24 August 2010
NASA recently published a wonderful image of a massive, relatively nearby galaxy, known as M87. The image is composed of data from NASA’s space-based Chandra X-ray Observatory (CXO) and a sophisticated ground-based radio observatory, the Very Large Array (VLA). M87 is a giant elliptical galaxy, located about 50 million light years away.
21 August 2010
NASA recently released a new image of a fascinating cosmic wonder, two beautiful galaxies in an on-going collision, known as the Antennae Galaxies. In wide-angle images, the Antennae Galaxies show long, antenna-like arms of stars, dust and gas, emanating from the galaxies, as a result of the gravitational interaction of the pair. This violent galactic encounter has also triggered an active process of star formation in both galaxies.
18 August 2010
NASA recently published an amazing image of Pandora, an icy potato-like Saturnian moon. The image was acquired by the Saturn-orbiting Cassini spacecraft, during its flyby of Pandora, on 3 June 2010. Cassini obtained the image at a distance of approximately 101,000 km from Pandora.
15 August 2010
NASA recently published a wonderful image of Enceladus, an icy, geologically-active moon of Saturn. The image was acquired by the Saturn-bound Cassini spacecraft, from orbit around the ringed giant planet.
12 August 2010
NASA recently published a wonderful image of Saturn, acquired by the Saturn-orbiting Cassini spacecraft. The image shows that the shadow of Saturn's rings, cast on the cloud tops of the giant planet, grew wider than in earlier images, taken in Summer 2009, due to Saturn’s orbital motion.
09 August 2010
NASA recently published a wonderful image of Saturn, acquired by the Saturn-orbiting Cassini spacecraft. Cassini was looking toward Saturn's southern hemisphere, from below the plane of the planet’s magnificent rings, which lie in Saturn’s equatorial plane. Two of the planet's icy intriguing moons have been recorded in the image. The two moons are, in order of size, Rhea (1,528 km across) and Tethys (1,062 km across).
06 August 2010
On 4 August 2010, an Ariane 5 rocket blasted into space, from Europe’s Spaceport in French Guiana, on a mission to place two telecommunications satellites, Nilesat-201 and Rascom-QAF1R, into geostationary orbits.
06 August 2010
A camera aboard NASA's Mars-orbiting Mars Odyssey spacecraft has allowed developing the most accurate global Martian map ever. The map can be accessed through several websites.
03 August 2010
Astronomers caught their first insights of a disk containing cosmic dust around a massive newly born star, yielding direct evidence that massive stars form in the same way as the low mass stars. Combined data, from the ground-based European Southern Observatory (ESO) and NASA's infrared space-based observatory, the Spitzer Space Telescope (SST), led to this intriguing discovery.
29 July 2010
Every year, due to Earth’s orbital motion, in early May and early August, the Sun is aligned to the Arc de Triomphe, the famous monument in Paris. In this wonderful phenomenon, the setting Sun shines between the columns of the arc.