Eta Carinae

Image of Eta Carinae which is a blue hot star, in 1843 was the second brightest star in sky after Sirius but it soon faded after 50 years.

Leonid meteor shower

For those who love to watch meteor shower , there is going to be Leonid meteor shower during the night 16 th and 17 th November , 2009.

These meteor emanate from the constellation Leo hence they are named as Lenoid.

Astronomers believe that we can observe upto hundreds of meteors.

On 17 th November, 2009 we can observe meteor shower between 1:30 am EST and sunrise.

If you are not outside on 17 th November night then you will surely miss it.

Water found on Moon surface

My earlier post was Was moon bombing a success now LCROSS team has successfully found water on permanently shadowed lunar crater . The team was able to observe 25 liters of water with spectroscopic telescope.

The team has also found some components such as Sodium and Carbondioxide which they are analysing.

The impact created by the LCROSS Centaur upper stage rocket created a two-part plume of material from the bottom of the crater. The first part was a high angle plume about 10-12 meters across of vapor and fine dust and the second a lower angle ejecta curtain of heavier material. This material has not seen sunlight in billions of years.

Lunar scientists are trying to find out that how the water has come, whether by comets , meteorites or by some process in moon or the moon surface is creating water.

Spirit Rover finally moves in Martian soil

Spirit Rover which was stuck in Martian soil since April, 2009 has finally showed some movements from its current position.

The Spirit Rover team is trying to get her out from the sand trap in which she has got stuck.

Enjoy the animations of recent movement of Spirit

NASA is planning to have a press conference on 12th November, 2009 regarding the escape plan of the Rover.

" Marquette Island" a Martian Rock

3D image of the rock

Opportunity Rover has found a big rock on planet Mars. It is not clear that the rock is a meteorite or some thing else.

The rock has been named as "Marquette Island".

Enjoy these amazingly beautiful images of the " Marquette Island".

Amazing Enceladus Images

Image of plume from far away.

In my previous post Happy Halloween from Cassini Spacecraft Team i mentioned about Cassini spacecraft going to the Moon of Saturn, Enceladus on 2th November, 2009.

Cassini has captured some amazing images of the plumes shooting from Enceladus , they are simply the raw images.

The objective of Cassini is to analyse the particles in the plume with the instruments that can detect the mass , size, charge, speed and composition.

These are the first images of the plume and are amazing.