Pluto may not be a planet, but it certainly has quite a family of satellites! On top of the three already known (Charon, Nix and Hydra), astronomers studying the Pluto with the Hubble Space Telescope have now found a fourth moon. It hasn’t yet been officially named, so it carries the temporary label of ‘P4’. What’s remarkable is that it could be seen at all – current estimates are that it is somewhere between only 13 and 34km across. That … Continue reading →
Over the weekend, shortly after entering orbit, Dawn snapped the highest resolution photograph ever taken of Vesta. This image was used to create the composite image on the left, showing eight different asteroids which have been visited by robotic spacecraft. With its diameter of 530 kilometers, Vesta not only dwarfs the other asteroids but is massive enough for gravity to have forced it into a spherical shape. This means that Vesta is not only an asteroid, but fits the IAU … Continue reading →
Thanks to Thembela Mantungwa for sending this notice On Saturday, July 23 at 20h00, Getachew Mekonnen Mengistie will give a free public lecture at S.A. Astronomical Observatory (SAAO) in Cape Town. The topic of his lecture is “Searching exoplanets: Is there life out there” After the talk, there will be stargazing (weather permitting), tours of the library, the McClean museum and telescope. Visitors are advised to arrive at least at 19h30, this will give them time to park and find … Continue reading →
A few days ago I wrote about the current scandal regarding NASA funding, which involved a bill being put forward requiring drastic cost-cutting measures for the space agency. If the bill were to be passed, NASA would be forced to slash their Space Technology program’s budget by 60%, focus on a heavy lift rocket that is not needed, and cancel the James Webb Telescope project. It was a depressing and angry piece, and prompted the following response from one Jim … Continue reading →
I wrote a few days ago about the shocking bill put forward by the US House of Representatives to slash the budget for NASA’s space program, specifically targeting the James Webb Telescope (which would have been the next, big space telescope, set to replace the Hubble in 2014). While American commentators do their usual tail-chasing about whether to blame president Obama or Bush, the fact is that the US space program is now pretty clearly focused on one target alone: … Continue reading →
