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

 

 

NASA is turning control of the Hubble Space Telescope over to the general public to give non-scientists a chance to choose which target the iconic observatory should turn its camera eyes on next.

The U.S. space agency is inviting the public to vote for one of six candidate astronomical objects for Hubble to observe in honor of the International Year of Astronomy, which began this month. The options, which Hubble has not previously photographed, range from far-flung galaxies to dying stars. Votes can be cast until March 1. [...]

 

Source: Space.com – click here for full article