... The Earth's orbit is not a perfect, sun-centered circle. At aphelion, the most distant point in Earth's orbit, the Sun is 150 million kilometers away and at perihelion, the closest point, Earth approaches the Sun to within about 147 million kilometers. ... Venus Once Molten Surface . ... This computer reconstruction of the surface of Venus was created from data from the Magellan spacecraft. Magellan orbited Venus and used radar to map our neighboring planet's surface between 1990 and 1994. ...

... 2002 November 29 . Open Star Clusters M35 and NGC 2158 . ... NGC 2158 is four times more distant that M35 , over 10 times older, and much more compact as it contains many more stars in roughly the same volume of space. NGC 2158's bright blue stars have self-destructed , leaving cluster light to be dominated by older and yellower star s. Both clusters are visible toward the constellation of Gemini -- M35 with binoculars and NGC 2158 with a small telescope. ... About APOD | ...

... Spacecraft . ... To space by cannon? Finally, the deep space explorers --spacecraft which break away from the Earth's gravity . ... The "Luna" series of the USSR conducted 7 soft landing of unmanned probes, two of them with wheeled robotic "Lunokhods," and two of those missions returned samples to Earth. Others spacecraft have visited the major planets of the Solar system. ... The Mariner series have explored Venus and Mars--and Mariner 10 even reached Mercury, for three separate encounters! ...

Stellar Clusters are very useful laboratories for empirically studying stellar evolution. ... All cluster stars are at the same distance . All cluster stars have the same physical age . ... CM diagram Young Cluster In this case we see the Main Sequence fully represented. The blue dots represent massive stars with short main sequence lifetimes. ... Thus, identifying the most massive star which is still on the main sequence is an effective means of determining the age of a stellar cluster. ...

Ice Volcanoes Reshape Europa's Chaotic Surface . Ice-spewing volcanoes and the grinding and tearing of tectonic plates have reshaped the chaotic surface of Jupiter's frozen moon Europa, images from NASA's Galileo spacecraft reveal. ... Although the images do not show currently active ice volcanoes or geysers, they do reveal flows of material on the surface that probably originated from them, said Galileo imaging team member Dr. Ronald Greeley of Arizona State University, Tempe. ... Europa . ...

... We have simulated the observations of a very distant cluster of galaxies at high redshift. ... The simulations are made for the HST instruments FOC, WFPC II, and the Advanced Camera, and for an 8-m telescope on the ground equipped with adaptive optics. ... A comparison of the fields of view of post-COSTAR HST imaging instruments with the Advanced Camera (AC) and the ground-based adaptive optics camera (AO) is shown in Fig. 1 superimposed on the noise-free cluster simulation. ...

Finally, the deep space explorers --spacecraft which break away from the Earth's gravity . ... The "Luna" series of the USSR conducted 7 soft landing of unmanned probes, two of them with wheeled robotic "Lunokhods," and two of those missions returned samples to Earth. Others spacecraft have visited the major planets of the Solar system. ... The Mariner series have explored Venus and Mars--and Mariner 10 even reached Mercury, for three separate encounters! ... Sojourner" on Mars, its top . ...

... Moon . ... What can astronomers tell us about the different colors on the surface of Jupiter's moon Europa? ... We can use the colors of Europa s surface to tell us about the chemical compounds that make up the surface and subsurface of the jovian moon. Even before the first spacecraft made a close visit to Europa, astronomers on Earth used telescopes to study the moon and were able to use a technique called spectroscopy to determine that Europa s surface is composed mostly of water ice. ...

Astronotes Armagh Planetarium's Stellar Blog! ... Comets and Asteroids . ... Image credit:ESO/J.Emerson/VISTA. ... However others are less pessimistic and it has even been claimed that the mysterious ?Wow! signal? received in 1977 originated from the direction M55.б  Sadly, this still unexplained pulse of radio energy originated from a location rather to the northwest of M55 so I doubt if the source was this cluster (if indeed the signal was genuinely of extraterrestrial origin). ... Mysterious Wow! ...

The planets Jupiter and Venus will make an apparent close approach to each other on the early morning of Friday, 5th November. When Jupiter rises above the eastern horizon at 4.07 a.m. for Northern Ireland viewers, it will be just about one Moon-width away from the much more brilliant Venus. ... In reality, a vast distance will separate the planets. ... FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT: John McFarland at the Armagh Observatory, College Hill, Armagh, BT61 9DG. ...

