Stellary Starry Universe

 

ESA’s Mars Express finds concentration of rust in Aram Chaos crater. The European Space Agency’s Mars Express Orbiter has spied evidence of a large concentration of rust, revealed by erosion, on the planet’s surface.

The finding, detailed in a recent issue of the Journal of Geophysical Research, is yet another clue that will help scientists piece together the picture of Mars’ past climate.

The bright red dust covering most of the planet is known to be enriched in ferric oxides, more commonly known on Earth as rust.

Source: Space.com – click here for full article

 

 

Thousands of new exoplanets may need a new naming system. With so many potential new exoplanets that will likely be discovered maybe it is time to revamp the system of naming planets so it is less confusing.

Source: Space.com – click here for full article

 

 

Space shuttle Discovery launched Sunday, March 15th, on a construction mission to the International Space Station. Perfect timing for sky watchers! The mission coincides with a series of ISS flybys over North American towns and cities. People who go outside after sunset can see the shuttle-station combo with their naked eyes and view the changing outlines of the ISS through backyard telescopes.

Astronauts are about to add a pair of 115-foot-long solar wings to the International Space Station. The station’s solar arrays are the largest deployable space assemblies ever built and the most powerful electricity producing arrays in orbit. Each wing weighs 2,400 pounds, uses 32,800 individual solar cells, and adds about 4000 sq. feet of light-collecting surface area to the ISS. When the work is done, the space station will have enough usable electricity to light up 42 houses.

Amateur astronomers can see it happen with their own eyes.

Source: Nasa Science – click here for full article

 

 

Telescopes reveal 3-D views of more than one hundred remote galaxies.

The Hubble Space Telescope can scope out the structure of faraway galaxies, while the European Southern Observatory’s VLT can use a spectrograph to reveal the motions of galactic gases. The combined 3-D view of ancient galaxies halfway across the known universe allows astronomers to trace mass and orbits relatively accurately.

“This unique combination of Hubble and the VLT allows us to model distant galaxies almost as nicely as we can close ones,” said Francois Hammer, an astronomer with the Paris Observatory in Meudon, France. [...]

Source: Space.com – click here for full article

 

 

Pluto’s status nowadays as a so-called plutoid and former planet may be official in the latest textbooks, but someone forgot to tell the astronomers.

Public interest in poor Pluto has peaked ever since the International Astronomical Union demoted Pluto from planet status in 2006. And it became clear at the museum event that fierce disagreement still exists among top scientists at the leading edge of the debate.

The idea of what counts as a planet becomes even less certain beyond Earth’s solar system, where space telescopes have uncovered more than 300 exoplanets orbiting stars other than the sun.

“No one is writing a law or rule that you have to call them this or that,” said Sara Seager, an astrophysicist at MIT. [...]

Source: Space.com – click here for full article