astronomy

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ET Seekers Win Big Boost
 ET Seekers Win Big Boost 
ANALYSIS
Feb 13, 2009 5:58 PM CST

ET Seekers Win Big Boost

Fringe movement attracts big donors and wide interest as its goes mainstream

(Newser) - The truth is out there, and now there’s funding to find it: Everyone from Bill Gates to Cameron Diaz is embracing the search for extraterrestrial intelligence (SETI), a movement transitioning from X-Files territory to the mainstream, the Wall Street Journal says. One astronomer left last week's prestigious TED conference...

Eye Trouble May Have Affected Galileo's Observations

Scientists want to exhume astronomer

(Newser) - Galileo’s vision problems may have distorted some of his findings, Reuters reports. Scientists want to exhume the scientist’s body to determine, through DNA tests, the exact nature of his eye condition. “If we knew exactly what was wrong with his eyes we could use computer models to...

Big Moon Rising This Weekend
 Big Moon Rising This Weekend 
Jan 10, 2009 1:03 PM CST

Big Moon Rising This Weekend

Star-gazers who missed December's perigee get a second chance to look up Saturday

(Newser) - Star-gazers are hoping for clear skies this evening, when the full moon will make its biggest and brightest appearance of 2009. As it rises at sunset, the moon will appear 14% larger and 30% brighter than the year's subsequent moons, Space.com reports. The show—the result of the moon...

Where Did Venus' Water Go?
 Where Did Venus' Water Go? 
Jan 5, 2009 4:40 PM CST

Where Did Venus' Water Go?

Solar wind appears top culprit in missing hydrogen

(Newser) - Astronomers puzzling over why Venus, formed about the same time as Earth, has so little water may have found a culprit: solar wind, Space.com reports. Scientists think both originally had about the same amount; Venus’ warmer temperatures would have caused any oceans to evaporate. Australian scientists think solar...

Moon Will Appear Extra Bright Tonight

Tonight's sky will seem 30 percent brighter than usual, NASA says

(Newser) - If tonight’s full moon looks bigger and brighter than normal, that’s because it is, Space.com reports. The satellite reaches its perigree today, making its position the closest of the year to Earth—though still some 222,000 miles away. The moon's irregular orbit causes the distance to...

Scientists Say Black Hole Lies at Center of Galaxy

Stars orbit around central nucleus 4M times heavier than sun

(Newser) - A giant black hole sits at the core of our galaxy, say astronomers who participated in a 16-year German study that monitored the movements of 28 stars circling the center of the Milky Way. “Beyond any reasonable doubt,” the stars orbit a core concentration of mass 4 million...

Jupiter, Venus, Moon Converge in Rare Reunion

Spectacular planetary 'huddle' to start tonight

(Newser) - Americans looking at the night sky this weekend will be able to see the three brightest celestial bodies come together for a Thanksgiving reunion, the AP reports. Jupiter and Venus will move closer and appear to be just a finger's width apart by Sunday. By Monday, the crescent moon will...

Scientists Identify Body of Copernicus

DNA proves elderly man buried in Poland is father of astronomy

(Newser) - More than 400 years after Copernicus determined man's place in the universe, scientists returned the favor by pinpointing his grave in an old Polish cathedral. Using DNA from a tooth and a bone, scientists identified a 70-year-old man buried in an unmarked grave as the astronomer who determined that the...

Scientists Snap First Images of New Planets

Three-planet, one-planet systems caught on camera

(Newser) - Scientists have photographed planets outside our solar system for the first time, Space.com reports. One team captured images of a three-planet system orbiting a star in the Pegasus constellation, while another group snapped a planet rotating around the star Fomalhaut. The planets can't support life or little green men,...

Nearby Solar System Looks Familiar

(Newser) - A nearby solar system looks a lot like ours, complete with newly identified asteroid belts, gas giants, and a similarly sized sun, Space.com reports. The star at the center of the system is visible without magnification, and scientists say they can infer the presence of planets in a zone...