... ESO, the European Southern Observatory . ... Travel and Contacts . ... Green ESO . ... Survey Telescopes . ... 2002 . ... Images of Titan taken on November 26, 2002 through nine different filters to probe different altitudes, ranging from the stratosphere to the surface. ... Due to these good observing conditions, Titan's trailing hemisphere was observed with contrasts of about 40%, allowing the detection of several bright features on this surface region, once thought to be quite dark and...

... Comments, Opinions Publications Dnepr Program . Dnepr launch record 17 August 2011. Cluster Launch of Dnepr LV 22 August 2013 KOMPSAT-5 Launch 21 November 2013. ... The Sych-2 satellite is being developed as a part of the space optical-range Earth observation system by the State Design Office of Yuzhnoye and built by the Industrial Association Yuzhny Machine Building Plant in cooperation w ith other space industry entities upon the state order of the National Space Agency of Ukraine . ...

I will present theresults from a deep, extended, planetary nebulae survey in a 0.5 sqdeg region centered on the brightest cluster galaxy NGC 4486 (M87) in the Virgo cluster core, carried out with SuprimeCam@Subaru and FLAMES-GIRAFFE@VLT. ... A substructure detected in the projected phase-space of the line-of-sight velocity vs. major axis distance for the M87 halo planetary nebulae provides evidence for the recent accretion event of a satellite galaxy with luminosity twice that of M33. ...

... The Pleiades star cluster, also known as the Seven Sisters and Messier 45, is a conspicuous object in the night sky with a prominent place in ancient mythology . ... The stars in the Pleiades are thought to have formed together around 100 million years ago, making them 1/50th the age of our sun, and they lie some 130 parsecs (425 light years ) away. ... Data for these stars are listed in a table below. ... Yes . ... WEBDA Pleiades cluster data . ... M45: The Pleiades Star Cluster (2007 November 18) ...

... Eileen Marie Collins (Colonel, USAF, RET.) ... SPECIAL HONORS: Defense Superior Service Medal, Distinguished Flying Cross, Defense Meritorious Service Medal, Air Force Meritorious Service Medal with one oak leaf cluster, Air Force Commendation Medal with one oak leaf cluster, Armed Forces Expeditionary Medal for service in Grenada (Operation Urgent Fury, October 1983), French Legion of Honor, NASA Outstanding Leadership Medal, NASA Space Flight Medals, Free Spirit Award, and the National Space...

... In summer 1994, the biggest news in astronomy was the collision of comet Shoemaker-Levy 9 with Jupiter. During this school year, Jupiter will charge back into the limelight with the arrival of the Galileo spacecraft (see figure 8 ). On Dec. 7, following a tortuous six-year ramble through the solar system, Galileo will begin its two-year mission studying Jupiter and its gaggle of moons. ... Besides the camera, Galileo will carry instruments capable of identifying minerals on Jupiter's moons. ...

... MAO main . ... The DRAGON globular cluster simulations: a million stars, black holes and gravitational waves . ... simulations of globular clusters with a million stars on the high-performance . ... of stars in globular clusters at unprecedented detail but also shed light into . the dark world of black holes. ... clusters of single and binary black holes. ... of a globular cluster. www.mpa-garching.mpg.de/328833/hl201603 . ... MAO/NASU, 27 Akademika Zabolotnoho St. 03680 Kyiv, Ukraine . ...

... We found that 10 metal-poor globular clusters are greately distinguished for anomalously small masses on the "destruction rate-mass" plain. As it turned out, these poor clusters, situated 15 kpc farther from the Galactic centre, are somewhat younger than the bulk of the metal-poor globulars, and have anomalously red horizontal branches. ... At the same time, deficiency of distant massive clusters is noticeable with increasing distance from the galactic centre. ...

A team using CSIRO 's Parkes radio telescope has just found the thousandth pulsar known to science. ... This is thanks to the power of a new instrument on the telescope, the multibeam system , which has slashed the time it takes to scan the sky," said co-leader of the pulsar team, CSIRO's Dr Dick Manchester . ... There are many different types of pulsar, and we have only a few examples of some types," said Dr Manchester. ... E-mail: rmanches@atnf.csiro.au . ... e-mail: hsim@atnf.csiro.au . ...

Crater Gassendi . ... I made this drawing was made on the 26th of november 2001. If you compare this one with the previous drawing of Gassendi (below) the differences are clear. ... This drawing was made on the 28th of september 2001. After nearly a full month without observations I had a one hour gap between the thicker clouds. ... This drawing was made on the 29th of august 2001. ... This drawing was made on the 27th of august 2001. ... This drawing was made on the 25th of august 2001. ...