Friday, September 3, 2010 Mercury is at inferior conjunction. Mercury will reappear from the glare of the Sun in the 2nd week of September in the morning sky.
Nasa Image of the Day
Orbital Sunrise

Orbital Sunrise

The Expedition 24 crew on the International Space Station photographed this image of polar mesospheric clouds illuminated by an orbital sunrise. Polar mesospheric, or noctilucent ("night shining"), clouds usually are seen at twilight, following the setting of the sun below the horizon and darkening of Earth's surface. Occasionally the station's orbital track becomes nearly parallel to Earth's day/night terminator for a time, allowing the clouds to be visible to the crew at times other than the usual twilight because of the station's altitude. This photograph shows polar mesospheric clouds illuminated by the rising, rather than setting, sun at center right. Low clouds on the horizon appear yellow and orange, while higher clouds and aerosols are illuminated a brilliant white. Polar mesospheric clouds appear as light blue ribbons extending across the top of the image. The station was located over the Greek island of Kos in the Aegean Sea (near the southwestern coastline of Turkey) when the image was taken at approximately midnight local time. The orbital complex was tracking northeastward, nearly parallel to the terminator, making it possible to observe an apparent "sunrise" located almost due north. A similar unusual alignment of the ISS orbit track, terminator position and seasonal position of Earth's orbit around the sun allowed for this striking imagery of over the Southern Hemisphere. Image Credit: NASA

Celestial Events this Month

September 1 - M45 within 53' of the Moon

September 3 - Inferior conjunction of Mercury

September 7 - Mercury is within 2° of the Moon

September 8 - New Moon

September 11 - Venus is within 19' of the Moon

September 15 - First quarter Moon

September 16 - Final Space Shuttle Flight. IF all goes according to plan, this day will see the final flight of the Space Shuttle. The orbiter Discovery will depart on mission STS-133 and bring to a close the 30+ year era of space shuttles as the work horses of the United States space program. After this flight, the remaining shuttle orbiters will find their final resting places in museums across the country.

September 21 - Jupiter at Opposition. The Solar System's largest planet will be at its closest approach to Earth. This is the best time to view and photograph Jupiter and its moons. The giant planet will be a big and bright as it gets in the night sky. A medium-sized telescope should be able to show you some of the details in Jupiter's cloud bands.

September 22 - Uranus at Opposition. The blue-green planet will be at its closest approach to Earth. This is the best time to view Uranus, although it will only appear as a tiny blue-green dot in all but the most powerful telescopes.

September 23 - The Autumnal Equinox occurs in the northern hemisphere at 03:09 UT. There will be equal amounts of day and night. This is also the first day of fall.

September 23 - Full Moon

September 28 - M45 is within 1° of the Moon

Buy A Star Gift - Name a star for any occasion, view it live on Google Sky

Astronomy.co.uk Star Naming Service
Name a star for yourself or for that special person as the perfect gift that will sparkle for a lifetime. Choose from any constellation and we will select a star unique to you and, unlike similar services, your star will be stored in Astronomy.co.uk's Universal Star Registry, an on-line searchable database you can check at anytime to verify that your chosen star is yours and yours alone!

Astronomy News
New Hubble Observations of Supernova 1987A Trace Shock Wave
Thu, 02 Sep 2010 14:00:00 -0400


An international team of astronomers using the Hubble Space Telescope reports a significant brightening of the emissions from Supernova 1987A. The results, which appear in this week's Science magazine, are consistent with theoretical predictions about how supernovae interact with their immediate galactic environment.


Recipe for water: just add starlight
Thu, 2 Sep 2010 09:00:00 +0100

ESA’s Herschel infrared space observatory has discovered that ultraviolet starlight is the key ingredient for making water in space. It is the only explanation for why a dying star is surrounded by a gigantic cloud of hot water vapour.

NASA, Newseum Invite Media To Discover And Encounter Comets
Thu, 02 Sep 2010 00:00:00 EDT

NASA will commemorate a quarter-century of comet discoveries and discuss upcoming comet encounters during a symposium at 9 a.m. EDT on Friday, Sept. 10, in the Knight Studio of the Newseum.

Cluster turns the invisible into the visible
Wed, 1 Sep 2010 10:00:00 +0100

Cluster has spent a decade revealing previously hidden interactions between the Sun and Earth. Its studies have uncovered secrets of the aurora, solar storms, and given us insight into fundamental processes that occur across the Universe. And there is more work to do.

Mars’s mysterious elongated crater
Fri, 27 Aug 2010 09:00:00 +0100

Orcus Patera is an enigmatic elliptical depression near Mars’s equator, in the eastern hemisphere of the planet. Located between the volcanoes of Elysium Mons and Olympus Mons, its formation remains a mystery.

NASA's Kepler Mission Discovers Two Planets Transiting Same Star
Thu, 26 Aug 2010 00:00:00 EDT

NASA's Kepler spacecraft has discovered the first confirmed planetary system with more than one planet crossing in front of, or transiting, the same star.

