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.

Hayabusa Samples Revealed

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You may remember the fuss surrounding the Japanese Space Agency’s (JAXA) brave little spacecraft that could, Hayabusa, some months back.  Hayabusa was to visit asteroid Itokawa, collect specimens and bring them back.  Unfortunately it suffered setback after setback as numerous hardware failures began accumulating.  The engineering crew responsible for guiding and operating Hayabusa worked a miracle in helping the robotic probe to not only reach the asteroid successfully, but collect samples and limp home.  The mission finally ended in June … Continue reading →

Chang’E-2 Lunar Photographs

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The far east is rapidly building expertise in the field of unmanned space exploration, the incredible success of Japan’s Hayabusa mission is a case in point.  China’s space agency have recently released photographs from their second lunar orbiter, Chang’E-2, and they are breathtaking.   Chang’E-2 was launched in October this year, and took 5 days to reach the Moon.  It orbited the moon at an altitude of 100km, and is performing a survey of the lunar surface in preparation for … Continue reading →

Eris smaller than Pluto

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Artist’s depiction of Eris and its moon, Dysnomia Credit: Robert Hurt (IPAC)   In July 2005, astronomers found a large object deep in the Kuiper belt, with a slow orbit some three times further from the Sun than Pluto.  It’s relative brightness was so high that it had to be either extremely reflective, or very large – larger than Pluto.  It was named Eris and stirred up controversy – it was so far away, and in such a crowded area … Continue reading →

Comet Hartley 2 fly-by (updated)

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For those who weren’t paying attention, the EPOXI mission formerly known as Deep Impact successfully completed a very close fly-by of comet Hartley 2 yesterday.  Since this happened so recently, no analysis has yet been completed of the data, but a gallery of raw unprocessed images can be browsed here.   From now till the end of the month, EPOXI will take up station monitoring outbursts from Hartley 2.   The original Deep Impact mission was launched in 2005, to … Continue reading →

Asteroid Impact Simulator

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  So you’ve read about the big asteroid that collided with Earth 65 million years ago, wiping out the dinosaurs and leaving a 200km crater beneath the Yucutan peninsula.  You’ve heard all the wacky theories about the Tunguska incident and understand that it was just a small solar system body impacting Earth and detonating in the atmosphere (even if there’s still debate about the details).  Have you ever wondered what it would be like to see such an impact for … Continue reading →