"Fireball" Spotted In The Skies Above Britain
Eyewitnesses from Cornwall to the Scottish Borders describe seeing a green flash in the sky.
Eyewitnesses from Cornwall to the Scottish Borders describe seeing a green flash in the sky.
Now you can pretend you’re flying through these nebulae and star clusters.
That globe of hot plasma could swallow the Earth whole. No big deal.
Courtesy of Neil deGrasse Tyson. We have to get off this rock, or we will die.
That is one fine looking gas giant. Using filters for the infrared, red, and violet spectrums, the mosaic was taken from a mere 500,000 miles away.
It’s a great big universe, and we’re all really puny. VISTA put together this staggering nine gigapixel photo with 84 million stars and counting.
Whoa. The Royal Observatory has released its annual astronomy photography awards. Here are some of the amazing honorees.
To paraphrase Stephen Hawking, “We have to get off this rock, or we will die.” We’ve got approximately 3.5 billion years left so let’s speed this along.
Just because it happens every August doesn’t mean it gets old. We’ve been admiring the debris of the Swift-Tuttle comet for over 2000 years.
Pluto is not the first celestial body to get recategorized. CGP Grey show us how the definition of “planet” has always been pretty sketchy.
Is the space race heating back up? The United States still has to choose between building a moon base and sending astronauts to asteroid.
And it’d only take one trillion dollars. Whether you’re a Trekkie or not, you have to admit that there’s some sense of wonder to exploring the stars and trying to find life on distant planets.
Hey, who put an extra day in my February? Silly universe, why don’t you adhere to the mathematics of man?
Unlike the green and blue auroras, these are very rare. There were two of them on the south coast of Australia on January 16 and 22.
And you thought “Twister” was bad! Last week, NASA’s Solar Dynamics Observatory satellite captured these stunning images of magnetically captured plasma moving like a tornado across the sun’s surface. But even more stunning than this video of the solar tornado are its statistics: it’s estimated to be about as large as Earth itself, with wind gusts approaching 300,000 mph and a temperature of 15,000 degrees fahrenheit. Uh… wow.
Can you guess of what these photos are? I couldn’t. Check them out and then see below for the answer.
It’s like the planet is crying out for us to STOP with all the “Put A Ring On It” jokes. Or it just hate physics.
Following the shortest day of the year, at 12:03am this morning the Sun was at its greatest distance from the celestial equator marking the solstice and the beginning of winter. Although the days are short, there is good news!
Now we just have to figure out how to get there and subjugate the natives. It’s several times larger than Earth and 600 light years away, but it is also said to be 72 degrees.
The moon confirmed to not be made of cheese. The most detailed moon map yet has been constructed from images by NASA’s Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO).
This is some X-Files stuff, this is. Scientists are uncertain the exact cause, but the leading hypothesis is that ice-crystals in the Earth’s atmosphere and electric discharges from thunderclouds create these strange jumping clouds.
Earth’s atmosphere is really slimming this season. Snapped from the International Space Station in 2010, this photo shows the illusion of a “flat moon” as viewed through the thickest part of the atmosphere.
Herein, some of the best entries, runners-up, and winners in the 2011 Astronomy Photographer of the Year competition hosted by the Royal Observatory Greenwich. Who knew the moon had colors? You can see a full slideshow of the winners here.
When Jupiter comes up on the horizon, I’ll admit to feeling claustrophobic. This great visual experiment helps put planetary size into perspective.
Suddenly all that money I spent on fireworks to scare the neighbor cat seems paltry in comparison. Living in a place where the stars are barely visible, seeing these many at once makes me feel kind of dizzy. Watch Video ›
The Tumblr Can’t You Read has created a meme called Sexy Sagan, transforming Carl Sagan quotes into a cosmos of corny astronomical pick up lines. Girl, how about you and I make like Jodie Foster and engage in some Contact? View List ›
Quick, turn around!
European astronomers on Tuesday said they had found a distant star orbited by at least five planets in the biggest discovery of so-called exoplanets since the first was logged 15 years ago. The star is similar to our sun and its planetary lineup has an intriguing parallel with own solar system, although no clue has so far been found to suggest it could be a home from home, they said. View Image ›
Check the east/southeast sky tonight around 9 to catch a glimpse of this wee, green comet. It’s a mere 30 million miles from Earth, but you’ll still need binoculars at the very least to see it. Read More ›