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Show 351: Giant Diamond in Space
September 8, 2011
A new object with the mass of Jupiter was recently discovered, and it’s made of diamond — a billion, billion, billion carat diamond floating through space! The planet was probably a white dwarf, stripped down to its core by a nearby pulsar.
Show 350: Pluto's New Moon
September 1, 2011
Pluto, the most famous dwarf planet in the solar system, is known to have three moons. A new, tiny moon has been observed with the Hubble Space Telescope. The new moon is temporarily called “P4” and is a scant 8-21 miles across. These observations were made in support of the New Horizon mission, currently on its way to the Pluto system. Hubble data is helping scientists to understand what the system is like in advance of the mission’s arrival.
Show 349: Flames of Betelgeuse
August 25, 2011
A new image reveals a huge, amorphous nebula surrounding the famous red supergiant star Betelgeuse. The new images — showing the stellar nebula in much greater detail than ever before, with the structures that look like flames originating from the star and stretching 40 billion miles into space — come from the very Large Telescope in Chile.
Show 348: Neptune Completes a Full Orbit
August 18, 2011
Neptune is the solar system’s farthest major planet from the Sun. Its larger neighbors, Jupiter and Saturn, draw a lot of attention, but Neptune has interesting weather patterns and differs from the two large gas planets in structure and composition. It’s similar to its near-twin Uranus, and it even has a ragged ring system. Neptune has just completed its first full, 165-year orbit since its discovery in 1846. Hubble images commemorate the event.
Show 345: Enceladus' Ocean
July 28, 2011
Saturn’s moon Enceladus is certainly an exotic place, spewing plumes of material from its atmosphere. The composition of the plumes suggested they may be venting from an icy source. Recent analysis suggests that perhaps the origin is actually some sort of ocean or salty sea below the moon’s frozen surface.
Show 344: Earth's Origins
July 21, 2011
It is assumed that the Sun and the planets formed from the same material. This is basically true, but painstaking analysis from the NASA Genesis satellite samples suggests an odd discrepancy. The Sun and Jupiter seem to have the same type of oxygen and nitrogen, while the inner planets and bodies, including Earth, are a bit different.
Show 343: Supernova 1987A Changes
July 14, 2011
In 1987, a star in a nearby galaxy exploded. Astronomers in the southern hemisphere watched the supernova ignite in the sky. Shortly after the Hubble Space Telescope was launched in 1990, astronomers began observing the object, discovering a complex ring structure. Now the supernova is transitioning to the next stage, a supernova remnant.
Show 342: Gale Crater Ready for Its Close-up
July 7, 2011
The 90-mile-wide Gale Crater on Mars seems to leading the running for a landing site for Mars Science Laboratory rover, which will launch in November and arrive at Mars in August 2012. Gale has great variety of geologic formations that could help explain the history of Mars.
