Antony's Space Exploration

Το αστεροσκοπείο στην κορυφή του κόσμου

2004-11-16T13:46:00.000+02:00

Χρειάζονται δέκα ώρες οδήγησης σε δύσβατο δρόμο των Ιμαλαΐων για να φτάσει κανείς στο Αστεροσκοπείο του Hanle, ένα τελευταίας τεχνολογίας ουράνιο παρατηρητήριο, που κόστισε 8 εκατομμύρια δολ. στην ινδική κυβέρνηση και φιλοδοξεί να γίνει διεθνές σημείο συνάντησης αστρονόμων και άλλων επιστημόνων.
Το Indian Astronomical Observatory, έχοντας συμπληρώσει μόλις λίγους μήνες λειτουργίας, έχει ήδη στο ενεργητικό του ένα ρεκόρ: είναι το υψηλότερα τοποθετημένο αστεροσκοπείο στον κόσμο, (4.517 μέτρα από την θαλάσσια επιφάνεια), με το τηλεσκόπιο του, το Chandra (προς τιμήν του Ινδού νομπελίστα αστροφυσικού Chandrashekhar) να στέκεται 200 μέτρα ψηλότερα από το τηλεσκόπιο του αστεροσκοπείου Meyer Womble, στα Βραχώδη Ορη, και πρώην κάτοχο του τίτλου...
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Dying star creates fantasy-like sculpture of gas and dust

2004-11-16T13:32:00.000+02:00

A new study of a large number of planetary nebulae has revealed that rings, such as those seen here around the Cat’s Eye Nebula, are much more common that thought so far and have been found in at leas... [more]

Stellar survivor from 1572 A.D. explosion supports supernova theory

2004-11-16T13:03:00.000+02:00

An international team of astronomers is announcing today that they have identified the probable surviving companion star to a titanic supernova explosion witnessed in the year 1572 by the great Danish... [more]

The Leonid Meteor Shower 2004: Modest Peak Expected Nov. 16-19

2004-11-16T11:46:00.000+02:00

This year's shower won't dazzle like some in the past, but it should provide a worthwhile number of meteors for people with dark skies.[more]

Search for Mars water goes underground

2004-11-15T15:50:00.000+02:00

The revelation in 2000 that gully features have been spotted on Mars sparked numerous ideas as to how the geological features were formed.

A study team is analyzing images of gullies captured by Mars Global Surveyor’s Mars Orbiter Camera, adding in laser altimeter and spectrometer data taken by the same spacecraft. They believe the gullies are the products of shallow and deep aquifers in Mars' subsurface.
Aquifers are defined as an underground geological formation or group of formations that contain water — a source of ground water for wells and springs.
If these pockets of water are indeed subsurface on Mars, they could act as a user-friendly habitat for Martian microbes. Furthermore, these underground niches could be tapped by future Mars expeditionary crews armed with drilling gear to reach the reservoirs of water.

Hubble Tracks Asteroid's Sky Trek

2004-11-15T14:41:00.000+02:00

Hubble Tracks Asteroid's Sky Trek

While analyzing NASA Hubble Space Telescope images of the Sagittarius dwarf irregular galaxy (SagDIG), an international team of astronomers led by Simone Marchi, Yazan Momany, and Luigi Bedin discovered 13 sucessive faint trails left by a tiny asteroid. The trails are seen as a series of reddish arcs on the right in this August 2003 Advanced Camera for Surveys image.
Credit: NASA, ESA, and Y. Momany (University of Padua)