... Credit Copyright: NASA , JPL-Caltech , UCLA , MPS/DLR/IDA Explanation: Now at Ceres, Dawn's camera recorded this closer view of the dwarf planet's northern hemisphere and one of its mysterious bright spots on May 4. ... Imaged by Hubble in 2004 and then by Dawn as it approached Ceres in 2015, the bright spot itself is revealed to be made up of smaller spots of reflective material that could be exposed ice glinting in the sunlight. ... Dwarf Planet Ceres . The Brightest Spot on Ceres . ...

... 2015 May 14 . Dwarf Planet, Bright Spot . Image Credit: NASA , JPL-Caltech , UCLA , MPS/DLR/IDA . Explanation: Now at Ceres, Dawn's camera recorded this closer view of the dwarf planet's northern hemisphere and one of its mysterious bright spots on May 4. ... Imaged by Hubble in 2004 and then by Dawn as it approached Ceres in 2015, the bright spot itself is revealed to be made up of smaller spots of reflective material that could be exposed ice glinting in the sunlight. ... About APOD | ...

... Planets . ... Earth Satellites . ... Looking in the direction of the constellation Cygnus the Swan and launched by NASA in 2009 is the Kepler Space Observatory.Many previous missions searching for exoplanets mainly detected large giant planets, like large hot Jupiters (it is easier to detect larger planets).However KeplerтАЩs main objective is to search for much smaller planets located in a habitable zone which is not too close nor too far from their star; planets which may be just like our Earth. ...

home publications > mercury . SEARCH ASP SITE: Match ALL words Match ANY word . ... Publications of the ASP (PASP) . ... A Minor Planet's Night Out . ... Orbiting between Mars and Jupiter are thousands of rocky bodies. ... In 1804 came Juno; in 1807, Vesta. ... Most minor planets, as asteroids are sometimes affectionately called, hum in elliptical orbits between Mars and Jupiter. ... This helps us as we select the Guest Observer, and it helps readers to understand what you studied. ...

Geotimes -- November 2005 -- Two more moons for "planet" Pluto http://www.geotimes.org/nov05/WebExtra110305.html Web Extra Thursday, November 3, 2005 Two more moons for Pluto When the New Horizons spacecraft finally reaches Pluto in July 2015, researchers will have more objects to study than previously thought. In addition to Pluto's confirmed moon Charon, astronomers have detected two more orbiting celestial bodies, which could help reveal how the planet and moon system formed. ...

Galushina T., Bykova L., Letner O., Baturin A. Tomsk State University Russia 1 Investigation Dynamics Asteroid of of 2 Solving problems construction of numerical model of asteroid motion with account chosen perturbed factors; asteroid orbit improvement according to positional observations; construction of initial probabilistic domain by linear and nonlinear methods; study of evolution of initial probabilistic domain; revealing of ...

... STScI-PRC99-27 A CLOSER ENCOUNTER WITH MARS Taking advantage of Mars's closest approach to Earth in eight years, astronomers using NASA's Hubble Space Telescope have taken the space-based observatory's sharpest views yet of the Red Planet. ... In these views the north polar cap is tilted toward the Earth and is visible prominently at the top of each picture. ... Dark sand dunes that surround the polar cap merge into a large, dark region called Acidalia. ...

... More on 51 Peg: . The discovery of a Jupiter--mass planet in orbit around the solar--type star 51Peg has been reported by Michel Mayor and Didier Queloz (Geneva Observatory) on October 6th at the 9th Cambridge workshop on "cool stars, stellar systems, and the sun" held at Florence (Italy). ... Recall that the measurements of radial velocity only yield v sin i which in turn gives us M sin i. For most values of i, sin i will be greater than 0.5 and this gives a mass estimate of 0.5 Jupiter masses. ...

... The package includes a new ``hybrid'' symplectic integrator capable of handling close encounters, described at the conference: The Impact of Modern Dynamics in Astronomy , Namur, Belgium (Chambers 1998). ... NRC Research Associate, NASA/Ames Research Center , Moffett Field CA, USA, planetary accretion, formation of the asteroid belt and extra-solar planets. ... G.Laughlin and J.E.Chambers (2002) Astronomical Journal, , in press. ... American Astron. ... Home page of planet hunters Marcy and Butler ....

