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The February 2012 issue of Astronomy Now is on sale 19 January!




Book Reviews



Falling to Earth: An Apollo 15 Astronaut’s Journey to Earth


Chasing Shadows

Explorers of the Southern Sky

Galileo and 400 years of Telescopic Astronomy

The Mythology of the Night Sky

Collins Night Sky and Starfinder

ARCHIVE

PATRICK MOORE BOOKS



Events


20 Jan - 9 April

Stephen Hawking: A 70th birthday celebration

Science Museum, London

3 February

School Stargazing Evening

The Chandler Church Of England Junior School, Godalming

10-11 February

AstroFest

Kensington Town Hall, London

25 February

Astronomy in the pub

Horns Lodge, Lewes



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Shuttle Movies




The most complete source of video from the countdown, launch and mission of space shuttle Discovery is available here! Spaceflight Now's STS-121 archive includes more than 200 movies you can watch online or download to your computer.

Video Collection





Super-Earth orbits in habitable zone of cool star

A 4.5 Earth-mass planet has been found within the habitable zone of a nearby star, which itself is a member of a triple star system.

   READ MORE
 
 

Mars – get ready for opposition

AN's night sky expert Mark Armstrong whets the appetite for Mars as the red planet heads for opposition next month.

READ MORE

 
 

IBEX measures
interstellar matter

NASA’s Interstellar Boundary Explorer (IBEX) has detected neutral atoms of hydrogen, helium, oxygen and neon breaching the Solar System’s magnetic barrier and reaching Earth. The new results show that the Local Cloud, which is a thin cloud of dust and gas that the Solar System is passing through, has a shortage of oxygen.

READ MORE

 
 

A comet meets
a globular cluster

Comet Garradd has a spectacular conjunction with a bright globular cluster in the early hours of the next two mornings when it passes around half a degree from M92, presenting a fine observing and imaging opportunity.

READ MORE

 
 

Kepler finds 11 new solar systems beyond our own

Amid a flurry of planetary discoveries from NASA's Kepler space telescope, scientists announced Thursday they have found 26 new worlds around 11 stars outside the solar system.

READ MORE

 
 

Black holes buzz-kill star formation parties

The most massive galaxies today partied hard and lived fast lives in their younger days, forming stars at an incredible rate for a short time before feedback from black holes shut them down.

READ MORE

 
 

Eight years on Mars
for Opportunity

NASA's Mars Exploration Rover Opportunity landed on Mars eight years ago on what was expected to be just a 90 day mission, and while twin rover Spirit has remained silent since March 2010, Opportunity continues to rove across the red planet's surface.

READ MORE

 
 

Northern Lights head south

A marvellous display of the Aurora Borealis, or Northern Lights, was seen across widespread areas of Scotland and Northern England last night, with reports coming in from Northumberland, The Pennines and Yorkshire.

READ MORE

 
 

Astronomers capture
comet's dive into Sun

The first observations and analysis of a comet disintegrating within the Sun's atmosphere on 6 July 2011 are presented this week in the journal Science.

READ MORE

 
 

Young magnetic star sports carbon monoxide ring

A team of astronomers has discovered an unusually defined ring of carbon monoxide around a young star, raising questions regarding the stages in solar system formation.

READ MORE

 
 

Herschel revisits
Pillars of Creation

The European Space Agency's Herschel Space Observatory has made stunning observations of the iconic Pillars of Creation, first brought to life by the Hubble Space Telescope in 1995.

READ MORE

 
 

NASA’s Fermi reveals new portrait of the sky

A new catalogue of high-energy sources has been published from the Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope allowing astronomers to paint a better picture of a previously unexplored region of the night sky

READ MORE

 
 

Ill-fated Mars probe reportedly falls to Earth

A $170 million Russian Mars probe, stranded in low-Earth orbit after a malfunction following launch in November, reportedly fell back into the dense lower atmosphere Sunday, apparently breaking up over the southern Pacific Ocean west of Chile.