ESA’s pioneering Cluster mission is celebrating its 10th anniversary – Invitation to a media briefing on 1 September 2010
Wed, 25 Aug 2010 10:42:00 +0100

ESA PR 2010-19 Media representatives are cordially invited to a briefing on the occasion of ten years of scientific discoveries by ESA’s Cluster mission.

First Use of Cosmic Lens to Probe Dark Energy
Thu, 19 Aug 2010 14:00:00 -0400


An international team of astronomers using NASA's Hubble Space Telescope has devised a new method for measuring perhaps the greatest puzzle of our universe dark energy. This mysterious phenomenon, discovered in 1998, is pushing our universe apart at ever-increasing speeds. The team's results appear in the August 20, 2010 issue of the journal Science.


An "Island Universe" in the Coma Cluster
Tue, 10 Aug 2010 09:00:00 -0400


A long-exposure Hubble Space Telescope image shows a majestic face-on spiral galaxy located deep within the Coma Cluster of galaxies, which lies 320 million light-years away in the northern constellation Coma Berenices. The galaxy, known as NGC 4911, contains rich lanes of dust and gas near its center. These are silhouetted against glowing newborn star clusters and iridescent pink clouds of hydrogen, the existence of which indicates ongoing star formation. Hubble has also captured the outer spiral arms of NGC 4911, along with thousands of other galaxies of varying sizes. The high resolution of Hubble's cameras, paired with considerably long exposures, made it possible to observe these faint details.


A Galactic Spectacle
Thu, 05 Aug 2010 11:00:00 -0400


A beautiful new image of two colliding galaxies has been released by NASA's Great Observatories. The Antennae galaxies, located about 62 million light-years from Earth, are shown in this composite image from the Chandra X-ray Observatory (blue), the Hubble Space Telescope (gold and brown), and the Spitzer Space Telescope (red). The imaging data were taken in 1999, 2003, 2004, and 2005. The Antennae galaxies take their name from the long antenna-like "arms," seen in wide-angle views of the system. These features were produced by tidal forces generated in the collision.


Instruments selected for Mars
Mon, 2 Aug 2010 09:00:00 +0100

ESA PR-17 2010 ESA and NASA have selected the scientific instruments for their first joint Mars mission. Scheduled for 2016, it will study the chemical makeup of the martian atmosphere, including methane. Discovered in 2003, methane could point to life on the Red Planet.

Hyperfast Star Was Booted from Milky Way
Thu, 22 Jul 2010 09:00:00 -0400


A hundred million years ago, a triple-star system was traveling through the bustling center of our Milky Way galaxy when it made a life-changing misstep. The trio wandered too close to the galaxy's giant black hole, which captured one of the stars and hurled the other two out of the Milky Way. Adding to the stellar game of musical chairs, the two outbound stars merged to form a super-hot, blue star.


NASA Telescope Finds Elusive Buckyballs In Space For First Time
Thu, 22 Jul 2010 00:00:00 EDT

Astronomers using NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope have discovered carbon molecules, known as "buckyballs," in space for the first time. Buckyballs are soccer-ball-shaped molecules that were first observed in a laboratory 25 years ago.

Cluster's decade of discovery
Fri, 16 Jul 2010 10:00:00 +0100

ESA’s pioneering Cluster mission is celebrating its 10th anniversary. During the past decade, Cluster’s four satellites have provided extraordinary insights into the largely invisible interaction between the Sun and Earth.

NASA's WISE Mission Ready to Complete Extensive Sky Survey
Fri, 16 Jul 2010 00:00:00 EDT

NASA's Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer, or WISE, will complete its first survey of the entire sky on July 17.

Superhot Planet Likely Possesses Comet-like Tail
Thu, 15 Jul 2010 09:00:00 -0400


As if the debate over what is and what is not a planet hasn't gotten confusing enough, Hubble Space Telescope astronomers have now confirmed the existence of a tortured, baked object that could be called a "cometary planet." The gas giant planet, dubbed HD 209458b, is orbiting so close to its star that its heated atmosphere is escaping away into space. Now, observations by the new Cosmic Origins Spectrograph (COS) aboard NASA's Hubble suggest that powerful stellar winds are sweeping the castoff material behind the scorched planet and shaping it into a comet-like tail.


NASA Finds Super Hot Planet With Unique Comet-Like Tail
Thu, 15 Jul 2010 00:00:00 EDT

Astronomers using NASA's Hubble Space Telescope have confirmed the existence of a baked object that could be called a "cometary planet." The gas giant planet, named HD 209458b, is orbiting so close to its star that its heated atmosphere is escaping into space.

Rosetta triumphs at asteroid Lutetia
Sat, 10 Jul 2010 15:00:00 +0100

Asteroid Lutetia has been revealed as a battered world of many craters. ESA’s Rosetta mission has returned the first close-up images of the asteroid showing it is most probably a primitive survivor from the violent birth of the Solar System.

