NASA's Kepler spacecraft is discovering a veritable avalanche of alien worlds. How do scientists study these alien worlds?
Fortunately NASA has a plan, by studying the reflective light of the exo planet using the technique called "Transit Spectroscopy". Basic idea is simple. When a planet reflects the light of its parent star, the atmosphere of the planet leaves a subtle imprint on reflection. Then astronomers can use these data to learn, what the atmosphere is made of.
Shawn Damagal-Goldman says, "Kepler will find a Goldilocks Planet within a next two years". Shawn Damagal-Goldman is researcher in NASA HQ, specializes in exo planet biology.
Tomorrow (March 31, 2012) we will celebrate Earth Hour by switching off the lights between 8:30 PM - 9:30 PM (local time). Watch the official video here.
The ESA's "Edoardo Amaldi" Automated Transfer Vehicle-3 (ATV-3) successfully docked automatically to aft port of the International Space Station's Russian Zvezda service module on March 28. The ATV-3 was successfully launched on March 23 from Kourou, French Guiana. It took five days for ATV-3 to dock to the ISS.
The "Edoardo Amaldi" delivered more than 7 tons of food, fuel and supplies for the six crew members on the orbital laboratory. It is expected to remain docked to Zvezda for about six months.
If you are a astro photographer, it is time now to show your skills. The World at Night (TWAN), Global Astronomy Month and National Optical Astronomy Observatory are organizing the Earth and Sky Photo Contest.
Submissions are accepted from April 01 to April 22, 2012. Winners will be announced by end of April 2012. Check here for detailed info and rules.
On April 03, 2012 Venus can be seen in the Pleiades open star cluster in the western sky. Pleiades consist of nine bright stars namely Pleione, Atlas, Alcyone, Electra, Maia, Merope, Taygeta, Celaeno, Sterope.
During late hours of March 26, sunspot AR1429 erupted a major CME. The sunspot AR1429 is on the far side of the sun, and the CME will not hit the earth. However the CME will hit the spacecraft STEREO-B and Spitzer on March 28. Check the forecast track from NASA.
Also watch the video of this CME eruption from AR1429. Video compiled from sequence of images from SOHO LASCO C2.
A flurry of solar activity in early March dumped enough heat in Earth's upper atmosphere to power every residence in New York City for two years. The heat has since dissipated, but there's more to come as the solar cycle intensifies.
In astronomy "magnitude" is referred to the brightness of the object. The object could be stars, planets, satellites or any other heavenly bodies. Lower the value of magnitude brighter the object is. The magnitude of faintest visible star to the naked eye is +6.
Image Credit: Oscar Martín Mesonero, (Full Image) The above photograph was taken on March 20, 2012 with a Celestron 8 inch telescope and canon EOS 50D camera.
The new supernova in Galaxy M95 is named as 2012aw. The supernova is at magnitude of +13.1. The galaxy M95 is quite easy to locate, it is in constellation Leo and more conveniently right below Mars. Supernova is located on the spiral arm of south-west of the galaxy M95.
In the below image, on the left you can see the galaxy M95 without the supernova (image was taken on April 2008) and on the right, you can see the latest image with Supernova 2012aw.
Image Credit: Oscar Martín Mesonero, (Full Image)
The above image was taken on March 18 in Salamanca, Spain. The big red light is Mars.
Image Credit: Anthony Ayiomamitis, (Full Image)
The above image was taken on March 20, 2012 in Athens, Greece. You can follow Anthony Ayiomamitis, here.
Where can I see the Supernova?
Below is the sky map, you can see Galaxy M95 right below Mars. Supernova will not be visible to naked eye. You would need atleast a 6 inch telescope to see it.
Supernova should be visible for 2 or 3 months. More updates coming soon.
If you have taken picture of the Supernova 2012aw, please take time to share it with us. Send the photos to,
On March 31, 2012 let us celebrate Earth Hour! Between 8:30PM to 9:30PM (local time) simply turn off the lights for one hour. Last year around 135 countries participated. Initially Earth Hour was started in Sydney, Australia in 2007. Since then it has become world-wide event.
Watch the official video below,
If you are taking photos during the event in your city, take time to share it with us. Send the photos to,
Asteroid 2012 DA14 passed by earth very closely last month. The asteroid is about 50m in diameter. It was discovered by astronomers at the Observatorio Astronómico de La Sagra in Spain. However the asteroid was spotted after it was flown past the Earth.
So what now? ehh.. Asteroid will pass even closer in Feb 15, 2013 in about 22,000km from Earth's surface.
Below is the oblique view path of the asteroid 2012 DA14. It passes well inside our geosynchronous ring. That means, it passes closer than our man-made satellites.
Image Credit: NASA / JPL
In the above image, the asteroid 2012 DA14 is the yellow dot, Earth is green and the two orbits intersect twice per year. The asteroid 2012 DA14 has similar elliptical orbit that of the Earth. Astronomers will use this close approach to study the asteroid and calculate the Earth and Moon gravitational effects on it.
Watch the launch of the Space Shuttle and its various stages. This video was compiled using the footage from the booster cameras aboard on shuttle flights STS-117 and STS-127. Sound mixing and enhancement was done by the folks at Skywalker Sound.
