On June 5th, 2012, Venus will transit the face of the sun in an event of both historical and observational importance. Amateur astronomers who manage to locate Venus in broad daylight will find that the planet has turned into a delightfully slender crescent. This
The upcoming transit of Venus will occur on June 5th in the Western Hemisphere and on June 6th in the Eastern Hemisphere. We bring you some facts and tips on how to make your skywatching more memorable.Why this is a rare event?The orbits
The Yaogan XV remote-sensing satellite was successfully launched on Tuesday from the Taiyuan Satellite Launch Center in north China’s Shanxi province, according to a press release from the center. The satellite was launched on the back of a Long March 4B carrier
“The phenomenon of balls of fire shooting from the sky accompanied by huge blast-like sounds was witnessed by many last Tuesday evening (May 22, 2012) around 5 p.m. The shower was travelling in the eastern direction and is the first such meteorite shower recorded in
The newly-discovered 3-10 meter wide asteroid is flying past Earth today (May 29th) only ~14,000 km (8,700 miles) or about 0.05 lunar distance (0.0001379 AU) above Earth’s surface. Asteroid 2012 KT42 will actually fly inside the Clark Belt of geosynchronous
An annular solar eclipse will be visible from a 240 to 300 kilometre-wide track that traverses eastern Asia, the northern Pacific Ocean and the western United States. A partial eclipse is seen within the much broader path of the Moon’s penumbral shadow, that includes
The new analysis suggests that about twice as many potentially hazardous asteroids (PHAs) as previously thought reside in low-inclination orbits, which are roughly aligned with the plane of Earth’s orbit. The new results from data obtained from the asteroid-hunting
A solar eclipse occurs when the moon gets between Earth and the sun, and the moon casts a shadow over Earth. A solar eclipse can only take place at the phase of new moon, when the moon passes directly between the sun and the Earth and its shadows fall upon the
SOHO is back up and running after what officials call “a technical glitch” temporarily sidelined the observatory for just over a week.The Solar and Heliospheric Observatory (SOHO), which is jointly managed by NASA and the European Space Agency continued sending
The European Space Agency (ESA) on Wednesday declared the official end of Envisat, the Earth-monitoring satellite that went silent last month after operating for twice its predicted lifespan. A team of engineers has spent the last month attempting to regain control of
