07 February 2011
On 6 February 2011, NASA's twin STEREO spacecrafts, currently orbiting the Sun, moved into planned position, on opposite sides of the Sun. This is an orbital configuration that enables the two spacecrafts to acquire 3-D views of the Sun, and the spacecrafts are now relaying numerous images of the entire mother star.
24 January 2011
NASA's Stardust-NExT spacecraft is heading to a close encounter with Comet Tempel 1, on 14 February 2011. The mission will provide scientists for the first time views of changes on a comet's surface that occurred following an orbit around the Sun.
20 January 2011
On 11 January 2011, NASA's Saturn-orbiting Cassini spacecraft flew by Rhea, Saturn's second largest moon, relaying interesting images of Rhea's icy surface. Cassini has been orbiting Saturn, since July 2004.
16 January 2011
NASA's Kepler spacecraft confirmed its first discovery of a rocky planet, in orbit around a distant Sun-like star, termed Kepler-10. Planets outside the Solar System are known as exoplanets, or extrasolar planets. The new planet is termed Kepler-10b. It is the smallest exoplanet ever discovered, measuring 1.4 times the size of Earth (12,756 km across). The Kepler-10 system is located approximately 560 light years away.
12 January 2011
NASA recently published a beautiful image of two Saturnian moons, acquired by the Saturn-orbiting Cassini spacecraft. The image shows Titan, Saturn’s largest moon, beyond its smaller companion Tethys.
08 January 2011
Maffei 2 is a remarkable example of a galaxy that shines brightly in infrared, but is almost invisible in visual light. Intervening clouds of cosmic dust in our Galaxy, the Milky Way, block about 99.5% of the light emitted by Maffei 2. However, an infrared image from NASA’s Spitzer Space Telescope (SST) reveals the beautiful galaxy clearly, as infrared radiation can penetrate cosmic dust.
05 January 2011
On the morning of Tuesday, 4 January 2011, a partial solar eclipse was visible in the skies of Egypt. Solar eclipses are among the most magnificent natural phenomena. They occur when the Moon passes between Earth and the Sun. In Alexandria, where the eclipse began at 9:03 a.m., the Moon covered approximately 55% of the Sun’s apparent diameter, at maximum eclipse. The eclipse lasted 3 hours, and was also observable in most of Europe, North Africa, and central Asia.
01 January 2011
On 16 December 2010, NASA's Mars Exploration Rover Opportunity, operating on the surface of Mars, as a six-wheeled robotic geologist, reached a 90-meter-wide crater. A mosaic of images obtained by Opportunity's navigation camera, on 16 December, shows the crater's sharp rim and rocks ejected from the impact that had created the crater.
23 December 2010
NASA's Saturn-orbiting Cassini spacecraft has relayed wonderful images of two of Saturn’s bizarre icy moons. On 21 December 2010, at 1:08 GMT, Cassini approached Enceladus, Saturn’s small, geologically-active moon to within only about 48 km, and passed approximately 100,000 km from Dione, a larger Saturnian moon, whose surface features intriguing terrains, about eight hours earlier.
16 December 2010
An international team of astronomers, led by Arab country Qatar, has discovered a new planet, orbiting a distant star. Planets orbiting other stars are termed extrasolar planets or exoplanets. The newly found exoplanet is now known as Qatar-1b. The growing number of detected exoplanets has become 510. The team of researchers consists of Qatar astronomers, headed by Dr. Khaled Al Subai, collaborating with scientists at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics (CfA) and other institutions.