Astronomy

NASA’s Glory satellite is the first mission dedicated to understanding the effects of particles in the atmosphere and the sun’s variability on our climate. It will allow scientists to measure airborne particles more accurately from space than ever before. The particles, known as “aerosols,” are tiny bits of material found in Earth’s atmosphere, like dust [...]

The sun will be reaching point of autumnal equinox (fall equinox) on September 22, 2008, at 03:43 pm UTC. At this event, Sun appears to cross the celestial equator, from north to south; this marks the beginning of autumn in the Northern Hemisphere. Autumnal equinox is also correspondences to occurrence of harvest moon — a [...]

Once considered rare and exotic objects, black holes are now known to exist throughout the universe, with the largest and most massive found at the centers of the largest galaxies. These “ultra-massive” black holes have been shown to have masses upwards of one billion times that of our own Sun. Now, Priyamvada Natarajan, an associate [...]

This image shows asteroid Steins seen from a distance of 800 kilometers, taken by the ESA’s Rosetta OSIRIS (Optical, Spectroscopic, and Infrared Remote Imaging System) and VIRTIS (Visual and Infrared Thermal Imaging Spectrometer) imaging system from two different perspectives. Located at the asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter’s orbit, the asteroid’s shape is resembles a diamond [...]

Names of asteroids were originally taken from God’s and Godesses, but these ran out long ago. Now, there are asteroids called Lennon, McCartney, Edna, Bertha, Geranium, Petunia, Chicago, Granule, Gogol, Laputa, Mark Twain, Karl Marx, NORC, Libya, Atlantis, Utopia, Transyvania, Paradise, Rumpelstilz, Evita, Fanatica, Fanny, Piccolo, Requiem, Lucifer, Tolkein, Echo, Dali, Retsina, Zulu, Limpopo, Bach, [...]