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Nano-Satellites with Small Space Telescopes Advance Astronomy

The smallest astronomical satellite ever built will launch shortly after 07:20 a.m. EST on Monday, 25 February 2013 as part of a mission to prove that even a very small telescope can push the boundaries of astronomy.

25 Feb 2013

NASA's Kepler Space Telescope Detects Tiny Planetary System

NASA's Kepler mission scientists have discovered a new planetary system that is home to the smallest planet yet found around a star similar to our sun.

21 Feb 2013

Astronomers Employ Multi-Object Spectroscopy to Study Atmosphere of Exoplanets

When astronomers discovered planet GJ 1214b circling a star more than 47 light-years from Earth in 2009, their data presented two possibilities. Either it was a mini-Neptune shrouded in a thick atmosphere of hydrogen and helium, or it was a water world nearly three times the size of Earth.

20 Feb 2013

Cranfield University Manufactures Lenses for the E-ELT (European Extremely Large Telescope)

Cranfield University has this week completed the grinding of mirror segments to be used for the European Extremely Large Telescope (E-ELT) – the largest optical telescope in the world.

From Cranfield University 14 Feb 2013

James Webb Space Telescope Marks Another Year of Significant Progress

The James Webb Space Telescope marked another year of significant progress in 2012 as flight instrumentation was completed and delivered to NASA.

6 Feb 2013

Hi-C Imager Captures High-Resolution Images of Million-Degree Solar Corona

Work done in part by The University of Alabama has enabled a group of solar scientists to see into the sun’s corona in unprecedented detail.

25 Jan 2013

NASA to Contribute Infrared Detectors for Euclid Space Telescope

NASA has joined the European Space Agency's (ESA's) Euclid mission, a space telescope designed to investigate the cosmological mysteries of dark matter and dark energy.

25 Jan 2013

APEX Telescope Helps Astronomers Study Birth of New Stars

In space, dense clouds of cosmic gas and dust are the birthplaces of new stars. In visible light, this dust is dark and obscuring, hiding the stars behind it. So much so that, when astronomer William Herschel observed one such cloud in the constellation of Scorpius in 1774, he thought it was a region empty of stars and is said to have exclaimed, "Truly there is a hole in the sky here!"

24 Jan 2013

NASA Suborbital Telescope Gives Clear Evidence of Solar Braiding

A NASA suborbital telescope has given scientists the first clear evidence of energy transfer from the sun's magnetic field to the solar atmosphere or corona. This process, known as solar braiding, has been theorized by researchers, but remained unobserved until now.

24 Jan 2013

New Images of Sun's Corona Will Help Predict Violent Solar Eruptions

A NASA sounding rocket flight in 2012 captured five minutes of the highest-resolution images ever taken of the Sun's million-degree outer atmosphere, the corona. The new images have provided tantalizing hints of another mechanism that likely contributes to the heating of the solar corona.

24 Jan 2013