SUNSET: 
Celestron Sold (Again)
Celestron has maintained its business offices and manufacturing facilities in this building in Torrance, California, since the mid-1970s.S&T photo by Rick Fienberg. After nearly a week of Internet-fueled rumors and speculation, California-based telescope maker Celestron announced on April 6th that the company had been purchased by SW Technology Corp., an…
The April 8th Eclipse of the Sun
In early April, observers in many parts of the Americas will see the Moon make a dent in the edge of the Sun.
Astro News Briefs: March 28–April 3
Exoplanet Image Update April 1, 2005 | The purported planet around GQ Lupi may not be a planet at all. The newly released paper by Neuhauser and his colleagues suggest that the object in question could be as much as 42 Jupiter masses. Brown dwarfs are, by definition, between 13…
The April 24th Penumbral Lunar Eclipse
Observing an eclipse isn't usually challenging, but detecting the pale outer fringe of Earth's shadow on the full lunar face can be tricky.
The Milky Way's New Neighbor
Many of the faint stars in this image belong to the newly discovered Ursa Major dwarf galaxy. The 5-by-5-arcminute image, taken with the 3.5-meter telescope at the Apache Point Observatory, covers the inner half of the galaxy.Courtesy Andrew West (University of Washington) / Apache Point Observatory. The Milky Way's family…
Comet-Crashing Mission's Myopic Eye
NASA's Deep Impact spacecraft, which is en route for a July 4th encounter with Comet Tempel 1, has an out of focus primary camera.
NGC 1316: Dust in the Wind
Dust clouds silhouetted against the giant galaxy NGC 1316 are all that remain of a swallowed spiral.
Dark Days for Dark Energy?
Some say no new mystery force is needed to explain why the universe's expansion is speeding up.
Hale-Bopp: The Comet That Doesn't Quit
Eight years after Comet Hale-Bopp dazzled astronomers as it passed through the inner solar system, the dirty snowball is still detectable.
Exoplanets: The Heat Is On
Not a pleasant place to be: a hot Jupiter hovers near its parent star. This composite image combines art of an exoplanet and a TRACE satellite image of magnetic loops of hot gas on the Sun.Courtesy David Aguilar (CfA) / TRACE / NASA. For the first time ever, astronomers have…
Enceladus's "Invisible" Atmosphere
Scientists using the Cassini orbiter's magnetometer have found a tenuous atmosphere around the water-ice-rich moon of Saturn.
The Rovers that Never Die
The Mars Exploration Rovers, nearly a year past the end of their primary mission, continue to amaze scientists.
Resurrecting Genesis
Scientists have salvaged solar wind particles from the Genesis spacecraft's twisted wreckage and shattered collection wafers.
Gusev Crater's True Nature
On March 10, 2005, Spirit's rear hazard-avoidance camera captured a Martian dust devil (arrowed) about 1.1 kilometers (0.7 mile) from the rover. Over the weekend, a dust devil apparently cleared off most of the dust on Spirit's solar panels, which has increased the rover's power output by about 50 percent.…
President Nominates New NASA Chief
President George W. Bush has nominated physicist and aerospace engineer Michael D. Griffin to serve as the next administrator of the US space agency.
The Most Massive Stars
The Arches Cluster is the most spectacular young star cluster in the Milky Way Galaxy. Located about 25,000 light-years away near the galactic center, it is home to about a dozen stars with more than 100 solar masses. The high resolution of this Hubble Space Telescope image, taken by the…
Hans Bethe
(1906—2005)
Hans Bethe earned the Nobel Prize for determining how stars generate energy. This research remains one of the greatest contributions to our understanding of the universe.Courtesy Cornell University. Hans Bethe, one of the towering figures of 20th-century astrophysics, died on Sunday, March 6th, at his home in Ithaca, New York,…
Astro Image in the News:
Rosetta Buzzes Earth
Many sky photographers caught the little Rosetta probe as it whizzed by Earth on its way to landing on a comet in 2014.
Watch a Spacecraft Buzzing Earth
European observers can catch the interplanetary Rosetta craft zipping by at 8th or 9th magnitude on March 4th.
Einstein Passes New Tests
A binary pulsar system provides an excellent laboratory for testing some of the most bizarre predictions of general relativity. The two pulsars in the J0737-3039 system are actually very far apart compared to their sizes. In a true scale model, if the pulsars were the sizes of marbles, they would…
