... 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 Unit Telescopes Overview - This page is outdated, an update is in process.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 Secondary mirror (M2 Unit) - This page is outdated, an update is in process.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 Coating Unit - This page is outdated, an update is in process. ...

... VB 10: A Large Planet Orbiting a Small Star . ... Credit: JPL-Caltech , NASA Explanation: Can a planet be as large as the star that it orbits? Recent observations have discovered that nearby Van Biesbroeck's star might have just such a large planet. ... Since faint M-type stars like VB 10 are so common, planetary system s surrounding them, including planets larger than their parent star, might be more common than planetary systems like our own Solar System . ... NASA Official: Jay Norris. ...

... 2009 June 3 . VB 10: A Large Planet Orbiting a Small Star . Illustration Credit: JPL-Caltech , NASA . Explanation: Can a planet be as large as the star that it orbits? Recent observations have discovered that nearby Van Biesbroeck's star might have just such a large planet. ... Since faint M-type stars like VB 10 are so common, planetary system s surrounding them, including planets larger than their parent star, might be more common than planetary systems like our own Solar System . ...

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. ...

... 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.. ...

Image of Saturn by Mark and Nigel Stronge taken on 17th December 2002 showing the square shadow where the planet's shadow meets the Cassini division. ... showing the black drop effect. The report was published in a recent issue of the magazine 'Astronomy Geophysics,' entitled 'Extending the Black Drop to Saturn' ** by Mark Bailey (Armagh Observatory), David Stewart (Irish Astronomical Association) and Mark Stronge (East Antrim Astronomical Society). ...

... There has been a heated public discussion in the past few years about whether our ninth planet is really deserving of the name. Since Pluto orbits a star, and is much less luminous, it certainly satisfies the definition we have above. The problem is actually not with Pluto, but with a very large number of other bodies in our Solar System which also satisfy this definition, but which are not called planets. Perhaps the most notable of these is Ceres, the largest asteroid. ... Planet . ...

... Neptune is smaller in diameter but larger in mass than Uranus . ... N eptune has been visited by only one spacecraft, Voyager 2 on Aug 25 1989. ... A t the time of the Voyager encounter, Neptune's most prominent feature was the Great Dark Spot (left) in the southern hemisphere. ... Neptune's winds blew the Great Dark Spot westward at 300 meters/second (700 mph). ... L ike Uranus and Jupiter, Neptune's rings are very dark but their composition is unknown. ... Neptune's Ring System . ... Uranus .. ...

... This glossary is not meant to be an exhaustive list of techno-definitions. ... Is there a term you don't see here? ... Do you know how to pronounce the CONSTELLATIONS , STARS , or the PLANETS and their MOONS ? ... First Law - the orbit of each planet is an ellipse with the sun at a focus . ... LIGHT BUCKET: A common slang term for a large apertures . ... LIGHT POLLUTION: The illumination of the night sky caused by artificial light sources on the ground (streetlights, billboards, etc.) ...

... A dynamo is created in a magnetic field by an electric circuit, part of which is moving relative to the rest (additional conditions must also be met). ... Furthermore, the plasma between them conducts electricity very well along its magnetic field lines, which act as if they were wires connecting Io and the planet (drawing). ... The drawing is not to scale. ... The Hubble Space Telescope , using its Wide Field and Planetary Camera 2, has been photographing auroras of the planet Jupiter. ...

... 200 jet radii . ... bipolar simulation . initial density contrast 1/10,000 (jet/IGM) . ... Density films: (970 frames) . gif, 100MB] [MPEG IM, 5MB] . Density films: (97 frames) . gif, 10MB] [jpg, 0.9MB] [h363+, 0.9MB] [ISO MPEG4, 0.9MB] [pre MPEG4 v3, 0.9MB] [pre MPEG4 v2, 0.8MB] [real, 0.9MB] [gif, 1MB] [MPEG1, 0.9MB] [MPEG IM, 0.5MB] . ... Virtual Jets 2003 (Dogliani, Italy) [slides] [proceedings] . ... This page is maintained by Martin Krause ...