Launch of a Delta IV Heavy

2010-12-14 Ben Cooper

It is the tallest rocket in active use. The Delta IV Heavy is the largest of the Delta series, packing the punch of three rocket boosters instead of the usual one. The resulting rocket, the most powerful in use by the US Air Force, is capable of ...

Contemplating the Sky

2010-12-13 Amir Taheri

Have you contemplated your sky recently? Tonight will be a good one for midnight meditators at many northerly locations as meteors from the Geminids meteor shower will frequently streak through. The Geminds meteor shower has slowly been ...

Leonids Above Torre de la Guaita

2010-12-12 Juan Carlos Casado

In 1999, Leonids Meteor Shower came to an impressive crescendo. Observers in Europe saw a sharp peak in the number of meteors visible around 0210 UTC during the early morning hours of November 18. Meteor counts then exceeded 1000 per hour - the ...

Meteor in the Desert Sky

2010-12-11 Wally Pacholka

Created as planet Earth sweeps through dusty debris from mysterious, asteroid-like, 3200 Phaethon, the annual Geminid Meteor Shower should be the best meteor shower of the year. The Geminids are predicted to peak on the night of December 13/14, ...

A Twilight Occultation

2010-12-10 Doug Zubenel

A thin, one day old crescent Moon hugged the western horizon after sunset on Monday, December 6. The Moon also occulted or passed in front of Mars. But only some well-placed skygazers along a band through North America were able to catch this ...

M81 and Arp's Loop

2010-12-09 R Jay GaBany

One of the brightest galaxies in planet Earth's sky and similar in size to the Milky Way, big, beautiful spiral M81 lies 11.8 million light-years away in the northern constellation Ursa Major. This deep image of the region reveals details in the ...

Intrepid Crater on Mars

2010-12-08

The robotic rover Opportunity has chanced across another small crater on Mars. Pictured above is Intrepid Crater, a 20-meter across impact basin slightly larger than Nereus Crater that Opportunity chanced across last year. The above image is in ...

Too Close to a Black Hole

2010-12-07 Alain Riazuelo

What would you see if you went right up to a black hole? Above is a computer generated image highlighting how strange things would look. The black hole has such strong gravity that light is noticeably bent towards it - causing some very unusual ...

Mono Lake: Home to the Strange...

2010-12-06

How strange could alien life be? An indication that the fundamental elements that compose most terrestrial life forms might differ out in the universe was found in unusual Mono Lake in California, USA. Bacteria in Mono's lakebed gives indications ...

Moonrise Through Mauna Kea's Shadow

2010-12-05 Michael Connelley

How can the Moon rise through a mountain? It cannot -- what was photographed here is a moonrise through the shadow of a large volcano. The volcano is Mauna Kea, Hawai'i, USA, a frequent spot for spectacular photographs since it is arguably the ...