Teaming Up with Hubble to Create Beauty
- By Maggie Masetti
- February 7, 2013
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Capturing the beauty of this galaxy took a team of people – and to understand the galaxy takes a team of missions. This gorgeous image of galaxy M106 was created by renowned astro-photographer Robert Gendler, who retrieved archival Hubble images to assemble a mosaic of the center of the galaxy. … Continue Reading →
A Grand Spiral
- By Maggie Masetti
- February 5, 2013
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The ultraviolet GALEX satellite just revealed the largest known spiral galaxy! NGC 6872 (a barred spiral) is 522,000 light-years across from the tip of one outstretched arm to the tip of the other, which makes it about 5 times the size of our home galaxy, the Milky Way! We recently … Continue Reading →
American Astronomical Society wrap-up
- By Sara Mitchell
- January 18, 2013
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Each December, there’s a bit of a lull in astronomy news. Not only do the holidays slow things down, but astronomers are also getting ready for the winter meeting of the American Astronomical Society (AAS) in January. These AAS meetings (there’s also a summer meeting in May or June) are … Continue Reading →
Farthest
- By Maggie Masetti
- December 18, 2012
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I was inspired to pick up where Alexe left off with her “est” blogs, and write about “Farthest,” because of some recent, cool, astronomical news. There was recently excitement over a Hubble Space Telescope discovery of seven primitive galaxies located over 13 billion light years away from us. The results … Continue Reading →
Brightest
- By Alexe Helmke
- October 16, 2012
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Welcome back to the -EST Blog! This is where we explore some of the astronomical superlatives that go the extra distance to make our universe so interesting. This time, I’ll be trying to tackle one of the brightest objects that we can see. We’re going to talk about Active Galactic … Continue Reading →
Podcast: NuStar: NASA’s Newest X-Ray Eyes
- By Sara Mitchell
- October 12, 2012
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Click to listen! (7.5MB MP3, right-click to save) Transcript (Text, PDF) It’s an exciting experience for any space geek to watch a new satellite launch into orbit. Even through an online video feed, it’s thrilling to see something that Earthlings worked for years to create headed for its new home, … Continue Reading →
What is a Galaxy?
- By Koji Mukai
- September 17, 2012
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“Galaxy,” Defined — when I came across a paper with this title while browsing a recent issue of Astronomical Journal, I was intrigued. You would think that such a widely known term, one so fundamental to modern astronomy, would have been defined a long time ago. But then, sometimes the … Continue Reading →
Awesomeness Round-Up – 8/24/2012
- By Alexe Helmke
- August 24, 2012
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Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech Curiosity has successfully made it to Mars! While it’s gotten a generous amount of press in recent days, we wanted add our own nod to the successful landing of the Mars Science Laboratory aboard its rover, Curiosity, (after its Seven Minutes of Terror) at 1:32 a.m. EDT, Aug. … Continue Reading →
Awesomeness Round-Up – 7/27/2012
- By Alexe Helmke
- July 27, 2012
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Credit: NASA, ESA, and the Hubble Heritage Team (STScI/AURA) Hubble captured this wonderful image that looks very much like an outer space firework explosion. Herbig-Haro 110 is a geyser of hot gas being blown away from a newborn star that ricochets off the dense core of a cloud of molecular … Continue Reading →
Awesomeness Round-Up – 7/6/2012
- By Alexe Helmke
- July 6, 2012
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Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech Voyager is soon to be the first man-made object to leave the solar system. Data from NASA’s Voyager 1 spacecraft indicate that this deep space explorer has entered a region in space where the number of charged particles from beyond our solar system has significantly increased. This could … Continue Reading →
