Category Astronomy/Space

This is a color composite image of the Pleiades from the Digitized Sky Survey. Credit: NASA/ESA/AURA/Caltech

The poem describes the night sky over Greece more than 2,500 years ago. “This is an example of where the scientific community can make a contribution to knowledge described in important ancient texts, ” said Manfred Cuntz, physics professor . “Estimations had been made for the timing of this poem in the past, but we were able to scientifically confirm the season that corresponds to her specific descriptions of the night sky in the year 570 B.C.” Sappho’s “Midnight Poem” describes a star cluster known as the Pleiades having set at around midnight, when supposedly observed by her from the Greek island of Lesbos.
…The moon has set
And the Pleiades;
It is midnight,
The time is going by,

Comet 252P/LINEAR is shown as it passed by Earth. Credit: NASA, ESA, and J.-Y. Li (Planetary Science Institute)

This sequence of images by Hubble shows Comet 252P/LINEAR as it passed by Earth. The visit was one of the closest encounters between a comet and our planet. The images were taken on April 4, 2016, ~2 weeks after the icy visitor made its closest approach to Earth on March 21. The comet traveled within 3.3 million miles of Earth, or about 14X the distance between our planet and the moon. These observations also represent the closest celestial object Hubble has observed, other than the moon.

The images reveal a narrow, well-defined jet of dust ejected by the comet’s icy, fragile nucleus. The nucleus is too small for Hubble to resolve. Astronomers estimate that it is <1 mile across...

This artist’s rendition shows the four identical MMS spacecraft flying near the sun-facing boundary of Earth’s magnetic field (blue wavy lines). The MMS mission has revealed the clearest picture yet of the process of magnetic reconnection between the magnetic fields of Earth and the sun — a driving force behind space weather, solar flares and other energetic phenomena. Credit: NASA

A new study provides the first major results of NASA’s Magnetospheric Multiscale (MMS) mission. The paper describes the first direct and detailed observation of magnetic reconnection, which occurs when 2 opposing magnetic field lines break and reconnect with each other, releasing massive amounts of energy. The discovery is a major milestone in understanding magnetism and space weather.

Evidence suggests reconnec...

An image of the galaxy AGC 198691 (nicknamed Leoncino, or “little lion”) taken by the Hubble Space Telescope. Credit: Photo by NASA; A. Hirschauer & J. Salzer, Indiana University; J. Cannon, Macalester College; and K. McQuinn, University of Texas

‘Little lion’ ie Leoncino galaxy contains lowest level of heavy elements ever detected in gravitationally bound system of stars. A faint blue galaxy about 30 million light-years from Earth and located in the constellation Leo Minor could shed new light on conditions at the birth of the universe. “Finding the most metal-poor galaxy ever is exciting since it could help contribute to a quantitative test of the Big Bang,” Salzer said...