I was wondering what conditions should be met to have the "darkest" sky .. ... Upon the above publication of the Southern Galactic hemisphere, TunГ Tezel started seeking opportunities to create the Northern counterpart image. ... So, the initial quest of having the darkest possible sky have delivered us these two all-sky images of the two galactic hemispheres as seen from Planet Earth. Zoomable and 'full-screenable' fisheye view of the "darkest sky" Southern Galactic Hemisphere image. ...

... In addition to the planets and their satellites the solar system contains a large number of smaller but interesting objects. T here are thousands of known asteroids and comets and undoubtedly many more unknown ones. ... There are also some asteroids whose orbits carry them closer to the Sun than the Earth (Aten, Icarus, Hephaistos). Most comets have highly elliptical orbits which spend most of their time in the outer reaches of the solar system with only brief passages close to the Sun. ...

... Spectroscopy of white dwarf atmospheres has revealed metal pollution indicative of active accretion of rocky material (Gansicke et al. 2012), though the source of the debris - perhaps a disk of asteroids or tidally disrupted planets - is unknown. ... In addition, since typical white dwarfs are roughly Earth-sized, the transit of an Earth-sized planet can cause changes in brightness on the order of several tens of percent for durations on the order of one minute (Agol 2011). ...

... Bad Astronomy . ... Bitesize Astronomy . ... Keep Bad Astronomy close to your heart, and help make me filthy rich. ... When Venus is on the far side of the Sun, we see the entire near side lit by the Sun. ... When it is on the near side of the Sun, it shows a beautiful thin crescent, because it is between us and the Sun and we see the mostly unlit dark half. ... To see this for yourself, draw a circle one centimeter across, then, next to it, draw a circle 6 centimeters across. ... 2008 Phil Plait. ...

... Search . ... Astrophysics Group . Research . ... Research and Instrumentation . ... While this seems an extraordinary endeavour, in light of what we have learnt about Solar System planets, only a handful of key ingredients are required to start characterising an exoplanet. ... The NGTS project is a partnership between the University of Cambridge, Queen?s University Belfast, University of Warwick, University of Leicester, Observatoire de Geneve, DLR (Berlin) and Universidad Catolica de Chile. ...

... Tonight's Sky . ... Observing . ... Ceres showcases bright spots . Dawn scientists can now conclude that the intense brightness of these spots is due to the reflection of sunlight by highly reflective material on the surface, possibly ice. ... CERES | ... The mysterious bright spots on the dwarf planet Ceres are better resolved in a new sequence of images taken by NASA s Dawn spacecraft on May 3 and 4, 2015. ... Only registered members of Astronomy.com are allowed to comment on this article. ...

This service is intended as an aid to visually observing close-approaching asteroids. ... By clicking on the column headers for "Object Name", "Maximum Brightness", and "Maximum Angular Speed", you can sort the list by those fields. ... When This is the predicted time when the asteroid will be closest to the Earth. ... This field shows red if an asteroid comes as close as the moon. ... PHA (Potentially Hazardous Asteroid) This does NOT mean that this is going to hit the Earth. ...

ATNF Home . ... About ATNF overview . ... Australia Telescope Steering Committee . ... Australia Telescope User Committee . ... Murchison Radio-astronomy Observatory . ... Parkes radio telescope . ... ATCA | ... Visiting Parkes radio telescope . ... Parkes radio telescope webcam . ... The Australia Telescope National Facility Colloquium . ... Binaries consisting of a magnetic white dwarf in near synchronous rotation . ... white dwarf planetary systems and present a simple model to predict radio flux . ...

The basic problems of the Laboratory are connected with researches of dynamics of minor planets and comets. ... THE ORBIT IMPROVEMENT of minor planets from optical and radar observations, . the utilization of minor planet observations for THE DETERMINATION OF ORIENTATION OF STAR CATALOGUES and DETERMINATION OF MASSES OF MINOR PLANETS BY DYNAMICAL METHOD, . THE ESTIMATION OF COLLISION PROBABILITY of minor planets with other bodies and with each other, . ...

... NASA SPACECRAFT FINDS NEW EVIDENCE FOR WATER ICE ON MERCURY . ... The new data indicate the water ice in Mercury's polar regions, if spread over an area the size of Washington, D.C., would be more than 2 miles thick," said David Lawrence, a MESSENGER participating scientist at the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory (APL) in Laurel, Md., and lead author of one of three papers describing the findings. ... Water ice concentrations are derived from the hydrogen measurements. ...

... 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! ...