASA’s Cassini spacecraft, Saturn and its largest moon, Titan, show spectacular colors in a quartet of images being released today. One image captures the changing hues of Saturn’s northern and southern hemispheres as they pass from one season to the next.
A wide-angle view in today’s package captures Titan passing in front of Saturn, as well as the planet’s changing colors. Upon Cassini’s arrival at Saturn eight years ago, Saturn’s northern winter hemisphere was an azure blue. Now that winter is encroaching on the planet’s southern hemisphere and summer on the north, the color scheme is reversing: blue is tinting the southern atmosphere and is fading from the north.
The other three images depict the newly discovered south polar vortex in the atmosphere of Titan, reported recently by Cassini scientists. Cassini’s visible-light cameras have seen a concentration of yellowish haze in the detached haze layer at the south pole of Titan since at least March 27. Cassini’s visual and infrared mapping spectrometer spotted the massing of clouds around the south pole as early as May 22 in infrared wavelengths. After a June 27 flyby of the moon, Cassini released a dramatic image and movie showing the vortex rotating faster than the moon’s rotation period. The four images being released today were acquired in May, June and July of 2012.
Read more: http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2012/08/120829191639.htm
NASA’s Kepler Discovers Multiple Planets Orbiting a Pair of Stars
ScienceDaily (Aug. 28, 2012) — Coming less than a year after the announcement of the first circumbinary planet, Kepler-16b, NASA’s Kepler mission has discovered multiple transiting planets orbiting two suns for the first time. This system, known as a circumbinary planetary system, is 4,900 light-years from Earth in the constellation Cygnus.
This discovery proves that more than one planet can form and persist in the stressful realm of a binary star and demonstrates the diversity of planetary systems in our galaxy.
Astronomers detected two planets in the Kepler-47 system, a pair of orbiting stars that eclipse each other every 7.5 days from our vantage point on Earth. One star is similar to the sun in size, but only 84 percent as bright. The second star is diminutive, measuring only one-third the size of the sun and less than 1 percent as bright.
Read more: http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2012/08/120828190127.htm
NASA Rover Returns Voice, Telephoto Views From Mars
August 28, 2012
A chapter of the layered geological history of Mars is laid bare in this postcard from NASA’s Curiosity rover. The image shows the base of Mount Sharp, the rover’s eventual science destination. Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS
PASADENA, Calif. — NASA’s Mars Curiosity has debuted the first recorded human voice that traveled from Earth to another planet and back.
In spoken words radioed to the rover on Mars and back to NASA’s Deep Space Network (DSN) on Earth, NASA Administrator Charles Bolden noted the difficulty of landing a rover on Mars, congratulated NASA employees and the agency’s commercial and government partners on the successful landing of Curiosity earlier this month, and said curiosity is what drives humans to explore.
“The knowledge we hope to gain from our observation and analysis of Gale Crater will tell us much about the possibility of life on Mars as well as the past and future possibilities for our own planet. Curiosity will bring benefits to Earth and inspire a new generation of scientists and explorers, as it prepares the way for a human mission in the not too distant future,” Bolden said in the recorded message.
The voice playback was released along with new telephoto camera views of the varied Martian landscape during a news conference today at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif.
Read more: http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/msl/news/msl20120827.html
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