... ESO is building what will be the World's largest optical telescope array, The Very Large Telescope (VLT). The VLT Project organisation is responsible for the design and construction of the Unit Telescopes, including enclosures, optics, adapter-rotators and coating unit. ... Unit Telescopes Overview - This page is outdated, an update is in process. ... Secondary mirror (M2 Unit) - This page is outdated, an update is in process. ... Coating Unit - This page is outdated, an update is in process. ...

... Armagh Observatory, College Hill, Armagh BT61 9DG, +44 (0)28 3752 2928 . ... Risks Comparable to NEOs . ... The Increasing Rate of Discovery of Asteroids . ... Comet and Asteroid Collision Probabilities . ... Extreme albedo comets and the impact hazard (PDF Format) . ... Asteroid Impact Animations . ... Workshop on Scientific Requirements for Mitigation of Hazardous Comets and Asteroids - 2002 . ... The Spaceguard Survey Report, 1992 (PDF) . Tsunami from Asteroid/Comet Impacts . ...

... Credit Copyright: Deep Space Network , JPL , NASA Explanation: Asteroid 2005 YU55 passed by the Earth yesterday, posing no danger. ... Although the passing of smaller rocks near the Earth is not very unusual -- in fact small rocks from space strike Earth daily -- a rock this large hasn't passed this close since 1976. ... 2005 2006 . ... Publications with keywords: asteroid - impact . Publications with words: asteroid - impact . ... A Landslide on Asteroid Vesta . ... Asteroids Near Earth . ...

... 2001 December 24 . Asteroid 1998 WT24 Passes Near Earth . ... Passing well outside the orbit of our Moon, Asteroid 1998 WT24 posed no danger, but became bright enough to see with binoculars and to track with radar . ... Every few years, an asteroid will actually pass inside the orbit of the Moon. Large impact features on the Earth are testaments to asteroids or comets that actually impacted the Earth in the distant past. ... About APOD | ...

Arecibo Observatory took radar images of asteroid 1998 QE2 and its moon as the space rock sailed safely past earth. The sequence of images show a dark, cratered asteroid 3.0 kilometers across (1.9 miles) across with a companion moon about 750 meters (2500 feet) in size. Both the asteroid and its moon passed 6 million kilometers (3.8 million miles) from earth. ... Radar images of asteroid 1998 QE2 (bottom) and its satellite (top) on June 6. ... Comparisons of QE2 to the size of an ocean liner . ...

... The craters were caused by the impacts of comets and asteroids. ... In fact, up to a diameter of about 10 meters (33 feet), most stony meteoroids are destroyed in the atmosphere in a terminal explosion. ... The famous meteor crater in northern Arizona, some 1.2 kilometers (4,000 feet) in diameter and 183 meters (600 feet) deep, was created 50,000 years ago by a nickel-iron meteorite perhaps 60 meters (197 feet) in diameter. ... These range in diameter from a few meters to about 8 km. ...

... These trajectories have an initial flight from the Earth to a large distance (of about 1.5 million km), the following passive flight to the Moon's orbit, an approach to the Moon with a decrease of an energy of a particle (spacecraft) selenocentric motion to a negative value and the temporary capture in an elliptic orbit of the Moon's satellite. ... Several trajectories of this type are determined. ... Ivashkin V. V. On optimal trajectories of space flight to the Moon in the Earth--Moon--Sun system. ...

... News . ... NASA captures new images of large asteroid passing Earth . ... NASAт??s Deep Space Network antenna in Goldstone, California, has captured new radar images of asteroid 2005 YU 55 passing close to Earth. ... The image was taken November 7 at 2:45 p.m. EST, when the asteroid was approximately 860,000 miles (1.38 million kilometers) away from Earth. ... NASA detects, tracks, and characterizes asteroids and comets passing close to Earth using both ground- and space-based telescopes. ...

... Today this year's largest group of sunspots will cross the Sun's central meridian. ... The next day, the number of spots in the group reached five, and the day after, on June 2nd, it was possible to count thirteen sunspots on solar disk, which had been clear prior to this. ... This year's two most powerful active areas, which passed across the solar disk at the beginning of May, 2009, are set to appear in the Sun's eastern sector in two days, on June 6th. ...

Astronotes Armagh Planetarium's Stellar Blog! ... Solar System . ... Planets . ... This bizarrely shrunken planetary system was found by NASAтАЩs Kepler mission, hence the parent star has been named Kepler-11. ... Planetary scientist and Kepler science team member Jack Lissauer said ?These six planets are mixtures of rock and gases, possibly including water.тАЭ €аNone of these strange new worlds are likely to be home to any form of life; their surface conditions are simply too extreme. ...