READ MORE

 
 

What colour is the
Milky Way?

Astronomers at The University of Pittsburgh have been working to find an accurate answer as to the colour of the Milky Way Galaxy, finding it to be “a very pure white, almost mirroring a fresh spring snowfall”.

READ MORE

 
 

Starving galaxies shut down star formation

Astronomers using the partially built ALMA (Atacama Large Millimetre/submillimetre Array) observatory have, for the first time, caught a group of galaxies changing from active star building factories into red, dead ellipticals.

READ MORE

 
 

Surprising stars in the Andromeda Galaxy

Greater insights by the Hubble Space Telescope into the heart of the Andromeda Galaxy, the closest large galaxy to our Milky Way, are revealing a mixed environment of unusually blue stars and a ring of red stars around its giant 100 million solar mass black hole.

READ MORE

 
 

Hubble spies earliest galaxy cluster ever seen

Astronomers using NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope have uncovered a distant cluster of galaxies in the initial stages of construction.

READ MORE

 
 

Black hole 'bullets' may shed light on galaxy jets

A nearby black hole has been caught in the act of launching high speed 'bullets' of gas into space thanks to observations from NASA's Rossi X-ray Timing Explorer (RXTE) satellite and the American National Science Foundation's Very Long Baseline Array (VLBA).

READ MORE

 
 

Planets discovered with double Sun-like stars

Following the recent discovery of exoplanet Kepler-16b orbiting two stars, two further planets both orbiting stellar pairs have been unveiled by the acclaimed spacecraft.

READ MORE

 
 

Saturn-like rings
circle alien world

A Saturn-like ring system has been discovered 420 light years away in the constellation of Centaurus by astronomers using the ground-based SuperWASP (Wide Angle Search for Planets) and All Sky Automated Survey (ASAS), but do the rings encompass a planet or a companion star?

READ MORE

 
 

Mars-sized planet orbits
red dwarf star

A rocky planet just 0.57 times the radius of Earth – a little larger than the planet Mars – has been found orbiting a red dwarf star along with two other smaller-than-Earth companions.

READ MORE

 
 

A fat galaxy cluster
found faraway

A titanic collision between two galaxy clusters is creating the most massive collection of galaxies ever observed in the distance Universe. The observation of this new super-cluster, nicknamed ‘El Gordo’ after the Spanish for ‘fat one’, fits in neatly with models of dark matter and dark energy in the Universe.

READ MORE

 
 

Planets around stars
are the rule

A six-year study that surveyed millions of stars using the gravitational microlensing technique has concluded that planets around stars are the rule rather than the exception, with every star in the Milky Way predicted to host a planet.

READ MORE

 
 

NASA funds balloon-borne
X-ray telescope

A new X-ray telescope developed by an international team of scientists will float within the Earth’s atmosphere on a one-day mission to calculate how fast black holes spin.

READ MORE

 
 

The Milky Way's stray stars

Results from the Sloan Extension for Galactic Understanding and Exploration 2 (SEGUE-2) survey shows that the Milky Way disc grew from the inside out, but that some stars have wandered far from the plane of the Galaxy on unusual orbits.

READ MORE

 
 

Mapping the large scale structure of dark matter

A large scale map of the web of dark matter that weaves through the Universe has been unveiled at the American Astronomical Society meeting in Austin, Texas, as part of the Canada-France-Hawaii Telescope Lensing Survey (CFHTLenS).

READ MORE

 
 

Revolutionary new survey to take Milky Way census

The Apache Point Observatory Galactic Evolution Experiment (APOGEE) spectrograph is the latest addition to the Sloan Digital Sky Survey III (SDSS-III), and is set to catalogue the motions and chemical compositions of over 100,000 stars that span nearly the entire age of the Universe, 300 at a time.

