Category Astronomy/Space

This is a solidified lava flow over the side of a crater rim of Elysium. Credit: NASA HiRISE image, David Susko, LSU

New Mars research shows evidence of a complex mantle beneath the Elysium volcanic province. Mars’ mantle may be more complicated than previously thought. In a new study researchers at LSU found that the unusual chemistry of lava flows around Elysium is consistent with primary magmatic processes, eg. heterogeneous mantle beneath Mars’ surface or the weight of the overlying volcanic mountain causing different layers of mantle to melt at different temperatures as they rise to the surface.

Elysium is a giant volcanic complex on Mars, the second largest behind Olympic Mons. For scale, it rises to twice the height of Earth’s Mount Everest, or ~16 kilometers...

Annular eclipse: the sun crossed South America shortly after 1200 GMT, on course for Africa. Credit: Dale Cruikshank

Stargazers applauded as they were plunged into darkness Sunday when the moon passed in front of the sun in a spectacular “ring of fire” eclipse. Astronomers and enthusiasts in Argentina were among the first to see the so-called annular eclipse as it crossed South America shortly after 1200 GMT, on course for Africa. Staring up through special telescopes, protective glasses or homemade cardboard pinhole devices, they watched the Sun all but disappear briefly as the Moon crossed its path. The eclipse was to be most visible in a 100-kilometer (62-mile) band across Chile, Argentina, Angola, Zambia and the Democratic Republic of Congo.

More than 100 stargazers gathered on Sunday ...

This Hubble Space Telescope image shows Supernova 1987A within the Large Magellanic Cloud, a neighboring galaxy to our Milky Way. Credit: NASA, ESA, R. Kirshner (Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics and Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation), and M. Mutchler and R. Avila (STScI)

3 decades ago, astronomers spotted one of the brightest exploding stars in more than 400 years. The titanic supernova, called Supernova 1987A (SN 1987A), blazed with the power of 100 million suns for several months following its discovery on Feb. 23, 1987. Since that first sighting, SN 1987A has continued to fascinate astronomers with its spectacular light show...

This high-resolution image was captured by NASA’s New Horizons spacecraft on its Pluto flyby in 2015, combining blue, red, and infrared images taken by the Ralph/Multispectral Visual Imaging Camera (MVIC). The bright region in the west is part of Pluto’s ‘heart’, and is rich in nitrogen, carbon monoxide, and methane ices. Credit: NASA/Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory/Southwest Research Institute

In 2015, in partnership with NASA’s New Horizons mission and the SETI Institute, the International Astronomical Union (IAU) endorsed the Our Pluto naming campaign, which allowed the public to participate in the exploration of Pluto by proposing names for surface features on Pluto and its satellites that were still awaiting discovery...