Southwest Research Institute scientists have compiled 41 solar occultation observations of Saturn’s rings from the Cassini mission. The compilation, published recently in the scientific journal Icarus, will inform future investigations of the particle size distribution and composition of Saturn’s rings,... Continue Reading →
The Ariane 6 launch pad at Europe’s Spaceport in French Guiana now hosts for the first time a fully assembled example of ESA’s new heavy-lift rocket, following the addition of an upper composite to the core stage and four boosters already... Continue Reading →
Do we dare believe our eyes? When we look at images of space, we often wonder whether they are "real", and just as often the best answer varies. In this case, the scene appears much as our eyes would see... Continue Reading →
Why would x-ray rings appear around a gamma-ray burst? The surprising answer has little to do with the explosion itself but rather with light reflected off areas of dust-laden gas in our own Milky Way Galaxy. GRB 221009A was a tremendous explosion -- a... Continue Reading →
Expedition 67 flight engineers Bob Hines and Jessica Watkins are all smiles in this Sept. 12, 2022, image from the International Space Station cupola. The cupola is used to monitor the arrival of spaceships and to view the Earth. Hines,... Continue Reading →
The Full Moon of October 9th was the second Full Moon after the northern hemisphere autumnal equinox, traditionally called the Hunter's Moon. According to lore, the name is a fitting one because this Full Moon lights the night during a time... Continue Reading →
Astronomers have observed directly for the first time how intense light from stars can ‘push’ matter. Researchers from the universities of Cambridge and Sydney made the observation when tracking a giant plume of dust generated by the violent interactions between... Continue Reading →
What are those strange rings? Rich in dust, the rings are likely 3D shells -- but how they were created remains a topic of research. Where they were created is well known: in a binary star system that lies about 6,000 light years away toward the constellation of the Swan (Cygnus)... Continue Reading →
A mysterious squid-like cosmic cloud, this nebula is very faint, but also very large in planet Earth's sky. In the image, composed with 30 hours of narrowband image data, it spans nearly three full moons toward the royal constellation Cepheus. Discovered in... Continue Reading →
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