Unfortunately comet Swan did not survive the Sun's atmosphere. The Sungrazing comet Swan, which approached towards Sun during the late hours of March 14 did not survive.
Check the video below, the video is compiled from the sequence image from SOHO LASCO C2. You can see the comet speeding to the Sun's corona and just vanishes.
The latest image from SOHO LASCO C3 shows that, the comet SWAN is about to reach the Sun. Will the comet "Swan" survive as the comet Lovejoy? stay tuned!!
In the image below from SHOHO LASCO C3, you can see the comet Swan marked in circle.
Image Credit: NASA/ESA/SOHO
Below is the image from, SOHO LASCO C2.
Image Credit: NASA/ESA/SOHO
Below is the video, compiled with images from SOHO. Note the left side of the screen, you can find comet Swan speeding through.
Breath taking detailed view of the Moon. Explore the Orientale Basin, Shackleton crater, South Pole-Aitken Basin, Tycho crater, Aristarchus Plateau, Mare Serenitatis, Compton-Belkovich volcano, Jackson crater and Tsiolkovsky crater of the Moon.
NASA has put together this cool animation on Evolution of the Moon with the help of NASA's Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter. The video shows how the craters were formed in the Moon. The only thing annoyed me, is the sound effects used for the impacts.
Icarus has published Jupiter's jet stream images in the April 2012 issue. These sequence of images was taken by Cassini spacecraft when it flew by Jupiter in 2000.
In the below image, following the path of one of Jupiter's jet streams, a line of V-shaped chevrons travels west to east just above Jupiter's Great Red Spot. At the left, the chevrons run into another storm called the South Equatorial Disturbance (SED).
Image Credit: NASA/JPL/Space Science Institute (Full Image)
"This is the first time anyone has actually seen direct wave motion in one of Jupiter's jet streams," says Simon-Miller, the paper's lead author. "And by comparing this type of interaction in Earth's atmosphere to what happens on a planet as radically different as Jupiter, we can learn a lot about both planets."
On May 5, 2012 the full moon will be 14% bigger and 30% brighter than the other full moons of 2012. This phenomenon is know as "Perigee Moon". The moon's size varies because the moon orbit's Earth in a elliptical path.
A towering dust devil, casts a serpentine shadow over the Martian surface in this image acquired by the High Resolution Imaging Science Experiment (HiRISE) camera on NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter.
Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/Univ. of Arizona (Full Image)
HiRISE captured the image on Feb. 16, 2012, while the orbiter passed over the Amazonis Planitia region of northern Mars. The dust plume is about 30 meters in diameter and 800 meters high.
Watch the evening sky on March 11 and 12, for Venus and Jupiter conjunction. And also you can find Mercury near the horizon for a short time before the sun sets completely.
Check the sky map below, Image Credit: Stellarium (Simulation)
Below image is taken couple of minutes back (March 6, 2012). On the left you can see Jupiter with magnitude of -2.0 and followed by Venus with magnitude of -4.13, Image Credit: Karthikeyan VJ, Image taken in Tallinn, Estonia (Full Image)
Today, Mars is at the closest distance to Earth for this year 2012. With distance of 101 million km away from Earth. Look out for bright red star next to Moon, that's Mars!!
Just took this image couple of minutes back. 6 images stacked over each other. Used the canon telephoto lens.
Camera: Canon EOS 1100D Lens: Canon ef 55-250mm IS
Have you taken interesting photo of the night sky and would like to share it with us?
Send in your photos to below email, with as much details possible relating to the photo.
AstroMadness.com has created this privacy statement in order to demonstrate our firm commitment to privacy.
Information we collect:
We may log IP addresses and/or drop cookies to prevent abuse of our website and/or to enhance services.
Third Party Advertising:
Ads appearing on this website, are delivered to you by Google Adsense and other third-party advertising companies.
Information about your visit to this site, such as number of times you have viewed an ad (but not your name, address, or other personal information), is used to serve ads to you on this site. These third parties and or AstroMadness.com may be placing and reading cookies on your browser to collect information, in the course of ads being served.
You may manage your cookies via your web browser and if you would like more information about this practice and to know your choices about not having this information used by these companies, please click here http://www.networkadvertising.org/optout_nonppii.asp
Google, as a third party vendor, uses cookies to serve ads on your site.
Google's use of the DART cookie enables it to serve ads to your users based on their visit to your sites and other sites on the Internet.
Users may opt out of the use of the DART cookie by visiting the Google ad and content network privacy policy.
Advertisers and Third Party Cookies :
In the course of serving advertisements to this site, our third-party ad server, Google Adsense, intergi, or individual advertisers may place or recognize a unique cookie on your browser. Cookies received with banner ads are collected by our ad company, and we do not have access to this information.
External Links:
AstroMadness.com contains links to other sites. AstroMadness.com is not responsible for the privacy practices or the content of such Web sites.
The Tokyo tower in Japan powers down for Earth Hour (Full Image). Watch the video of the power shut down, here.
Picture taken at Hong Kong, China (Full Image)
Picture taken at Sydney, Australia (Full Image)
