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Happy birthday, Spitzer!

Seems like only yesterday we were celebrating the 5th birthday of the Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope. As it turns out, there’s another space telescope celebrating a big anniversary – the Spitzer Space Telescope just turned ten on August 25th! I know talk a lot about JWST and how amazing it’s … Continue Reading →

Why infrared? (nebula edition)

As someone who fields a lot of questions about the James Webb Space Telescope, a giant infrared observatory being built right now, I see a lot of “Why infrared?” questions. There are a lot of answers to this, but here’s one I think is particularly interesting and illustrative of why … Continue Reading →

American Astronomical Society wrap-up

Well, it happened again, guys!  The 222nd biannual meeting of the American Astronomical Society (AAS) held at the Indiana Convention Center, that’s what. For those of you not in the loop, the American Astronomical Society is a professional society for astronomers devoted to promoting astronomy and like sciences as well … Continue Reading →

Teaming Up with Hubble to Create Beauty

  • By Maggie Masetti
  • February 7, 2013
  • Comments Off on Teaming Up with Hubble to Create Beauty

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 →

American Astronomical Society wrap-up

  • By Sara Mitchell
  • January 18, 2013
  • Comments Off on American Astronomical Society wrap-up

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 →

Awesomeness Roundup

Awesomeness Round-Up – 6/11/2012

On Tuesday, June 5, Venus passed in front of the Sun – an event that was visible on seven continents for those that were fortunate enough to have clear weather. These “transits” of Venus are very rare, coming in pairs separated by more than a hundred years. This June’s transit, … Continue Reading →

Awesomeness Roundup

Awesomeness Round-Up – 3/5/2012

Credit: NASA, ESA, CFHT, CXO, M.J. Jee (University of California, Davis), and A. Mahdavi (San Francisco State University) Astronomers have observed what appears to be a clump of dark matter left behind from a wreck between massive clusters of galaxies. The result could challenge current theories about dark matter. The … Continue Reading →

Awesomeness Roundup

Awesomeness Round-Up – 1/31/2012

This is a doozy of a round-up, thanks to the American Astronomical Society meeting mid-month! Maggie already blogged about some of the interesting exoplanet news that came out at the meeting. Here, we’ll cover some of the other big astrophysics releases at AAS! But first… a gorgeous image from the … Continue Reading →

Hunting for Hints of Planets

Hunting for Hints of Planets

Last week, about 120 exoplanet-hunters from as far away as Japan and the Netherlands descended upon NASA Goddard for the Signposts of Planets conference, an opportunity for scientists to discuss cutting-edge research on the detection and study of extrasolar planets in the debris disks around stars. The three-day event included … Continue Reading →

Awesomeness Round-up

Awesomeness Round-Up – 10/3/2011

There are gorgeous new shots of a full-scale test version of one layer of the James Webb Space Telescope’s tennis court-sized sunshield: Credit: NGAS Credit: NGAS There are two more on their Flickr.

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