"Hubble Repairman" Becomes Research Professor at Johns Hopkins University
Thu, 08 Jul 2010 11:00:00 -0400


NASA astronaut John Grunsfeld has walked in space eight times and logged more than 800 hours floating in that deep, dark void over the course of five space flights, including three to service the Hubble Space Telescope. Now, he is about to explore a new frontier: The Johns Hopkins University.


Starburst Cluster Shows Celestial Fireworks
Tue, 06 Jul 2010 09:00:00 -0400


Like a July 4 fireworks display, a young, glittering collection of stars looks like an aerial burst. The cluster is surrounded by clouds of interstellar gas and dustthe raw material for new star formation. The nebula, located 20,000 light-years away in the constellation Carina, contains a central cluster of huge, hot stars, called NGC 3603. Star clusters like NGC 3603 provide important clues to understanding the origin of massive star formation in the early, distant universe.


Planck unveils the Universe – now and then
Mon, 5 Jul 2010 10:02:00 +0100

ESA PR-15 2010 ESA’s Planck mission has delivered its first all-sky image. It not only provides new insight into the way stars and galaxies form but also tells us how the Universe itself came to life after the Big Bang.

Call for Media: Rosetta flyby of asteroid Lutetia on 10 July
Wed, 30 Jun 2010 14:19:00 +0100

ESA PR-14 2010: The media are invited to ESA's Space Operations Centre in Darmstadt, Germany, to follow Rosetta's encounter with asteroid Lutetia on 10 July, 18:00–23:00 CEST. The first images of the asteroid will be released before midnight, with experts available for interview.

Rocky mounds and a plateau on Mars
Mon, 28 Jun 2010 09:00:00 +0100

When Mars Express set sail for the crater named after Portuguese navigator Ferdinand Magellan, it found a windblown plateau and mysterious rocky mounds nearby.

Mysterious Flash on Jupiter Left No Debris Cloud
Wed, 16 Jun 2010 09:00:00 -0400


Detailed observations made by the Wide Field Camera 3 on NASA's Hubble Space Telescope have found an answer to the flash of light seen June 3 on Jupiter. It came from a giant meteor burning up high above Jupiter's cloud tops. The space visitor did not plunge deep enough into the atmosphere to explode and leave behind any telltale cloud of debris, as seen in previous Jupiter collisions.


NASA Releases Kepler Data On Potential Extrasolar Planets
Tue, 15 Jun 2010 00:00:00 EDT

NASA's Kepler Mission has released 43 days of science data on more than 156,000 stars.

NASA Awards Space Network Ground Segment Sustainment Contract
Tue, 15 Jun 2010 00:00:00 EDT

NASA has awarded the Space Network Ground Segment Sustainment project contract to General Dynamics C4 Systems of Scottsdale, Ariz.

Hubble Images Suggest Rogue Asteroid Smacked Jupiter
Thu, 03 Jun 2010 09:00:00 -0400


Without warning, a mystery object struck Jupiter on July 19, 2009, leaving a dark bruise the size of the Pacific Ocean. The spot first caught the eye of an amateur astronomer in Australia, and soon, observatories around the world, including NASA's Hubble Space Telescope, were zeroing in on the unexpected blemish. Astronomers had witnessed this kind of cosmic event before. Similar scars had been left behind during the course of a week in July 1994, when more than 20 pieces of Comet P/Shoemaker-Levy 9 (SL9) plunged into Jupiter's atmosphere. The 2009 impact occurred during the same week, 15 years later.


NASA'S Swift Survey Finds 'Smoking Gun' Of Black Hole Activation
Wed, 26 May 2010 00:00:00 EDT

Data from an ongoing survey by NASA's Swift satellite have helped astronomers solve a decades-long mystery about why a small percentage of black holes emit vast amounts of energy.

NASA Holds Media Briefing On Results Of Black Hole Survey
Mon, 24 May 2010 00:00:00 EDT

NASA will hold a media teleconference Wednesday, May 26, at 1 p.m. EDT, to discuss new results from the Swift satellite's survey of active black holes.

NASA's Webb Telescope Passes Key Mission Design Review Milestone
Wed, 28 Apr 2010 00:00:00 EDT

NASA's James Webb Space Telescope has passed its most significant mission milestone to date, the Mission Critical Design Review.

The Sky Tonight
Book Store
Planisphere UK Edition(50° N)Planisphere UK Edition(50° N)

Astronomy.co.uk has teamed up with Amazon.co.uk to bring you the finest selection of astronomy related books at the best prices.

Browse through our bookstore and check out our fine selection of books from star charts and astrophotography to mathematical astronomy. We are sure you will find the book that best suits your needs.

Sky View Cafe
Sky View Cafe

Sky View Café is a Java applet that lets you use your web browser to see many types of astronomical information, in both graphical and numerical form. You can see which stars and planets will be out tonight in the sky above your home town, see how the next solar or lunar eclipse will look from London, or find out when the Moon rose over Sydney on your birthday ten years ago. Sky View Café includes star charts, a 3-D orrery, displays of the moons of Jupiter and Saturn, an astronomical event calendar, an ephemeris generator, and many other features. Enter Sky View Café now!