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.

Man-made crater on Comet Tempel 1

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Images of comet Tempel 1, from Deep Impact (left) and Stardust-Next (right). Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/Cornell; NASA/JPL-Caltech/UMD In July 2005, a NASA spacecraft called Deep Impact intercepted comet Tempel 1 and shot at it.  The 370 kg lump of copper that was fired at the comet hit at a speed of just over 10 kilometers per second – about 30 times the speed of sound on Earth.  The resulting explosion threw up a plume of debris which Deep Impact’s instruments were … Continue reading →

Glory to launch 23 February

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NASA’s Glory mission, previously described on Urban Astronomer (NASA’s Glory) is scheduled to launch Wednesday, Feb. 23, from Space Launch Complex 576-E at Vandenberg Air Force Base in California.  Data from the Glory mission will allow scientists to better understand how the sun and tiny atmospheric particles called aerosols affect Earth’s climate. Both aerosols and solar energy influence the planet’s energy budget – the amount of energy entering and exiting Earth’s atmosphere. An accurate measurement of these impacts is important to anticipate … Continue reading →

NASA’s Glory

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For all the progress being made in climate science, there remain a lot of gaps in our knowledge.  We do not yet fully understand how aerosols (Any fine material suspended in the atmosphere – dust, smoke, ash, etc) affect the atmospheres ability to retain, reflect and transmit heat.  NASA’s new Glory satellite, set to launch next month, is designed to help answer some of these questions. Scientists have a thorough understanding of how greenhouse gases impact the energy budget, but … Continue reading →

X-37B preparing for second mission

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The US Air Force has announced that the secretive X-37B spaceplane is being prepared for a second launch on 4 March 2011.  The tiny craft is a remarkable machine, small enough to fit inside the Space Shuttle’s cargo area, and capable of remaining in orbit for months at a time while moving from orbit to orbit to hide from prying eyes.  It is also completely unmanned.  It has already completed one succesful test mission, in which it demonstrated its unusual … Continue reading →

“Indian Astrology is Science” – false claim

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If you’re following sites like this one, you’ve no doubt heard of the shock court ruling in India a week ago that astrology is an ancient and respected system which follows strict rules based on observation, and therefore is to be treated as a science.  As you read the story, you find the horrifying statement that scientists will just have to accept that “astrologers are officially their colleagues”.  It was the end of the world, the anti-scientists were winning and … Continue reading →