Supernova Becomes 'Gold-Standard' Of Normalcy
Lee Rannals for redOrbit.com - Your Universe Online A group of astronomers has released a dataset based on 32 nights of repeated observations of supernova 2011fe, creating a "gold-standard" atlas for Type 1a supernovae. Astronomers were able...
Latest Space Stories
ESA Panel of Experts Creates New Resource for School Security Programs Irving, Texas (PRWEB) June 19, 2013 The Electronic Security Association (ESA) recently completed the ESA Electronic Security Guidelines for Schools, a resource for school officials that are considering adding electronic security systems to a new or existing school security program. The Guidelines are now available for free public download on http://www.ESAweb.org. The Guidelines provide an in-depth look at the various...
Brett Smith for redOrbit.com - Your Universe Online NASA’s NuSTAR orbiting observatory is designed to investigate high-energy events throughout the universe, and the cosmos has been keeping it busy in recent months, producing one event after another. In early April, the galaxy Markarian 421 produced a high-energy event that increased its brightness by more than 50 times its usual level. Markarian 421 is known as a blazer, a unique class of galaxies with supermassive "feeding" black...
News media representatives are invited to witness the first research flight on a suborbital rocket funded by NASA's Flight Opportunities Program when UP Aerospace Inc.'s SpaceLoft 7 vehicle lifts off June 21 at Spaceport America near Las Cruces, New Mexico. Liftoff is scheduled to occur between 7 and 10 a.m. MDT. NASA has funded the flight for seven space-technology experiments to be flown in a space-relevant environment aboard the UP Aerospace sounding rocket. The sub-orbital flight is...
April Flowers for redOrbit.com - Your Universe Online The European Space Agency (ESA) announced on Monday, June 17, that the Herschel Space Telescope had been shut down, marking the end of operations for the hugely successful space observatory. BBC News reports Herschel was the most powerful observatory of its kind ever put in space. In four years of operation, Herschel used its 3.5m mirror and three state-of-the-art instruments to gather pictures and other data at far-infrared...
PALO ALTO, Calif., June 17, 2013 /PRNewswire/ -- The Interface Region Imaging Spectrograph (IRIS) spacecraft is on track for a launch from Vandenberg Air Force Base in California on June 26. IRIS will fill a crucial gap in the ability of scientists to advance Sun-Earth connection studies by tracing the flow of energy and plasma through a dynamic interface region - the chromosphere and transition region - between the solar surface and the solar corona. "The entire IRIS team is...
ESA From the latest space ferry to the very first Alphasat, Europe has never been more active in space, with a crowded manifest of ESA launches across the rest of the year. But where are all these varied missions born? See for yourself this October, as ESA’s ESTEC research and technology centre opens its doors to the public. No sooner has Luca Parmitano joined the International Space Station than ESA’s latest space truck is resupplying the orbital outpost. Meanwhile, the...
WASHINGTON, June 14, 2013 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- Assembly of the backbone of NASA's James Webb Space Telescope, the primary mirror backplane support structure, is a step closer to completion with the recent addition of the backplane support frame, a fixture that will be used to connect all the pieces of the telescope together. (Logo: http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20081007/38461LOGO) The backplane support frame will bring together Webb's center section and wings, secondary...
REDONDO BEACH, Calif., June 14, 2013 /PRNewswire/ -- Northrop Grumman Corporation (NYSE: NOC) and teammate ATK (NYSE: ATK) have completed manufacturing of the backplane support frame (BSF) for NASA's James Webb Space Telescope. Northrop Grumman is under contract to NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md., for the design and development of the Webb Telescope's optics, sunshield and spacecraft. (Logo: http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20121024/LA98563LOGO) Photos...
GREENBELT, Md., June 14, 2013 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- A new study by astronomers at NASA, Johns Hopkins University and the Rochester Institute of Technology confirms long-held suspicions about how stellar-mass black holes produce their highest-energy light. (Logo: http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20081007/38461LOGO) "Our work traces the complex motions, particle interactions and turbulent magnetic fields in billion-degree gas on the threshold of a black hole, one of the most...
Brett Smith for redOrbit.com - Your Universe Online Within a span of three minutes, a star in the Usra Major constellation less than 16 light-years from Earth gave off a massive flare, making the object 15 times brighter than normal, according to a new report in the journal Astrophysics. The star, known as WX UMa, is a so-called flare star, a class of stars which can become 100 times or more brighter within a few seconds or minutes. These flares appear to be randomly occurring, and...
Latest Space Reference Libraries
The prominent feature that allows for the existence of life on Earth is the Sun. Radiation from our closest star provides heat and energy to our planet, driving biological processes and providing the necessary conditions for liquid water to naturally exist. But our Sun is only but one star in this vast Universe. And as it turns out, most stars are quite different than the one that illuminates our day. For this reason, scientists have, for hundreds of years, attempted to study the other...
Image Caption: Artistic concept of a planetary system. Credit: Wikipedia/NASA/JPL-Caltech The term Astronomy encompasses a broad range of topics, including the study of stars, galaxies, and planets. In order to focus on the different areas of study, many subfields of astronomy emerge. One such area is the study of planets known, appropriately, as Planetary Astronomy. Observational Planetary Astronomy Even within the field of Planetary Astronomy, there are several divisions to...
Ad Astra is a quarterly-published journal of the National Space Society (NSS). The name “ad astra” means “to the stars.” The journal was established following the merger of the L5 Society and the National Space Institute, which formed the NSS in 1987. The NSS is a non-profit aerospace advocacy and educational institution based in Washington DC. On November 28, 2007, the NSS announced MM Publishing Inc. as the newest publisher of Ad Astra. MM Publishing officially took on the role...
Columbia launched from Kennedy Space Center on October 22, 1992 at 1:09 PM EDT and landed at Kennedy on November 1 at 9:05 AM EST. The shuttle orbited 159 times at an altitude of 163 nautical miles at an inclination of 28.45 degrees and travelled 4.1 million miles. The mission lasted 9 days, 20 hours, 56 minutes, and 13 seconds. The mission launched several satellites for international partners. The primary mission objectives were the deployment of the Laser Geodynamic Satellite II...
Columbia launched from Kennedy Space Center on June 25,1992 at 12:23 PM EDT and landed at Kennedy on July 9 at 7:42 AM EDT. The shuttle orbited 221 times at an altitude of 160 nautical miles at an inclination of 28.45 degrees and travelled 5.8 million miles. The mission lasted 13 days, 19 hours, 30 minutes, and 4 seconds. This was the longest mission to date, close to 14 days. The mission's primary purpose was to study the effects of microgravity on humans. The primary payload was the...
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