Looking Up

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]

Wasted Lights and Wasted Nights: Globe at Night Tracks Light Pollution Poorly aimed and unshielded outdoor lights are more than an annoyance. They waste more than $2 billion (17 billion kilowatt-hours) of energy in the …[READ MORE]

MESSENGER Spacecraft Enters Mercury Orbit After more than a dozen laps through the inner solar system and six planetary flybys, NASA’s MESSENGER spacecraft was scheduled to move into orbit around the planet Mercury on March …[READ MORE]

Scientists Study 4 Billion-Year-Old Meteorite– Scientists have performed a microprobe analysis of the core and outer layers of a pea-size piece of a meteorite some 4.57 billion years old to reconstruct the history of its …[READ MORE]

Is the Sun’s Heat Output Changing? NASA’s Glory Mission Intends to Find Out – Rocket Also Carries Tiny Student-Built Satellite — A University of Colorado Boulder instrument for studying changes in the Sun’s brightness and …[READ MORE]

NASA Releases Images of Man-Made Crater on Comet – NASA’s Stardust spacecraft returned new images of a comet showing a scar resulting from the 2005 Deep Impact mission. The images also showed the comet has …[READ MORE]

NASA Finds Earth-Size Planet Candidates In Habitable Zone, Six Planet System — NASA’s Kepler mission has discovered its first Earth-size planet candidates and its first candidates in the habitable zone, a region where liquid water …[READ MORE]