Looking Up by Bob Eklund

Searching for Intelligent Life on 86 Earth-Like Planets Now that NASA’s Kepler space telescope has identified 1,235 possible planets around stars in our galaxy, astronomers at the University of California, Berkeley, are aiming a radio …[READ MORE]

Herschel Space Observatory Lives Up to the Family Name — Astronomy is about scientific discoveries, and every week our scientists bring us new and richer views of the Universe around us. But astronomy is also …[READ MORE]

Sailing the Titan Seas: NASA Selects Mission to Saturn’s Moon — The Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory (APL) in Laurel, Md., is managing a project to explore the organic seas of Saturn’s moon Titan, …[READ MORE]

NASA Orbiter Reveals Buried Dry Ice Deposit on Mars NASA’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter has discovered that the total amount of atmosphere on Mars changes dramatically as the tilt of the planet’s axis varies. This process …[READ MORE]

School Pupils to Partner with Research Scientists – The Van Allen radiation belts are a hazardous environment, full of “killer” electrons that can be lethal to orbiting satellites. And when those electrons sometimes hit the …[READ MORE]

Adventures of a Mount Wilson Telescope Operator – A Research Technician for Mount Wilson Observatory’s CHARA Array, PJ Sallave-Goldfinger gives an informative talk on the adventurous undertaking of running this coordinated array of six telescopes. …[READ MORE]

Getting Ready for the World’s Biggest-Ever Telescope – Plans for the world’s biggest telescope—the Square Kilometer Array—advanced significantly this month with a decision to locate the project office at Jodrell Bank Observatory near Manchester, England; …[READ MORE]

When Is an Asteroid Not an Asteroid? On March 29, 1807, German astronomer Heinrich Wilhelm Olbers spotted Vesta as a moving pinprick of light in the sky. Two hundred and four years later, as NASA’s …[READ MORE]