Der Riesenstern Betelgeuse wird am Nachthimmel immer dunkler. Astrophysiker spekulieren über eine mögliche Sternenexplosion.
„Steht eine Supernova in der kosmischen Nachbarschaft bevor?“ weiterlesen
Astronomy Picture of the Day: The First Explorer
Sixty years ago, on January 31, 1958, the First Explorer was successfully launched by the Army Ballistic Missile Agency on a Jupiter-C rocket. Inaugurating the era of space exploration for the United States, Explorer I was a thirty pound satellite that carried instruments to measure temperatures, and micrometeorite impacts, along with an experiment designed by James A. Van Allen to measure the density of electrons and ions in space. The measurements made by Van Allen’s experiment led to an unexpected and then startling discovery of two earth-encircling belts of high energy electrons and ions trapped in the magnetosphere. Now known as the Van Allen Radiation belts, the regions are located in the inner magnetosphere, beyond low Earth orbit. Explorer I ceased transmitting on February 28, 1958, but remained in orbit until March of 1970.
January 31, 2018
via NASA http://ift.tt/2Gxjab3
NASA Releases Kepler Survey Catalog with Hundreds of New Planet Candidates
NASA’s Kepler space telescope team has released a mission catalog of planet candidates that introduces 219 new planet candidates, 10 of which are near-Earth size and orbiting in their star’s habitable zone, which is the range of distance from a star where liquid water could pool on the surface of a rocky planet.
June 19, 2017
via NASA http://ift.tt/2sHDMbU