Wednesday, September 30, 2009

Sep30 Recap

Today's host was Prof. Marshall McCall. Few highlights were:

1. LCROSS changed its target crater based on LRO's results. Read nature news here.

2. India space agency announced that they found water molecules on the moon, using NASA's Moon Mineralogy Mapper carried by Chandrayaan-1. Read NASA mission news here.


3. ESO announced their world's fastest and most sensitive astronomical camera. It will be installed on VLT at 2011. It can take 1500 exposures per second, with readout noise 10 times smaller than the camera currently used on VLT. Read more here. A similar camera developed by a Montreal based company also released lately.

4. The sun is still around its deepest minimum, as a result the cosmic-rays reach their recorded level high for the Space Age. With a weakened shield from the sun, the space-crafts and astronauts may be harmed by cosmic-rays coming from the outside of the solar system. Read more here.

5. From Integral's map of 511 keV line emission, supernovae ejecta and winds of Wolf Rayet stars are enough for the observed gamma-ray flux, no dark matter needed. Read the article here.

6. ESO has released the last image of their trilogy of GigaGalaxy Zoom project. Read the news release phase 1, phase 2, and phase 3, or go to its website and check those amazing pictures here.

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