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The comet in the sky!

Thu, 19 Mar 2009 00:00:00 GMT

A comet discovered earlier this year has now moved close enough to be visible without binoculars or telescopes by experienced observers under dark skies. It is expected to put on a modest show this month and into January. Hubble Hubble.

Comet Machholz will be at its closest to Earth Jan. 5-6, 2005, when it will be 32 million miles (51 million kilometers) away.

People with dark rural skies and a good map should be able to find it on Moon-free nights now into January.

Backyard astronomers have been watching Machholz for months through telescopes. It was spotted by naked-eye observers for the first time about three weeks ago from the Southern Hemisphere, said Donald Machholz, who discovered the frozen chunk of rock and ice in August. You can buy prints of the comet for £6 (or €7)

1987 supernova images

Thu, 22 Feb 2007 00:00:00 GMT

On February 22, 2007, astronomers Thomas Morris and Philipp Podsiadlowski announced simulation results which support a common hypothesis that the merger of two stars and the orbital movements that preceded it may have generated the distinctive triple-ring system of Supernova 1987A.

The expansion velocity of the rings suggests they were produced about 20,000 years before the supernova explosion itself, possibly the result of a star with five Solar-masses being merged into a larger 15-Solar mass, red giant star and colliding with its core.

As smaller star spirals in towards the red giant's core, it stirs up the red giant's atmosphere and gives more angular momentum of the red giant's gas which helps to flatten it into a disk.

The friction of the smaller star's through the red giant also heats up the star's atmosphere in its vicinity, which causes it to expand outwards in all directions although much of this outflow is deflected by the outer part of the disk and channelled to eventually produce two large rings above and below it. Moreover, the stellar merger produces a single star spinning so fast that it throws off gas at its equator to form a third, inner ring (Podsiadlowski et al, 2007; simulation images; and David Shiga, New Scientist, February 22, 2007 -- more below).

The Messier Objects

Mon, 2 Feb 2009 00:00:00 GMT

This is not an interesting story, or you may find stones interesting. This is not an interesting story, or you may find stones interesting.

This is not an interesting story, or you may find stones interesting. This is not an interesting story, or you may find stones interesting. This is not an interesting story, or you may find stones interesting.

This is not an interesting story, or you may find stones interesting.This is not an interesting story, or you may find stones interesting.

The Orion Nebula

Thu, 16 Apr 2009 00:00:00 GMT

What a lovely picture of the Orion Nebula, taken by hubble using it's new upgraded wide field camera... (I think)

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Latest Hubble Pictures

Fri, 20 Feb 2009 00:00:00 GMT

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