Two eclipses this month

This month we have two eclipses- a full moon ( lunar eclipse) this Saturday 11th February 2017 and a new moon (solar eclipse) on Sunday, February 26.There are only four eclipses in total in 2017 and the other two aren’t until August. Eclipses are supercharged new and full moons. Lunar eclipses occur during full moons…

Peggy Saturn’s new moon

Scientists studying the Saturn’s rings are hoping to get a resolved picture of an embedded object they believe exists but cannot see. The moonlet named Peggy is named after London researcher Carl Murray’s mother-in-law, was first identified on 15th April 2013, as a long, bright smudge at the end of Saturn’s A-ring. The Cassini spacecraft’s mission…

Close up of Pandora Saturn’s moon : Nasa’s Cassini image

Cassini captured this stunning image of the 52-mile-wide Saturn moon that orbits outside the F ring 25,200 miles from Pandora during its closest-ever flyby. According to NASA the image was captured in green light using Cassini’s narrow-angle camera at a scale of 787 feet (240 meters) per pixel. Just days ago NASA released another spectacular…

Stunning view of Jupiter’s north pole

NASA’s Juno spacecraft sent stunning images back and they described Jupiter’s northern pole “unlike anything” that they have encountered. Stronger than expected storm systems and bizarre weather activity were among the items from Juno’s closest flyby to date as the spacecraft hovered  2,500 miles above the clouds of Jupiter. Scott Bolton, Principal investigator of Juno…

Juno space probe closest to Jupiter

NASA’s probe Juno, moving at 130,000 mph (208,000 km/h), has made its first close approach to the planet Jupiter, 2600miles (4200km) above, since going into orbit in July. Juno had all is instruments and camera switched on and is ready for the encounter. Nasa expects to release some high resolution images from the approach in…

Charon Pluto’s Moon

The US Space agency mission is in the process of downlinking all the data it gathered during its historic flyby of Pluto on 14th July 2015. Pluto’s major Moon Charon’s pictures from the New Horizon mission.  The probe has already travelled 100 million miles beyond the dwarf planet since the flyby, putting it five billion…

Water on Mars

According to scientists there is liquid water that runs down canyons and crater walls over the summer months in Mars. Water on Mars exists today as water trapped in the polar ice caps and small quantities as vapour in the atmosphere and low volume of liquid. A massive ancient ocean once covered nearly half of…

Red Supermoon and lunar eclipse

  The eclipse made the Moon appear red in colour and 8 per cent larger in the sky, was be visible in North America, South America, West Africa and western Europe. NASA claims a supermoon last coincided with a lunar eclipse in 1982 and is not expected to again until 2033. A supermoon occurs when…

Astro-tourism heaven at northern Chile

    According to International Dark-Sky Association (IDA) Elqui Valley, in Northeren Chile, a wine-growing region some 400 km north of the Chilean capital Santiago, ‘has been recognised and designated as the first International Dark Sky Sanctuary in the world’. Electricity, here is a nuisance to serious and amateur astronomers, who tend not to seek…