24 March 2008
NASA's Cassini spacecraft has discovered evidence for an ocean of water and ammonia beneath the crust of Saturn's largest moon, Titan. The discovery was made using radar measurements of Titan's rotation.
23 March 2008
The molecule detected by Hubble is methane, which under certain circumstances can play a crucial role in prebiotic chemistry, the chemical reactions believed to be necessary for the formation life.
22 March 2008
NASA's Mars Odyssey orbiter has found evidence of salt deposits. These deposits point to places where water once was abundant and where evidence might exist of possible ancient Martian life.
18 March 2008
NASA recently published an outstanding image of the massive elliptical galaxy NGC 1132, combining data from two of the four “Great Observatories”, the Chandra X-ray Observatory (CXO) and the Hubble Space Telescope (HST).
15 March 2008
The object, designated NGC 2371, is known as a planetary nebula. The remnant star shining at the center of NGC 2371 is the extremely hot core of the progenitor star, now stripped of its outer gaseous envelope. Its surface temperature is over 130,000 degrees Celsius! NGC 2371 lies about 4,300 light-years away in the zodiacal constellation Gemini, the Twins.
14 March 2008
On 12 March 2008, NASA's Cassini spacecraft performed a daring flyby of Saturn's moon Enceladus, flying about 15 km/s through icy plumes emanating from the south polar region of the moon. At closest approach, Cassini flew within only 50 km above the surface of Enceladus (505 km across); obtaining valuable samples that might indicate the presence of a water ocean or organics beneath the moon’s icy crust.
13 March 2008
The galaxy, known as A1689-zD1, is believed to have formed only 700 million years after the Big Bang, in the middle of the Universe’s “dark ages”, one of the earliest eras of the cosmic evolution. (The Universe is estimated to be 13-14 billion years old.) The light from A1689-zD1 took nearly 13 billion years to reach Earth!
11 March 2008
Saturn’s magnificent rings were discovered by Galileo in 1610. During the Space Age, three more planetary rings were discovered, the faint ring systems of Uranus, Jupiter and Neptune, respectively. Recent observations by NASA’s Cassini spacecraft posed an intriguing question: Could a moon have rings?
04 March 2008
A NASA spacecraft in orbit around Mars has taken the first ever image of active avalanches near the Martian north pole. The image shows tan clouds drifting away from the flank of a high slope, where ice and dust have just cascaded down.
29 February 2008
Rose-ringed parakeet parrots are beautiful tropical birds. They successfully colonized Egypt, early in the 20th century. Exercising his favorite hobby of wildlife photography, BA Senior Astronomy Specialist, Aymen Ibrahem, recently took intriguing images of these intelligent, active birds.