Calling all cosmophysicists
Fundamental physics is a new activity for ESA, although it has ambitious plans to launch LISA, a set of three spacecraft that would detect gravitational waves. It is also considering proposals to test...
Read article: Hubble prepares for the next ten years
Hubble prepares for the next ten years
Recently a “second decade” working group looked at the future of the billion-dollar telescope, which is funded by NASA and the European Space Agency. After ten years in orbit, what more ca...
Read article: Hubble sees mystery object
Hubble sees mystery object
There are four possible explanations for the object: a highly obscured galaxy, an old elliptical galaxy at redshift 3 or 4, a galaxy at redshift 12, or an intergalactic carbon star. However, there are...
Astronomers look to ‘virtual’ observatories
The first virtual observatory to receive significant funding will be a European project called ASTROVIRTEL, which is based at the ESO headquarters in Garching, Germany. European astronomers will be ab...
Comet Hyakutake makes a mark on Ulysses
Ulysses was launched to make continuous measurements of the solar wind, a steady stream of ionized particles that flows outwards from the star. In 1998 Pete Riley and colleagues from Los Alamos Nation...
Space-based telescope will look for Earth-like planets
“Microlensing is the only way low-mass planets can be detected from the ground,” says Sun Hong Rhie from the University of Notre Dame and a member of MPS team. Rhie and his colleague David...
ESA gets flexible
The three space science missions are: STORMS, a set of three spacecraft that will be used to monitor magnetic storms in space; SOLAR ORBITER, a mission to study the surface and atmosphere of the Sun i...
Read article: X-ray telescope burns-up
X-ray telescope burns-up
Meanwhile, ESA this week released the first two images from XMM-Newton. One shows the Magellanic Cloud, with hot gas released from supernova explosions and new stars being created in a interstellar nu...
Read article: Hubble back in business
Hubble back in business
Eskimo Nebula is 5000 light years from Earth and resembles a face inside a furry parka when viewed from ground-based telescopes. Hubble resolved the ‘hood’ into a disk of material containi...
Adaptive-optics to cover the sky
Adaptive-optic telescopes differ from normal telescopes by using a thin flexible primary mirror that can easily be deformed. A bright guide star near the observing area acts as a “beacon” ...
