30 October 2013
Using data obtained by NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope and observations made with a giant Earth-based telescope, a team of astronomers has discovered and measured the distance to an extremely distant galaxy, located about 30 billion light years away from Earth. This galaxy, known technically as z8_GND_5296, now holds the record of the most distant known galaxy.
24 October 2013
On 16 October 2013, Russian officials found the largest fragment so far of the blazing meteorite that exploded, at an altitude of about 30 km, over the Russian city of Chelyabinsk, on 15 February 2013. Divers aided by a mechanical winch lifted it from the bottom of Lake Chebarkul, near Chelyabinsk. The space rock, however, while being weighed, broke into three chunks, weighing together over 570 kg.
13 October 2013
NASA recently published an interesting image, showing a small galaxy, containing a huge number of stars. The image was produced by combining images in visible light and images in X-rays of this galaxy, known as M60-UCD1. Interestingly, astronomers believe that M60-UCD1, located some 54 million light years away from Earth, is the densest galaxy in the nearby universe, since it contains a very large number of stars within a small volume.
22 September 2013
Iran announced it is considering launching a Persian cat into space, in March 2014, as its next space animal, after claiming it launched a monkey earlier this year.
08 September 2013
On 6 September 2013, the US space agency, NASA, launched a new spacecraft to the Moon. The mission, known as the Lunar Atmosphere and Dust Environment Explorer (LADEE), will orbit the Moon, to study the thin gases and cosmic dust around it. LADEE will help improve the understanding of the Moon and other planetary bodies. The launch was from NASA’s Wallops Flight Facility, located in the US State of Virginia, aboard the Minotaur V rocket.
04 August 2013
NASA recently published an image of an amazing galaxy, acquired by the Hubble Space Telescope (HST). The image shows a whirl-like galaxy, known technically as NGC 524. The galaxy contains twirling dark clouds of gas and cosmic dust, which render the appearance of a giant whirl.
21 July 2013
NASA's Hubble Space Telescope (HST) has discovered a new moon orbiting the most distant planet, Neptune. The blue giant planet now has 14 known satellites.
10 July 2013
NASA recently published a wonderful image (fig. 1), acquired by the Hubble Space Telescope (HST), a large astronomical observatory in orbit around Earth. The image shows a collision between two distant galaxies. Interestingly, one of the two galaxies, seen below image center, resembles the head of a bird, since its shape has been highly distorted due to the gravitational influence of its companion, an elliptical galaxy, consisting mostly of old reddish stars.
03 June 2013
On 23 June 2013, the Moon will be at its closest point to Earth in all of 2013, at a distance of approximately 357,000 km. It will also be Full Moon. This means that the apparent size of the Full Moon of 23 June will be the biggest in 2013, about 15% larger than a regular Full Moon. During the Full Moon, the Moon is located opposite to the Sun in the sky, therefore, it rises around the time of sunset, and remains visible throughout the night.
19 May 2013
On 17 March 2013, astronomers working with NASA detected the collision of a meteoroid with the Moon. The impact was observed as a bright flash on the Moon, lasting about one second, due to the explosion of the meteoroid. It was visible to the unaided eye. The impacting object had a mass of 40 kg, and was less than one meter wide. It hit the lunar surface at nearly 100,000 km/h. Its explosion released energy equivalent to 5 tons of TNT.