3-D Map Adds Light Years to Concept of Universe

Survey used red shift to find relative distances of heavenly bodies

(Newser) - Telescope photographs of the night sky are compelling, but it’s hard to get a feel for the heavens when you’re Earthbound. The recently completed Sloan Digital Sky Survey can help: It is a 3-D map of the area within 2 billion light years of Earth that allows the...

Ancient Ritual Blends Faith, Technology

Muslim holy month starts on sighting of crescent moon

(Newser) - Telescopes are tilted skyward throughout the Muslim world tonight, hunting for the first glimpse of a crescent moon that signals the start of Ramadan. In an age-old mix of science and religion, astronomers and clerics gather each year to monitor the moon and announce the beginning of Islam’s holiest...

Vatican Debates Paying Tribute to Galileo

Heretic remains a touchy subject in Catholic Church

(Newser) - Galileo Galilei is riling the Catholic church yet again, the Wall Street Journal reports, as an anonymous donor has offered to pay to erect a statue in the Vatican of Catholicism’s most famous heretic. But though the church has come around on science, Galileo remains a touchy subject. He’...

Eclipse Draws 15K to Siberia
 Eclipse Draws 15K to Siberia 
Jul 31, 2008 11:01 PM CDT

Eclipse Draws 15K to Siberia

Thousands flock to Russia for rare solar spectacle despite threat of rain

(Newser) - Prospects of rare total solar eclipse have drawn thousands of sky-watchers to the Siberian city of Novosibirsk, where the moon’s passage between the earth and sun will create 140 seconds of darkness at 5:45 pm local time today. Hotels in the city—Russia’s third-largest—are fully booked,...

Scientists Explain Northern Lights

Finding could help scientists predict storms that take out satellites

(Newser) - Scientists say they have solved the mystery of what causes the dazzling northern lights to seemingly dance across the sky, Wired reports. The light show, also known as aurora borealis, is triggered by explosions of magnetic energy about 80,000 miles away. The findings—drawn from five NASA satellites working...

Dwarf Planet Gets a Name
 Dwarf Planet Gets a Name 
Jul 22, 2008 10:17 AM CDT

Dwarf Planet Gets a Name

Smaller than Pluto, Makemake is covered in frozen methane

(Newser) - The neighborhood of the solar system beyond Neptune has a new resident—or rather, an old resident with a new name. The dwarf planet originally dubbed Easterbunny will now be known as Makemake (pronounced MAH-keh MAH-keh), reports USA Today.

How to Take a Solar Eclipse Road Trip

Hit the right spot and see 93M miles into the distance

(Newser) - Thousands of people will trek to the hinterlands on August 1 just to stand in the dark for three minutes. The reason: a total solar eclipse is set to sweep over a path spanning from China to Canada. Wired clues would-be eclipse chasers in on ways to maximize each sunless...

New Planets Yield Hopes of Life Beyond

Rocky, Earth-like orbs appear to be out there; might we indeed have company?

(Newser) - The discovery, announced last week, that rocky, Earth-sized planets appear to be circling sun-sized stars in our own galaxy should thrill the closet Star Trek geek in all of us, Natalie Angier writes in the New York Times. "If planets abound, scientists suspect that life abounds, too, at least...

Astronomers Trace Homer's Wandering Hero

Experts tie Odysseus' return to Ithaca with real eclipse in 1178

(Newser) - Homer's Odyssey is 2,700 years old, and the events it describes happened centuries earlier. But two scientists claim in a new paper that they've traced one line in the epic poem—a possible reference to an eclipse—to a real astronomical event. Classicists might take issue, writes the New ...

There's a Huge Moon on the Rise

Solstice makes heavenly body look bigger tonight, tomorrow—but it's an illusion

(Newser) - Northern Hemisphere residents, check out the night sky tomorrow for an extra-large-looking moon. The moon illusion—a trick our brain plays on us—is enhanced by the summer solstice, and when Earth's satellite rises close to the horizon, conditions are perfect, LiveScience notes.

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