* Astronomy

Maxima of the long period variable S Aquarii (HD 216907) on the 28th August, 2010. Magnitude: 8.3-14.1 Type: Mira Position(2000): RA 22 57 06.548, Dec -20 20 35.98

The parent comet of the Perseid shower, is Comet Swift Tuttle, discovered by joint observers. Astronomer Lewis Swift discovered the comet on July 16, 1862, and Astronomer Horace Tuttle on July 19, 1862. The comet has an official designation as 109P/Swift Tuttle ... this being the 109th periodic co...

Mars's mysterious elongated crater Orcus Patera on Mars Orcus Patera is an enigmatic elliptical depression near Mars's equator, in the eastern hemisphere of the planet. Located between the volcanoes of Elysium Mons and Olympus Mons, its formation remains a mystery. Often overlooked, this well...

An open alternative to Facebook will be launched on 15 September, the developers of the project have said. Diaspora describes itself as a "privacy-aware, personally-controlled" social network. Read more

The Big Bear Solar Observatory is located on a spit of land in the middle of Big Bear Lake, California, to exploits the excellent climatic conditions of Big Bear Lake, and reduce the image distortion, which usually occurs when the [url=http://www.bbso.n...

Maxima of the long period variable S Cygni on the 27th August, 2010. Magnitude: 10.3-16.0 Type: Mira Position(2000): RA 20 05 30.02, Dec +57 59 08.6

Maxima of the long period variable S Libra (HD 136458) on the 27th August, 2010. Magnitude: 8.4-12.0 Type: Mira Position(2000): RA 15 21 23.9852, Dec -20 23 18.397

Many of us heard the loud rumble, and some were even lucky enough to see something in the sky, but simply everyone is talking about the supposed meteor that exploded over the Tombong area last Tuesday afternoon. A huge number of locals report having heard a loud unexplained "thundering" n...

George Pieter Van Reeth was the third and last Secretary General of ELDO, and has spent 27 years with ESA and its predecessors. Born in 1924 in Herselt, Belgium, he studied civil engineering and then law at the Catholic University of Louvain. He obtained a Doctorate in Law in 1952. He practised as an At...

New NASA Satellite Survey Reveals Dramatic Arctic Sea Ice Thinning Arctic sea ice thinned dramatically between the winters of 2004 and 2008, with thin seasonal ice replacing thick older ice as the dominant type for the first time on record. The new results, based on data from a NASA Earth-orbiting s...

Impact Minerals identifies drill targets for nickel at Yarrabubba JV Project, WA Impact Minerals announces that an infill soil geochemistry survey at Target NH1 at the Yarrabubba Joint Venture Project near Meekatharra in Western Australia has defined two priority drill targets for nickel mine...

Expand (72kb, 800 x 600) Latitude: 18° 2'48.16"N, Longitude: 33°29'57.65"E

Title: GJ 841B - The Second DQ White Dwarf with Polarized CH Molecular Bands Authors: Tommi Vornanen (1), Svetlana Berdyugina (2), Andrei Berdyugin (1), Vilppu Piirola (1) ((1) University of Turku, (2) Kiepenheuer Institut fur Sonnenphysik) We report a discovery of the circularly polarized CH A...

Sunspot 11101. Expand (131kb, 560 x 560) Credit SOHO/MDI

Prof. Joseph A. Burns chronicles the vast history of astronomy According to Prof. Joseph A. Burns, astronomy is the oldest science. So, when the distinguished scientific journal Nature asked him to chronicle the great history of astronomy in less than 4,000 words, he knowingly embarked upon a dif...