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 China's unmanned spacecraft Shenzhou-8 blasted off at 5:58 a.m. Beijing Time Nov 1 from the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center in northwestern desert area. Credit: CMSE China today launched the Shenzhou-8 capsule on a historic mission to accomplish the nation's first ever docking in space with another vehicle, already in orbit, and pave the way toward’s China's true ambition – constructing a multi-module space station by 2020. The unpiloted Shenzhou-8 streaked skywards today in a blinding flash atop a powerful and upgraded Long March 2F/Y8 carrier rocket in the early morning darkness and precisely on time at 5:58 a.m. Beijing time (5:58 p.m. EDT) from the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center in the Gobi Desert in northwest China. Viewers could watch a live TV broadcast from state media broadcast in English. (...)
Read the rest of China launches Shenzhou-8 bound for Historic 1st Docking in Space (644 words)
© Ken Kremer for Universe Today, 2011. | Permalink | No comment | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: China, china space program, ISS, Long March 2F, Long March rocket, Shenzhou, Shenzhou 10, Shenzhou 8, Shenzhou 9, Tiangong 1
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 Light echo of dust illuminated by nearby star V838 Monocerotis as it became 600,000 times more luminous than our Sun in January 2002. Credit: NASA/ESA Some supermassive black holes are obscured by oddly shaped dust clouds which resemble doughnuts. These clouds have been an unsolved puzzle, but last week a scientist at the University of Leicester proposed a new theory to explain the origins of these clouds, saying that they could be the results of high-speed collisions between planets and asteroids in the central region of galaxies, where the supermassive black holes reside. While black holes are a death knell for any objects wandering too close, this may mean even planets in a region nearby a black hole are doomed — but not because they would be sucked in. The central regions of galaxies just may be mayhem for planets. “Too bad for life on these planets, ” said Dr. Sergei Nayakshin, whose paper will be published in the Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society journal.
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Read the rest of Are Black Holes Planet Smashers? (343 words)
© Ray Sanders for Universe Today, 2011. | Permalink | No comment | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: Black Holes, galaxies, Unicron
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 Crepuscular Rays seen from the space station on Oct. 18, 2011. Credit: NASA Seeing crepuscular rays on Earth is a somewhat rare event, as conditions have to be just right at either sunset or sunrise for the Sun’s rays to appear as though they are diverging outward from the Sun. But seeing them from space is even more rare. This picture taken by an astronaut on the International Space Station provides an unusual viewing perspective from above of crepuscular rays. Why are they parallel in this picture instead of radiating in an outward fashion like they appear to us on Earth? This image shows the true nature of crepuscular rays: they really are parallel!
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Read the rest of Crepuscular Rays Seen From Space (166 words)
© nancy for Universe Today, 2011. | Permalink | No comment | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: Astrophotos, Crepuscular Rays, images from space, Space Station
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 Almahata Sitta 15. The black fragment of Almahata Sitta meteorite number 15 shows up black against the lighter coloured rocks of the Nubian desert in Northern Sudan. Image credit: Peter Jenniskens (SETI Institute/NASA Ames) It was an unprecedented event: On October 6, 2008, asteroid 2008 TC3 was spotted by the Catalina Sky Survey Telescope in Arizona. Plotting its trajectory, astronomers knew the 80-ton rock was heading for a collision course with Earth. Just 19 hours later, 2008 TC3 streaked over skies of northern Sudan and then exploded about 37 km above the Nubian Desert. This was the first time an asteroid was predicted – and predicted correctly — to impact Earth. Luckily, it wasn't big enough to cause any problems, and its path brought it over a remote area. But this presented scientists with an exciting and unparalleled opportunity to possibly study fragments of an asteroid that had been spectrally classified before striking Earth. Shortly afterwards, expeditions led by Dr. Peter Jenniskens, a meteor astronomer from SETI and NASA's Ames Research Center, and Mauwia Shaddad, a physicist at the University of Khartoum, collected nearly 600 pieces of the asteroid strewn over 29 kilometers of desert. Altogether the meteorites weighed less than 10 kilograms – all that was left of the 80-ton asteroid. But these fragments that fell to Earth are revealing secrets about the asteroid belt and the early days of the solar system, says Dr. Jon Friedrich from Fordham University, one of the many different researchers who have been studying pieces of the fragments, now called the "Almahata Sitta" meteorites.
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Read the rest of The Asteroid That Fell To Earth: Meteorites from 2008 TC3 Still Giving Up Their Secrets (1,038 words)
© nancy for Universe Today, 2011. | Permalink | No comment | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: 2008 TC3, Asteroids, Meteorites
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Jupiter has been putting on quite a show in the night sky lately as it officially reached opposition on October 28, 2011, making it a target of many astrophotographers as the gas giant shows itself off big and bright in the night sky. This animation from amateur astronomer Leonard E. Mercer from Malta shows Jupiter’s famous Great Red Spot moving across the surface of the mighty planet. Mercer captured a series of 12 images on the 27th and 28th (10pm – 2.00am. CET). Mercer used a C11 telescope and DMK 21 mono camera with RGB filters. “Conditions were very good!” he said. Opposition means an the planet is directly opposite the Sun as seen from Earth, which also put it at its closest point to Earth in the two planets' orbits around the Sun.
© nancy for Universe Today, 2011. | Permalink | No comment | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: Astrophotos, Jupiter, Videos
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 Moon, Pleiades and Mercury. Credit: Willian Souza Willian Souza has caught not just two, but three birds with one stone with this photo he took from Sao Paolo, Brazil. Willian captured this photo of the Crescent Moon, Pleiades and Mercury on April 26, 2009. Willian used his Canon 350D camera set at ISO 1600 + 135mm F/2.8 lens with exposure time of 1 sec. Check out Willian’s Flickr page for more astrophotos. Want to get your astrophoto featured on Universe Today? Join our Flickr group, post in our Forum or send us your images by email (this means you’re giving us permission to post them). Please explain what’s in the picture, when you took it, the equipment you used, etc.
© dcast for Universe Today, 2011. | Permalink | No comment | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: Astrophotos
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