Wow, talk about “first light”…
After three years of eager anticipation, bigtime news was released Thursday from NASA’s Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe (WMAP). The spacecraft has been invaluable thus far in providing the most accurate measurements to date of variations in the cosmic microwave background radiation (anisotropies), helping cosmologists greatly refine their models describing the age […]

Today’s new press release from the Spitzer Space Telescope reveals an entirely new view of Messier Object 82, casually known as the Cigar Galaxy. Residing some 12 million light years away in the constellation Ursa Major, this irregular galaxy is a favorite target of observers and astrophotographers alike.
At top is the new false-color (infrared) image; […]

Artist’s concept of the ST5 spacecraft. Image Credit: NASA
NASA’s Space Technology 5 spacecraft (ST5) launch was aborted today. A locking pin in the Orbital Science’s Pegasus XL rocket’s flight control service mechanism did not retract just prior to launch. Orbital Sciences and NASA engineers will diagnose and correct the problem.
A new launch date will be […]

Image Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech
Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter has successfully completed its Mars Orbital Insertion, becoming the third spacecraft in orbit around the red planet. Mission Control indicates that the spacecraft and systems are in good health.
Project manager Dr. Jim Graf stated that the orbital insertion process went flawlessly, and that they couldn’t have scripted it any better. […]

New from the Chandra X-Ray
Observatory:
This X-ray/optical composite image
of the large spiral galaxy NGC
2841 shows multimillion degree gas
(blue/X-ray) rising above the disk of
stars and cooler gas (gray/optical).
The rapid outflows of gas from
giant stars, and supernova explo-
sions in the disk of a galaxy create
huge shells or bubbles of hot gas
that expand rapidly and rise above
the disk like […]

Image credit: NASA
The W.M. Keck Observatory, perched over two and a half miles up on the summit of Hawaii’s Mauna Kea, is home to an arsenal of cutting-edge astronomical instruments. The most familiar: Keck I and Keck II, the world’s largest optical and infared telescopes.
Each houses a mammoth 10 meters (33 feet) of aperture, composed […]

Wow. Just released this morning, from the Hubble Space Telescope:

Image Credit: NASA and ESA
Giant galaxies weren’t assembled in a day. Neither was this Hubble Space Telescope image of the face-on spiral galaxy Messier 101 (M101). It is the largest and most detailed photo of a spiral galaxy that has ever been released from Hubble. The […]