Temporary Radiation Belt Discovered at Saturn

A new, temporary radiation belt has been detected at Saturn, located about 377,000 km from the center of the planet, near the orbit of the moon Dione. The temporary radiation belt was short-lived and formed three times in 2005. It was observed as sudden increases in the intensity of high energy charged particles in the inner part of Saturn's magnetosphere, in the vicinity of the moons Dione and Tethys, and likely was caused by a change in the intensities of cosmic rays at Saturn.
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Jupiter Captured Comet as Temporary Moon

Jupiter's gravity well has been known to capture objects – evidenced by the recent impact on the gas giant discovered by amateur astronomer Anthony Wesley. But one object captured by Jupiter in the mid 1900's was later able to escape from the planet's clutches. Researchers have found comet 147P/Kushida-Muramatsu was captured as a temporary moon of Jupiter, and remained trapped in an irregular orbit for about twelve years. "Our results demonstrate some of the routes taken by cometary bodies through interplanetary space that can allow them either to enter or to escape situations where they are in orbit around the planet Jupiter,” said team member Dr. David Archer.
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LCROSS Impact Site on Moon Announced: Cabeus A

On October 9, 2009, at 7:30 a.m. EDT professional and amateur astronomers alike will be focusing their telescopes on the south pole of the Moon, hoping to see a little fireworks. Or more accurately, they are hoping to see ice. NASA will be sending the upper stage of a Centaur rocket to impact a permanently shadowed crater, along with the Lunar Crater Observation and Sensing Satellite, or LCROSS which will fly into the plume of dust left by the impact and measure the properties of the dust to look for water ice hidden inside the crater. LCROSS will collide with the lunar surface. Team scientists have been debating what crater would be the optimal location for the impact, and today they made their announcement: Cabeus A.

And just to clarify, the spacecraft will impact the Moon, NOT bomb it. No detonations involved.

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NASA Science News for September 11, 2009

In search of water, NASA's Lunar Crater Observation and Sensing Satellite (LCROSS) is on a collision course with the Moon. Today NASA announced exactly where the impact will take place.

FULL STORY at

http://science.nasa.gov/headlines/y2009/11sep_lcrosstarget.htm?list1035898

Where In The Universe #70

Ready for another Where In The Universe Challenge? Here's #70! Take a look and see if you can name where in the Universe this image is from. Give yourself extra points if you can name the spacecraft responsible for the image. As usual, we’ll provide the image today, but won’t reveal the answer until tomorrow. This gives you a chance to mull over the image and provide your answer/guess in the comment section. Please, no links or extensive explanations of what you think this is — give everyone the chance to guess.
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Hubble Wows With New Images

Butterfly emerges from new Hubble images. Credit: NASA, ESA, and the Hubble SM4 ERO Team

Hubble is back! The wait is over and here are the new pictures from the newly refurbished Hubble Space Telescope. Above is an image taken by the Wide Field Camera 3 (WFC3), a new camera aboard NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope, installed by NASA astronauts in May 2009, during the servicing mission to upgrade and repair the 19-year-old Hubble telescope. This is a planetary nebula, catalogued as NGC 6302, but more popularly called the Bug Nebula or the Butterfly Nebula.

NGC 6302 lies within our Milky Way galaxy, roughly 3,800 light-years away in the constellation Scorpius. The glowing gas is the star’s outer layers, expelled over about 2,200 years. The "butterfly" stretches for more than two light-years, which is about half the distance from the Sun to the nearest star, Alpha Centauri.

And there's more!
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Create Your Own Galaxy Mashup With New Galaxy Zoo Tool

M81. Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/ESA/Harvard-Smithsonian CfA

If you haven't yet succumbed to the temptation of Galaxy Zoo, a new add-on to the popular citizen scientist project just might catapult you into joining the thousands of people who are clicking and classifying. Galaxy Zoo has now teamed up with Microsoft's World Wide Telescope to allow users to immerse themselves in the universe and be able to easily create videos and sky tours that can be customized and shared with friends and family. "Now there is an easy way to inflict your favorites on others," said Galaxy Zoo team member Dr. Pamela Gay.
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Magnetic Fields Have Key Influence on Star Formation

When a giant cloud of interstellar gas and dust collapses to form a new cluster of stars, only a small fraction of the cloud's mass ends up in stars. Scientists have never been sure why.  But a new study provides insights into the role magnetic fields might play in star formation, and suggests more than the influence of gravity should be taken into account in computer models of stellar birth.

