Astronomy

A total solar eclipse will took place on August 01, 2008. The eclipse is visible from within a narrow corridor that traverses half the Earth. The path of the Moon’s umbral shadow begins in Canada and extends across northern Greenland, the Arctic, central Russia, Mongolia, and China where it will end at sunset. A partial […]

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Recent study, published in the July 17 issue of Nature, shows that vast regions of the ancient highlands of Mars, which cover about half the planet, contain clay minerals, which can form only in the presence of water. Volcanic lavas buried the clay-rich regions during subsequent, drier periods of the planet’s history, but impact craters […]

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Pluto and Eris now have a new counterpart. On July 11, 2008, the IAU/USGS Working Group on Planetary Nomenclature included Makemake (136472 Makemake) in the plutoid class, makes it officially both a dwarf planet and a plutoid, alongside the two previously known objects.
Discovered on March 31, 2005 by the team led by Michael Brown, the […]

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It is believed that the Moon was formed when a Mars-size body collided with Earth some 4.5 billion years ago. This “giant impact” melted both objects and sent molten debris into orbit around the Earth, some of which coalesced to form the Moon. Under this scenario, the heat from the giant impact would have vaporized […]

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The moon is only 1/4 the size of the earth, and its gravity is only 1/6 of that on earth. This made the U.S. astronauts, during their moon walks, 5/6 lighter than they were on earth. A person who weighed 90 kg on earth would weigh only 15 kg on the moon. Because of this […]

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Once thought to be unusual and rare, gravitational interactions between galaxies are now known to be quite common (especially in densely populated galaxy clusters) and are considered to play an important role in galaxy evolution. Here we can see two nearly identical spiral galaxies in Virgo, 90 million light-years distant, in the early stages of […]

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Today, June 30 2008, marks the 100th anniversary of the 1908 Tunguska event. In the early morning of 30 June, 1908, witnesses told of a gigantic explosion and blinding flash. Thousands of square kilometres of trees were burned and flattened. Fortunately, the gigantic blast is happened on unpopulated area in Tunguska, Siberia (now part […]

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On June 30th, NASA’s Cassini Spacecraft will reach the end of its four-year prime mission. The spacecraft is now begins its extended mission, which was approved in April of this year. On the next two-year mission, the spacecraft will address new questions and brings it closer to two of its most intriguing target: Titan and […]

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Aurora is caused when charged particles stream along the magnetic field of a planet and into its atmosphere. On Earth these charged particles come from the solar wind – a stream of particles that emanates from the Sun. Variations in the Sun control the frequency and intensity of these beautiful displays that can also herald […]

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Almost two years after introducing the category of dwarf planets, the International Astronomical Union (IAU) General Assembly now decided on a name for transneptunian dwarf planets similar to Pluto. The name “plutoid” was proposed by the members of the IAU Committee on Small Body Nomenclature (CSBN), accepted by the Board of Division III, by the […]

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