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.

Clearest images yet of Pluto

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Four years of computer processing and tweaking on a series of Hubble Space Telescope photos of Pluto have produced images showing unprecedented detail of the surface of Pluto.  Principle investigator Marc Buie, of the Southwest Research Institute, said “These images represent a true-color appearance of what you would see if you were near Pluto, comparable to looking at our own Moon with the naked eye.  We now know we’re looking at something that has the biggest surface changes of any … Continue reading →

Neck Strain

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Thanks to the One Minute Astronomer for a nifty solution to the problem of sore necks.  Our bodies weren’t really designed for staring upwards.  One quick glance, that’s all our necks are built to cope with, so a bit of stargazing can become really uncomfortable.  Telescopes are usually equipped with a Star Diagonal, a mirror or prism which bends the light path so that you can look at a more comfortable angle.  Naked eye and binocular viewers have simply had … Continue reading →

Spirit settles down

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The Spirit rover on Mars was designed to last a few months, but has amazed its operators by working continuously for six years.  Sadly, it has been trapped in soft sand inside a shallow crater for almost a year, and the engineers have been trying to work it free for the last ten months.  Today NASA announced that the approaching Martian winter has forced them to give up – they have to devote all the remaining time to trying to … Continue reading →

Telescope Review

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This review is worth reading, not just for the telescope it recommends, but because the author manages to capture the very core of observational astronomy — at least, the way I always appreciated it!  Keep the hobby down to basics – There’s less to fuss with, less to get in the way and distract, and less to break (or run out of batteries, or stop working for whatever other reason).  The telescope reviewed is the Celestron Omni 150XLT Newtonian Reflector

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The Known Universe

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Amazing video from the American Museum of Natural History, giving a tour of the known universe.  Starting from Mount Everest, we take off and fly out into space looking back at earth, eventually stopping at the very furthest point yet seen by man, and then returning home.  Everything is 100% accurate according to our most current knowledge – nothing is shown (apart from labels and lines representing orbits!) that hasn’t been observed and mapped.  Absolutely astonishing, and complete with the … Continue reading →