READ MORE

 
 

Mars-bound rover ready to take aim at the red planet

The Mars-bound Curiosity rover will be begin steering toward the red planet during a lengthy thruster firing Wednesday, erasing the launch trajectory's deliberate aim away from the destination.

READ MORE

 
 

Lunar tandem successfully enters orbit around Moon

When you gaze up at the Moon tonight, know there's now two new spacecraft orbiting to unveil the hidden lunar interior. The GRAIL twins have reached lunar orbit to join forces in a gravity-mapping tandem after a 2.6-million-mile voyage from Earth. The first craft braked into orbit Saturday and the second followed suit Sunday.

READ MORE

 


 
For more news stories see our News Archive

AstroFest 2012
AstroFest 2012 will be held in London on 10 and 11 February.
 AstroFest 2012
 AstroFest Blog 2012

 Look back at AstroFest 2011

Eye on the Sky

 QUICK LOOK WHAT'S UP
 SOUTHERN HEMISPHERE SKY

 GUIDE TO SOLAR OBSERVING

The Planets
From tiny Mercury to distant Neptune and Pluto, The Planets profiles each of the Solar System's members in depth, featuring the latest imagery from space missions. The tallest mountains, the deepest canyons, the strongest winds, raging atmospheric storms, terrain studded with craters and vast worlds of ice are just some of the sights you'll see on this 100-page tour of the planets.
 U.K. STORE
 E.U. STORE
 U.S. & WORLDWIDE STORE

Hubble Reborn
Hubble Reborn takes the reader on a journey through the Universe with spectacular full-colour pictures of galaxies, nebulae, planets and stars as seen through Hubble's eyes, along the way telling the dramatic story of the space telescope, including interviews with key scientists and astronauts.
 U.K. STORE
 E.U. STORE
 U.S. & WORLDWIDE STORE

3D Universe
Witness the most awesome sights of the Universe as they were meant to be seen in this 100-page extravaganza of planets, galaxies and star-scapes, all in 3D!
 U.K. STORE
 E.U. STORE
 U.S. & WORLDWIDE STORE

Video Extras
Telescopes with altitude: ALMA  WATCH

How Space Station research could save lives  WATCH
Meet the Meteorite Men  WATCH
In search of dark matter with the AMS WATCH
Astronomy Now's guide to solar observing WATCH
Inside the shuttle processing facilities  WATCH
 ARCHIVE

Event Reports

& Blogs

NAM 2011 Blog

AstroFest 2011 Blog

National Astronomy Meeting 2010

AstroFest 2010 Blog

EWASS 2009 report

EWASS 2009 Blog

AstroFest 2009 Blog

GAS/She's an Astronomer day

IYA kick-off

Early Career Planetary Scientists’ Meeting 2008

Turning on the LHC

National Astronomy Meeting 2008

Exclusive Interviews

Advancing Variable Star Astronomy

SETI – the first 50 years

Close encounters of a cometary kind - EPOXI flyby of Hartley 2

Mark Drinkwater on ESA's Earth Observation programme

Giles Sparrow on Hubble: Window on the Universe

ARCHIVE

Gallery

Picture Gallery July

Supernova 2011dh

Kennedy Space Center

NEAF 2011

ARCHIVE


Infinity Rising
This special publication features the photography of British astro-imager Nik Szymanek and covers a range of photographic methods from basic to advanced. Beautiful pictures of the night sky can be obtained with a simple camera and tripod before tackling more difficult projects, such as guided astrophotography through the telescope and CCD imaging.
 U.K. STORE
 E.U. STORE
 U.S. & WORLDWIDE STORE

Exploring Mars
Astronomy Now is pleased to announce the publication of Exploring Mars. The very best images of Mars taken by orbiting spacecraft and NASA's Spirit and Opportunity rovers fill up the 98 glossy pages of this special edition!
 U.K. STORE
 E.U. STORE
 U.S. & WORLDWIDE STORE


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