‘Latest News’ Archives
Norad 50 years of Tracking Santa – Happy Christmas from Nightsky.ie
Firstly, if you don't have kids, this post may not be for you.... But for those who have a vested interest in ensuring everyone is tucked up in bed in time for Santa, then hopefully you know about the Offical NORAD Santa tracking site. http://www.noradsanta.org . Each year Santa is tracked across the globe deliverying presents as he goes. As [...]
Orions Belt in gorgeous detail
Explanation: Alnitak, Alnilam, and Mintaka, are the bright bluish stars from east to west (left to right) along the diagonal in this gorgeous cosmic vista. Otherwise known as the Belt of Orion, these three blue supergiant stars are hotter and much more massive than the Sun. They lie about 1,500 light-years away, born of Orion's well-studied [...]
Light and Dark – Saturn reveals its unique beauty!
I just love this high contrast image from Cassini. It seems that every second image released from cassini is just so stunning. This shows a stunning contrast between dark and light of Saturn, its rings and its moons Dione and Enceladus. Details on the image from Nasa regarding this image "Saturn's northern and southern latitudes appear dark [...]
Titan casts a large shadow…
Titan (5150 kilometers, 3200 miles across) is Saturn's largest moon but is not pictured here. What you can see is its elongated shadow below Saturn's rings in this newly released image from Cassini. This view looks toward the northern, sunlit side of the rings from just above the ringplane. The view was obtained at a distance of approximately [...]
Lakes on Titan- Cassini catches a glint!
This is a sunlight reflection (a specular reflection) from Saturn's Moon Titan. It was detected by the visual and infrared mapping spectrometer (VIMS) on NASA's Cassini spacecraft on July 8, 2009. It confirmed the presence of liquid in the moon's northern hemisphere. That's pretty rare! Titan is likely the only other moon/planet with a liquid on [...]
The Known Universe
Its crazy just how small a space we actually occupy in the known universe. This video is another attempt to show us just how big the universe is. It uses the usually technique of speed up by orders of magnitude as it moves away from the Earth. Somehow that doesn't quite give me a real sense of scope. It was well made and I liked the bit where it [...]
Geminids 2009
It was cloudy here in Dublin, Ireland, so despite a few reports of the odd meteor it was relative quiet from my perspective. However here are a couple of images in case you missed out on all the fun. The first is taken from 2007 while the second one if from this year and appears in the Astronomy Picture of the Day (a great [...]
A closer look at our own Moon
Its been a busy run up to Christmas, so this post is a little behind my intended schedule. I posted an image of the "Dark" side of the moon on Facebook recently and mentioned that until the last 50 years we had no idea what it actually looked like. I've continued to research the Moon and thought I'd share some of my observations. The purposed [...]
ESO unveils images from VISTA – a superb new Telescope
VISTA (the Visible and Infrared Survey Telescope for Astronomy) — has just started work at ESO’s Paranal Observatory and has made its first release of pictures. VISTA is a survey telescope working at infrared wavelengths and is the world’s largest telescope dedicated to mapping the sky. Its large mirror, wide field of view and very sensitive [...]
First Ever Hi-Res image of Deimos and Phobos released
The European Space Agency's Mars Express orbiter snapped a series of images of the two diminutive moons on Nov. 5 and released the pictures today. This is the first hi-res image of the martian moons Phobos and Deimos caught on camera together. These unique images will help the HRSC team validate and refine existing orbit models of the two moons. [...]
Hubble takes first images of a HOT star in the Bug Nebula
The Bug Nebula, NGC 6302, is one of the brightest and most extreme planetary nebulae known. At its centre lies a superhot, dying star smothered in a blanket of hailstones. Most planetary nebulae are distinctive, but few are as extreme as this one. The dying star at its centre is shrouded by a blanket of icy hailstones and until now was never [...]
Weird Spiral Light in Norwegian Sky?
The world is an odd place sometimes, and while you might be used to hearing about unusual and bizzare things, there is a plausability to many of them. Even the fake stuff! But now and then along comes something that just looks like a hoax. Well that was my first impression of this image. However there have been multiple images taken from across [...]