Month: November 2009

The New Horizons spacecraft on it’s way to Pluto was scheduled to get a wake-up call on November 9 and then spend 10 days running system tests and diagnostics.  The trip to Pluto is so long (in spite of the craft’s record speed of about 23 km/sec) that it spends much of its time in …

New Horizons Wake-Up CallRead More

Okay, the rings themselves haven’t changed at all.  But it turns out that there is an outer dust ring that is about 24 million kilometers in diameter composed of dust grains that do not reflect visible light.  Because of that, it hasn’t been seen before.  NASA has a short (very short) press release showing an …

Saturn’s Ring System Just Got BiggerRead More

Here’s a project in need of (part-time) volunteers.  Classifying galaxies.  Yep, you too can become a galactic zoologist!  You can find a short teaser on the Astronomy Picture of the Day web site (APOD Oct 26, 2009) with more details at the official Galaxy Zoo web site.  Makes a good family game with older kids, …

Galaxy Zoologists Wanted!Read More