Overlooked No More: Beatrice Tinsley, Astronomer Who Saw the Course of the Universe

more »
An insurgent who challenged the academic establishment and became a foremost expert on the aging of galaxies, she was eventually forced to choose between family and career.
via New York Times

Solar corona is more structured, dynamic than previously thought

more »
Scientists have discovered never-before-detected, fine-grained structures in the Sun's outer atmosphere, or corona. The team imaged this critical region in detail using sophisticated software techniques and longer exposures from the COR-2 camera on board NASA's Solar and Terrestrial Relations Observatory-A (STEREO-A).
via Science Daily
Zazzle Space Exploration market place

Scientists recover possible fragments of meteorite that landed in marine sanctuary

more »
The largest recorded meteorite to strike the United States in 21 years fell into NOAA's Olympic Coast National Marine Sanctuary, and researchers have recovered what are believed to be pieces of the dense, interstellar rock after conducting the first intentional hunt for a meteorite at sea.
via Science Daily
Zazzle Space Exploration market place

Planck: Final data from the mission lends support to the standard cosmological model

more »
With its increased reliability and its data on the polarization of relic radiation, the Planck mission corroborates the standard cosmological model with unrivaled precision for these parameters, even if some anomalies still remain.
via Science Daily
Zazzle Space Exploration market place

Finding a planet with a 10 year orbit in just a few months

more »
To discover the presence of a planet around stars, astronomers wait until it has completed three orbits. However, this effective technique has its drawbacks since it cannot confirm the presence of planets at relatively long periods. To overcome this obstacle, astronomers have developed a method that makes it possible to ensure the presence of a planet in a few months, even if it takes 10 years to circle its star.
via Science Daily
Zazzle Space Exploration market place

Martian atmosphere behaves as one

more »

New research using a decade of data from ESA’s Mars Express has found clear signs of the complex martian atmosphere acting as a single, interconnected system, with processes occurring at low and mid levels significantly affecting those seen higher up.

via ESA Space Science
http://www.esa.int/Our_Activities/Space_Science/Mars_Express/Martian_atmosphere_behaves_as_one

Supersharp images from new VLT adaptive optics

more »
ESO's Very Large Telescope (VLT) has achieved first light with a new adaptive optics mode called laser tomography -- and has captured remarkably sharp test images of the planet Neptune and other objects. The MUSE instrument working with the GALACSI adaptive optics module, can now use this new technique to correct for turbulence at different altitudes in the atmosphere. It is now possible to capture images from the ground at visible wavelengths that are sharper than those from the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope.
via Science Daily
Zazzle Space Exploration market place

79 Moons of Jupiter and Counting

more »
The latest survey of the region around the gas giant turned up a dozen new moons, including an oddball that was going in the wrong direction.
via New York Times

Spinning-top asteroids, from Rosetta to Hayabusa2 – and maybe Hera

more »

As Japan’s Hayabusa2 drew closer to its target Ryugu asteroid, a strange new planetoid came into view – but one with a somewhat familiar shape. This distinct ‘spinning top’ asteroid class has been seen repeatedly in recent years, and might give a foretaste of things to come for ESA’s proposed Hera mission.

via ESA Space Science
http://www.esa.int/Our_Activities/Space_Engineering_Technology/Hera/Spinning-top_asteroids_from_Rosetta_to_Hayabusa2_and_maybe_Hera