Trail encounter . ... Expected meteor rates . ... The Leonids are the debris of Comet 55P/Tempel-Tuttle. ... The Earth's passage right through the centre of trails is associated with the most spectacular meteor displays (studies show that, as well as how close to the centre of the trail you are, the strength of the display also depends on how far along a trail's length you are). ... The encounter with the 1932 trail will lead to enhanced meteor activity: a nice outburst, but below storm level. ...

... Australian telescopes have helped the Hubble Space Telescope (HST) find thousands of new galaxies. ... Preliminary HST results were released today by NASA's Space Telescope Science Institute , as were the results from the Australian institutions. ... Called the Hubble Deep Field South , it complements the original Hubble Deep Field , another small patch in the northern sky. ... The Anglo-Australian Telescope has measured the distances of about 75 faint far-flung galaxies in the field. ...

... Credit Copyright: BICEP2 Collaboration , NSF , Steffen Richter (Harvard) Explanation: Did the universe undergo an early epoch of extremely rapid expansion? ... Yesterday, results were released showing an expected signal of unexpected strength, bolstering a prediction of inflation that specific patterns of polarization should exist in cosmic microwave background radiation -- light emitted 13.8 billion years ago as the universe first became transparent . ... NASA Official: Jay Norris. ...

... Each day we feature a different image or photograph of our fascinating universe, along with a brief explanation written by a professional astronomer. November 29, 1995 . Releasing Compton . Credit NASA , STS-37 Crew . Explanation: Named for Nobel laureate physicist Arthur Holly Compton , the Compton Gamma Ray Observatory (CGRO) Satellite was launched in April of 1991 aboard the Space Shuttle Atlantis . CGRO's mission is to explore the Universe at gamma-ray energies. ...

Version 2 calibrated data , catalogs , and flanking fields added, at long last. ... In addition to the final combined NICMOS version 1 images that were already released on November 23, 1998, all individual calibrated (un-combined, un-mosaiced) NICMOS exposures are now also available for downloading as gzipped tar files (March 11, 1999). ... Added some links to technical information on the page describing the HDF-S Catalogs (December 23, 1998). ... HDF-S Catalogs are now available (December 21, 1998). ...