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NASA Science News for September 9, 2009

Today, astronomers declared the Hubble Space telescope a fully rejuvenated observatory with the release of spectacular new images and data from four of its six operating science instruments.

FULL STORY AND IMAGES at

http://science.nasa.gov/headlines/y2009/09sep_hubbleimages.htm?list1035898

Weekend SkyWatcher's Forecast: September 4-6, 2009

Greetings, fellow SkyWatchers! Ah, yes… Full Moon. Are you ready to howl? If you didn't get a chance to watch the galiean moons do their dance last weekend, then be sure to catch the awesome video you'll find inside! In the meantime, keep your ears alert for the rise of tonight's "Full Corn Moon" and check out the Omicron gems. As the skies get darker, the Herschel challenges warm up – so dust off your optics and I'll see you in the backyard… (...)
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Andromeda Galaxy Eating the Neighborhood

From Earth, the Andromeda Galaxy looks like a calm, bright galaxy, and is visible with the naked eye in our night sky. But astronomers have discovered things aren't as tranquil as it seems over at M31. Andromeda is eating the neighbors.
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White Dwarf "Close" to Exploding as Supernova

ESA’s XMM-Newton orbiting X-ray telescope has uncovered the first close-up of a white dwarf star that could explode into a type Ia supernova within a few million years. That's relatively soon in cosmic time frames, and although this white dwarf that is orbiting its companion star HD 49798, is far enough away to pose no danger to Earth, it is close enough to become an extraordinarily spectacular celestial sight. Calculations suggest that it will blaze initially with the intensity of the full Moon and be so bright that it will be seen in the daytime sky with the naked eye. But don't worry, it will be awhile!
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NASA Science News for September 3, 2009

The sun is in the pits of the deepest solar minimum in nearly a century. Weeks and sometimes whole months go by without even a single tiny sunspot. Are sunspots disappearing? Experts discuss the question in today's story from Science@NASA.

FULL STORY at

http://science.nasa.gov/headlines/y2009/03sep_sunspots.htm?list1035898

Astronomers Find Most Distant Supermassive Black Hole Yet

Composite pseudo-color image of the QSO (CFHQSJ2329-0301). The RGB colors are assigned to z0; zr and i0-bands, respectively. The figures are north up, east left. Credit: Goto et al.

A long time ago in a galaxy far, far away there was a supermassive black hole….. Astronomers from the University of Hawaii have spotted a giant galaxy surrounding the most distant supermassive black hole ever found. The galaxy, so distant that it is seen as it was 12.8 billion years ago, is as large as the Milky Way galaxy and harbors a supermassive black hole that contains at least a billion times as much matter as our Sun.
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Watch Saturn's Rings Disappear (Video)

On September 4, 2009, Earth's orbital motion will carry it through the same plane as Saturn's rings. From our vantage point, the rings will disappear. Usually these ring plane crossings — which only happen about every 15 years — are great opportunities to observe Saturn's moons. But this year's ring plane crossing will be practically impossible to see, as Saturn will be very close to the sun, only 11 degrees away. So, disappointingly, we won't see much. However, amateur astronomer Alan Friedman has given us a glimpse of what this event will look like, without the glare from the sun. Friedman has put together an animation of how the angle of Saturn's rings have changed over the past six years. See the animation below. "It shows the changing plane of the ring system as viewed from my Buffalo backyard from 2004 to 2009," said Friedman. "The final frame has been assembled from earlier 2009 observations to display how the planet will appear with its rings edge on." Gorgeous!

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