Category Archives: Astronomy

Object Name: C/2013 A1 Siding Spring

Million Year Orbit Comet Heading Towards the Sun

Comet Siding Spring is plunging toward the Sun along a roughly 1-million-year orbit. The comet, discovered in 2013, was within the radius of Jupiter’s orbit when the Hubble Space Telescope…

NGC 2174, Monkey Head Nebula,

Wow! Hubble is 24 and celebrates with stunning starbirth image

It is hard to believe, Hubble is 24 years old. Launched on April 24, 1990 astronomers have taken an infrared-light portrait of a roiling region of starbirth located 6,400 light-years…

Kepler Focal Plane

Kepler Science Module Fails but Mission can continue

Preparations continue for the first K2 campaign in the ecliptic plane … if it is approved, following the 2014 Astrophysics Senior Review of Operating Missions. The vaunted Kepler Spacecraft had…

Supernova Object Names: SN 2014J, M82, NGC 3034

Hubble Captures Image of Type Ia Supernova

(NASA) – This is a Hubble Space Telescope composite image of a supernova explosion designated SN 2014J in the galaxy M82. At a distance of approximately 11.5 million light-years from…

pulsar 14-053_0

Chandra Sees Runaway Pulsar Creating an Extraordinary Jet

NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory has seen a fast-moving pulsar escaping from a supernova remnant while spewing out a record-breaking jet – the longest of any object in the Milky Way…

one of the most distant galaxies i

Astronomers find one of the most distant galaxies known to date

NASA – An international team led by astronomers from the Instituto de Astrofisica de Canarias (IAC) and La Laguna University (ULL) has just released the first analysis of the observations…

Dwarf planet Ceres

Herschel Telescope Detects Water on Dwarf Planet

(NASA) Scientists using the Herschel space observatory have made the first definitive detection of water vapor on the largest and roundest object in the asteroid belt, Ceres. Plumes of water…

nearby spiral galaxy M83

Hubble Views Stellar Genesis in the Southern Pinwheel

A photogenic and favorite target for amateur astronomers, the full beauty of nearby spiral galaxy M83 is unveiled in all of its glory in this Hubble Space Telescope mosaic image….