Map projected image of Earth (AVHRR) 123k gif ; 1440k gif . Famous Apollo 11 image of Africa Europe 31k jpg . global composite of satellite images 508k gif . ... Galileo image of South America from 1st flyby 62k jpg . ... Earth by Meteosat 4 satellite (IR filter) 688k jpg . ... Ross ice sheet, Antarctica, taken by Galileo on its first pass of Earth 11k jpg . ... NOAA satellite's view of USA 322k gif . ... images of Earth from Clementine html . Earth images from weather satellites html . ...

... The Round Earth . ... Aristarchus around 270 BC derived the Moon's distance from the duration of a lunar eclipse (Hipparchus later found an independent method). ... Let R be the radius of that circle and T the time it takes the Moon to go around once, about one month. ... Viewed from Earth, a "new Moon" (occuring between the time a thin crescent is last seen before sunrise and the time one is seen shortly after sunset) happens when the Moon in its apparent motion around the sky overtakes the Sun. ...

Ganymede is the largest moon in our solar system, larger even than the planets Pluto and Mercury. ... Ganymede's surface consists of two main types of terrain: old, dark polygonal units, and young, bright valleys and ridges (see figure 11 ). ... In a similar way, hitting a large block of ice with a hammer makes white marks. ... Ganymede as seen by Voyager 2. ... Because Voyager couldn't spot any large impact craters, scientists have concluded that the moon's surface is young. ... Moon . ... Europa . ...

... Asteroid . ... In case you didn't hear about it, which you probably didn't: On Jan. 7, an asteroid 1,000 feet across -- nearly three times the current diameter of Marlon Brando -- barely missed the Earth, which is most likely your planet of residence. ... What if this asteroid had hit the Earth? ... As it happens, the American Astronomical Society was holding a conference in Washington AT THE VERY SAME TIME as the asteroid nearly hit the Earth. ...

T he Siding Spring Survey (SSS) is a Near-Earth Object search program that utilises the 0.5-m Uppsala Schmidt Telescope at Siding Spring Observatory, N.S.W., Australia. ... The mission of the Siding Spring Survey is to contribute to the inventory of near-earth objects (NEOs), or more specifically, the potentially hazardous asteroids (PHAs) and comets (PHOs) that may pose a threat of impact and thus harm to civilization. ... Based on the CSS Mission page . ... Siding Spring Survey Main Page . ...

... 142,800 Mean density (kg/m^3) .. ... 5.203 Rotation period (length of day in Earth hours).. 9.8 Revolution period (length of year) (in Earth years). 11.86 Obliquity (tilt of axis) (degrees).. 3.08 Orbit inclination (degrees).. 1.3 Orbit eccentricity.. 0.048 Mean surface temperature (K)........................ 120 (cloud tops) Visual geometric albedo.. 0.44 Atmospheric components.............................. 90% hydrogen, 10% helium, .07% methane Rings.. ...

... Bad Astronomy . ... Bitesize Astronomy . ... Keep Bad Astronomy close to your heart, and help make me filthy rich. ... Dubbed simply "3753", it orbits the Sun at almost the same distance as the Earth does. ... So imagine 3753 is in an orbit just smaller than the Earth. ... Since the Earth has given the tiny asteroid extra energy, the asteroid actually moves farther out from the Sun. ... Since asteroid 3753 is in a larger orbit, it slows down, and is now moving slower than the Earth. ...

... But in this victory, there comes a need for revenge against the rest of the humans, in a quest to totally annialate the human race by the devil. ... New Graphics: YES (Player's face, menu bar, options menu, title screen, skull selecting tool, level names, etc.. ... OH...and the barrels are now silver with red acid) New Levels: YES...from scratch...4 so far, but already working on up to level 9 and hopes for at least 10 (but from hints from a whole game of new music, yes.. ...

Asteroid 2055 YU55 passes close by Earth; how close did it get? ... As Elizabeth Flock reported: An asteroid the size of an aircraft carrier missed Earth by only 200,000 miles as it flew by Tuesday night the closest an asteroid has been to Earth in 200 years Asteroid 2005 YU55, as it has been dubbed, streaked by at about 30,000 mph, but some scientists and lucky amateur astronomers caught a glimpse in their telescopes, where they saw strange structures on the asteroid\u2019s dark-colored surface. ...

OPM Status Report for March 22, 2005: 05073 Last Week's executed calendar: Supervisor: Hathaway Operations/Science Schedule Highlights: LRP inputs: Visits Orbits o FltRdy/Available for calendar building: 65/ 65 127/127 Items of note: o Includes 38 orbits of C13 Large program 10424; The number of these orbits and their efficient use of SAA impacted orbits is the major reason for the high efficiency on this week. ... Future activities: week: event: Operations status/events: Computer Systems: o None. ...