Possible Impact Tonite! October 6, 2008
Posted by webmaster in : Astro News, Astro News & Commentary , add a commentA quick shout out; asteroid 2008 TC3 is forecast to burn up in the Earth’s atmosphere early in the AM Tuesday morning over Sudan. The tiny NEO is about 10 meters in diameter, and is scheduled to burn up at about 2:46 UT on October 7th, 2008. It may put on quite a show! We here at Astroguyz composed a quick video in Starry Night and posted it at our companion Youtube site. The view in the video is from the perspective of the asteroid coming in over the night side of the Earth. The asteroid itself will be visible to the Eastern US a few hours prior to impact, but of course, weather prospects don’t look good!
Astro-event for October 6th-12th, 2008: Spot the Hubble Space Telescope!
Posted by webmaster in : Astro News & Commentary, Weekly Astro-events , add a comment
Save the Hubble! (Credit: NASA).
I almost didn’t do this weeks’ event. The Hubble space telescope is in trouble. This past week, the failure of Hubble’s Control Unit- Side A has meant that the telescope is effectively crippled in space; engineers will attempt to transfer services to the Side -B backup, which hasn’t been used since the telescope was put in orbit in 1990. (more…)
October 2008: News & Notes. October 1, 2008
Posted by webmaster in : Astro News, Astro News & Commentary , add a comment(Newsflash- NASA announced recently that STS-125, the final servicing mission to the Hubble Space Telescope, will be delayed indefinitely due to a failure of the telescopes’ main control unit. Engineers are looking at options to restart a backup unit. That also scrubs Astroguyz’s mission to cover the launch live! click here for more info!)
First Exoplanet Pic? (Credit: Gemini North Telescope).
First Image of an Exo-Planet: Astronomers utilizing the Gemini North telescope have produced what may be the first image ever of an exo-planet. The three person team from the University of Toronto used the adaptive optics of the enormous telescope to image the object in the glare of 1RXS J160929.1-210524, about 500 light years distant. (more…)