On the evening of 23 September 1846, Johann G. Galle of the Urania Observatory in Berlin saw the planet Neptune within 1° of where Urbain Le Verrier and John Couch Adams predicted it would be.  Tomorrow night, it will have been exactly one Neptune year since the discovery, according to Sky and Telescope.  However, I’m not entirely sure their maths is correct.  My own calculations show that the big day will not be until next week, while Wolfram Alpha says … Continue reading →

The James Webb Telescope (JWT), a space-borne observatory which was to be the next generation for the Hubble Space Telescope, may be canceled if the united states House of Congress has its way.  They have just released their Appropriations Bill, which mandates brutal funding slashes across the sciences, and specifically calls for the JWT project to be canceled.   Part of the reasoning behind this decision is that construction of the telescope is way behind schedule and very far over … Continue reading →

Since its launch in 1990, the Hubble Space Telescope (HST) has revolutionised the science of astronomy and the business of space-themed wallpapers.  On Monday, 4 July 2011, it reached a new milestone:  While searching for water in an exoplanet’s atmosphere, it made its one millionth science observation. “For 21 years Hubble has been the premier space science observatory, astounding us with deeply beautiful imagery and enabling ground-breaking science across a wide spectrum of astronomical disciplines,” said NASA Administrator Charles Bolden, … Continue reading →