Category Archives: News and Updates

News about Astronomy and Space Science. Find every news item and update here, in blog format. You can get these updates sent straight to your mailbox by subscribing here, or you can subscribe to the RSS feed by clicking the link.

New moons discovered around Jupiter

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As of 1 June 2011, the count of known moons orbiting Jupiter has increased from 63 to 65.  The new moons, designated S/2010 J1 and S/2010 J2 are really tiny at 2km and 1km across respectively.  They also have irregular orbits, moving the wrong way around Jupiter at steep angles, indicating that they were not part of Jupiter’s original set of satellites, but comets or asteroids that had been captured by Jupiter’s immense gravity.  Any bets on when the next … Continue reading →

Earth could be removed from global time standard

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For as long as we’ve kept track of time, we’ve needed astronomy.  A year was defined by the time taken for Earth to complete one revolution of its orbit around the Sun, a day was defined by the time it takes the Sun to make one full circuit of the sky, and all other units were derived from these two.  An hour is one twenty fourth of a day, a minute is a sixtieth of an hour, and a second … Continue reading →

Call for images of June 2011 Lunar Eclipse

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I’ve been a little jaded over past years by lackluster eclipses, to the point of not even bothering to look outside for the last few.  I am so glad I made the effort to watch tonight’s show – it was spectacular!  I’m sure a great many people took photographs of the event – if you have managed to capture the event and would like to share your images, please contact me at uastronomer@gmail.com so I can add them to this post. … Continue reading →

SA Astronomers discover planets orbiting double star

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Dr Stephen Potter and Dr Encarni Romero-Colmenero from the South African Astronomical Observatory (SAAO) have discovered evidence for an unusual extra-solar planetary system:  Two enormous planets distantly orbiting a tiny double star (UZ Fornax).  The binary pair in this instance are a white dwarf and a red dwarf, orbiting so closely to each other that they are able to rob material from each other’s outer layers, causing periodic outbursts as the captured material gets thick enough to ignite.  The two … Continue reading →

Using the Moon as a telescope

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Scientists from the National Astronomical Research Institute of Thailand have published a novel method to improve the resolution of our view of the universe:  analyse diffraction lines created by the light of a distant object passing the edge of the Moon during a lunar occultation. The problem they’re trying to solve is one of angular resolution:  There’s a limit to how small an object we can see at any particular distance.  A healthy human eye can resolve down to slightly … Continue reading →