China successfully launched a mapping satellite, "Mapping Satellite - I," from the northwestern Jiuquan Satellite Launch Centre at 3:10 p.m. (Beijing time) Tuesday. The satellite, which was launched on a Long March 2-D carrier rocket, had entered into the preset orbit, according to...
RS Canum Venaticorum (HD 114519) is the prototype for a variable binary class of stars. RS Canum Venaticorum comprises of a pair of similar sized yellow and orange (F5 V+K2 IV) stars that orbit each other every 4.8 days. The two stars are so close, that both stars are tidally locked together. The tid...
The magnitude 16.6 asteroid (5356) 1991 FF1 will occult the magnitude 6.3 star HD 19525 in the constellation Cetus at 08:49 UT, 24th August 2010. The 2.1 second event is visible from Venezuela, Colombia and Central America. Position(2000): RA 03 08 38.7915, Dec +08 28 15.850
Maxima of the long period variable R Indae (HD 213797) on the 24th August, 2010. Magnitude: 8.4-14.3 Type: Mira Position(2000): RA 22 36 00.37, Dec -67 17 15.8
University of Alberta palaeontologist Dr. Phil Currie has a dinosaur bone yard in southwest Edmonton, Canada.
Originally discovered in the late 1980s by an Edmonton sculptor walking his dog, the site was left largely unexcavated until this summer when Currie and his field school students be...
Title: The age of the Solar System redefined by the oldest Pb-Pb age of a meteoritic inclusion Authors: Audrey Bouvier & Meenakshi Wadhwa The age of the Solar System can be defined as the time of formation of the first solid grains in the nebular disc surrounding the proto-Sun. This age is estimat...
US Kepler project set to trounce Oxford in the war of the worlds A senior astrophysicist at Oxford University has revealed that the American "Kepler" project will make an astonishing announcement on planets in other solar systems on the 26th of August. NASA is imposing rigorous NDAs (no...
Astronomy conference at UW to explore the sun and other cool stars For many people, all stars are "cool." But the 350 or so astronomers gathering for the Cool Stars 16 conference at the University of Washington next week are interested in stars such as our sun with surface temperatures of 5...
Astronomers from Australia, Germany, the UK, Canada and the USA have come up with a new way to weigh the planets in our Solar System, using radio signals from pulsars. Measurements of planet masses made this new way could feed into data needed for future space missions. Until now, astronomers have we...
'Joint European and national astronomy meeting', Lisbon, Portugal The 'Joint European and national astronomy meeting' (JENAM) will take place on 6 to 10 September in Lisbon, Portugal. The theme of this year's meeting will be 'From varying couplings to fundamental physics'. The conference will...
Title: HAT-P-24b: An inflated hot-Jupiter on a 3.36d period transiting a hot, metal-poor star Authors: D. M. Kipping (1,2), G. A. Bakos (1,3), J. Hartman (1), G. Torres (1), A. Shporer (4,5), D. W. Latham (1), Geza Kovacs (6), R. W. Noyes (1), A. W. Howard (7), D. A. Fischer (8), J. A. Johnson (9), G. W. M...
Microbes live 553 days outside ISS Professor Charles ****ell from the OU explains how the experiment worked A small English fishing village has produced an out-of-this-world discovery. Bacteria taken from cliffs at Beer on the South Coast have shown themselves to be hardy space travellers. The b...
A new image of a little-known nebula taken from the Hubble Space Telescope has astronomers wondering what's lighting it up. NASA has released an image of IRAS 05437+2502, or "Ira's Ghost", after it was snapped by Hubble as a "bonus target" - part of a list of things for Hubble to...
The magnitude 15.6 asteroid (10217) Richardcook will occult the magnitude 8.0 star HD 16629 (AK Ari) in the constellation Aries, at ~10:45 UT, 23rd August, 2010. The 1.0 second event is visible from Central America. Position(2000): RA 02 40 31.7307, Dec +21 11 16.179
