RSS: SkyWatch - It's a big sky -- someone has to watch it.

Show 175: New Moon?

outreach@stsci.edu — Thu, 07 Aug 2008 11:00:00 -0400

The Moon may be younger than originally thought – by about 30 million years. The Moon is thought to have formed after an object hit the Earth, partially melting the planet and propelling material into space. Because the Earth and Moon formed around the same time, this also brings up questions about our planet’s formation.

Show 174: Two for the Price of One

outreach@stsci.edu — Thu, 31 Jul 2008 11:00:00 -0400

The Lincoln Near-Earth Asteroid Research (LINEAR) project scans the skies for asteroids in an attempt to find 90% of all the asteroids larger than 0.6 mile (1 km) in diameter by the end of 2008. In January 2008, LINEAR found an object now called Asteroid 2008 BT18. Original calculations suggested the asteroid was going to pass nearby the earth. Asteroid orbits can be altered by the Earth’s gravity, so the trajectory was uncertain. Luckily the object passed almost six times the distance between the Earth and Moon. But astronomers got a good look at the object, which turned out to be a lot more interesting than originally thought — it’s a binary asteroid.

Show 173: HubbleWatch for July 2008

outreach@stsci.edu — Wed, 30 Jul 2008 11:00:00 -0400

A cluster of stars boasts no less than three different ages. Open clusters of stars are usually easy to date, but this one is confusing scientists with mixed messages.
Scientists have new information about the bars of stars that develop in the centers of galaxies. Barred spiral galaxies are common in today’s cosmos, but were scarce in the universe’s early history.

Show 172: The Moon's Bullseye

outreach@stsci.edu — Thu, 24 Jul 2008 11:00:00 -0400

A new, Earth-based radar has examined material ejected from a massive impact on the Moon. The impact early in the Moon’s history, by an asteroid 20-40 miles in diameter, created the crater known as Mare Orientale, a huge basin 600 miles across. Its study may help us better understand the early impact history of both Moon and Earth, and the role these impacts played in our planet’s evolution.

Show 171: Black Hole Appetites

outreach@stsci.edu — Thu, 17 Jul 2008 11:00:00 -0400

Black holes incredibly dense objects that can form at the end of a massive star’s life. Scientists thought that because black holes range in size from several times to several billion times the size of the Sun, their behavior would differ as well. But multiple observations of the black hole at the center of the galaxy M81 prove otherwise.

Show 170: Catch Some Rays

outreach@stsci.edu — Thu, 10 Jul 2008 11:00:00 -0400

The Gamma Ray Large Area Space Telescope (GLAST) launched on June 11. This observatory will scan the universe for the most powerful form of radiation known, possibly shedding light on dark matter, microscopic black holes and other cosmic mysteries. Gamma rays have the most energy of any type of light, and are created by some of the most violent events in universe.

Show 169: Dust Gets In Your Eyes

outreach@stsci.edu — Thu, 03 Jul 2008 11:00:00 -0400

Astronauts who have visited the Moon quickly discovered that they would get covered with Moon dust whenever they left their spacecraft. NASA is putting together a team to look at the dust and figure out how it could affect a return to the Moon. NASA is concerned that the dust could pose health problems or clog machinery.

Show 168: Mars Test Subjects

outreach@stsci.edu — Thu, 26 Jun 2008 11:00:00 -0400

A Russian institute is selecting macaques that may eventually fly to Mars before humans do. Twelve monkeys have flown in Russian and Soviet spaceflights, some for around two weeks. The monkey experiment is happening at same time as one simulating conditions of interplanetary flight for humans here on the ground.

Show 167: HubbleWatch for June 2008

outreach@stsci.edu — Thu, 26 Jun 2008 11:00:00 -0400

A third red spot has appeared on the surface of Jupiter, heralding the creation of a new, violent storm. Jupiter’s Great Red Spot is a storm that’s been whirling away through the planet’s atmosphere for perhaps hundreds of years. These new storms may indicate changing weather on the gas giant. A white dwarf star is missing from the center of the nebula that should house it, according to a Hubble scientist working with a team on ground-based telescopes.

Show 166: Hardy Microbes

outreach@stsci.edu — Thu, 12 Jun 2008 11:00:00 -0400

Could microbes have developed and survived in the frigid below-ground region of Mars or other solar system bodies? New results from a team developing drilling and sampling of subsurface soil in Spain found a startling result. Very tough microbes can indeed survive underneath the ground if the conditions are right, and the Mars Astrobiology Research and Technology Experiment (MARTE) team may have found the right environment.

Show 165: Brightest Explosion Ever Seen

outreach@stsci.edu — Thu, 05 Jun 2008 11:00:00 -0400

NASA’s SWIFT telescope monitors the sky for emission from powerful outbursts. On March 19, 2008, it glimpsed an explosion so bright it could be seen with the naked eye for 30 seconds despite being 7.5 billion light years away — the farthest object ever seen with human eyes. It was a gamma ray burst, one of the incredible explosions credited to the explosions of tremendously massive stars.

Show 164: HubbleWatch for May 2008

outreach@stsci.edu — Fri, 30 May 2008 11:00:00 -0400

And you think losing your car keys is a pain. Scientists have known since the 1960s that about half of the ordinary matter is missing from the universe. Now they’ve found some of it in an unusual location. A rare black hole may be nestled in the center of a cluster of stars. And astronomers are recalculating the Hubble Constant — the rate at which the universe is expanding.

Show 163: Mars' Hard Shell

outreach@stsci.edu — Thu, 29 May 2008 11:00:00 -0400

New radar observations from NASA’s latest mission to Mars indicate that the red planet’s crust and upper mantle are stiffer and colder than previously thought, which suggests any liquid water existing below surface and any organisms living in that water would have to exist deeper than suspected.

Show 162: Solar Tsunami

outreach@stsci.edu — Thu, 22 May 2008 11:00:00 -0400

The first footage of a solar “tsunami” has been captured by NASA’s Stereo spacecraft. This tsunami, obviously, has nothing to do with water — it’s a wave of pressure traveling extremely fast across the surface of the Sun. The shock wave hurtled through Sun’s atmosphere at more than 620,000 mph.