Venus nicknamed as Earth's twin

Venus and Earth both share a similar size, gravity and bulk composition and hence, sometimes it is nicknamed as Earth's twin. But with a thick cloak of sulphuric acid clouds and a surface pressure nearly one hundred times that of Earth , makes it less hospitable than Earth. Venus once possessed Earth-like oceans, which evaporated into space to leave a barren landscape.

Venus is a big planet, being heated by radioactive elements in its interior. Some areas in Venus appear to be composed of darker rock , which shows relatively recent volcanic flows.

Both Russia and America sent probes to Venus during the 1970s and 80s – Venera and Pioneer, respectively – that sampled rocks made of basalt. Basalt is formed from cooling lava erupted by volcanoes, and, as is the case on Earth, where magma up-wells along ocean ridges to make new oceanic crust.

The new map of Venus reveals lighter coloured and older rocks with characteristics similar to Earth's granitic continents. Granite is created when basaltic rocks are forced down into the fiery interior of the planet by the process of plate tectonics, which builds and destroys the Earth's crust in an endless cycle. Water combines with the basalt to form granite and the mixture is reborn through volcanic eruptions.

According to the planetary scientists if there is granite in Venus then there must have been ocean in the past.

Shuttle Endeavour launch on sunday postponed

NASA on Sunday postponed the launch of space shuttle Endeavour for the day due storms near Kennedy Space Center.

NASA will next try to launch the shuttle on Monday at 6:51 p.m.

Endeavour's launch was postponed twice last month because of a liquid hydrogen leak.

Endeavour, carrying seven astronauts and a key component for Japan's Kibo science laboratory, is to head to the International Space Station for a 16-day mission. Five spacewalks are planned for the crew after the shuttle docks.

A galaxy : Stephan's Quintet

Stephan's Quintet is a compact group of galaxies discovered about 130 years ago and located about 280 million light years from Earth.

Fireworks in Helix nebula

Image taken by Subaru Telescope shows comet -shaped knots lighting up the Helix nebula.

A nebula is cloud of gas and dust in space. Some nebulas are regions where new stars are being formed, while others are the remains of dead or dying stars. Nebulas come in many shapes and sizes. There are four different types of nebulas- planetary , reflection, emision and absorption nebulas.

Helix nebula is located about 710 light years from Earth and was first planetary nebula in which knots were abserved.

No water ice found in Japanese lunar mission

Japanese Selene lunar orbiter have failed to detect any signs of water in permanently shaded craters around the South pole of the Moon.

Although the Japanese lunar orbiter found no ice it did find a crater much deeper than other lunar craters of a similar diameter and internal temperatures that could support ice delivered by comets over billions of years.

It has also returned beautiful images of the Earth and Moon as the 40th anniversary of the first manned lunar landing by Apollo 11.

Fermi solves the mystery of gamma ray pulsars

A pulsar is a highly magnetised rapidly spinning neutron star , the dense core remaining aftera supernova explosion.

NASA's Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope solves the mystery of previously unidentified gamma-ray sources. Fermi has now uncovered 16 pulsars based on their high energy gamma rays alone.

Fermi can 'feel' the gamma-ray pulsations gives important information about the mechanism behind the emissions. Radio pulsars emit narrow beams of radio waves that sweep around like a lighthouse beacon, bathing the Earth in radiation to enable detections. If the radio beam misses the Earth, the pulsar cannot be detected by radio telescopes, but FermiÕs ability to detect so many radio-quiet gamma-ray pulsars indicates that the gamma-rays are emitted in a beam that is wider and more fan-like than the radio beam.

First images from Lunar Reconnissance Orbiter

NASA's Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO) has transmitted its first images since reaching moon.

LRO will help NASA to locate potential resources , describe the moon's radiation environment and identify safe landing sites for future explorers.

New black hole found

A new black hole more than 500 times the mass of Sun has been discovered using ESA's XMM-Newton space telescope.

Moon mission picture of 1969 goes missing

The world is getting ready to celebrate next month the 40th anniversary of historical Apollo 11 flight which is the first manned mission to moon and the officials of Tata Institute Of Fundamental Reasearch (TIFR) at Colaba are trying to find out a priceless picture that is missing from their office.

The picture was autographed and presented to TIFR by the three astronauts Neil Armstrong , Buzz Aldrin and Michael Collins who were the first humans to land on the surface of moon. The picture was the size of an A3 size paper placed in the director's office in TIFR and used to attract a lot of visitors.

Cosmic blobs and Galaxies

Cosmic blobs are immense reservoirs of hydrogen gas located in the early Universe. Black holes and star formation have been observed in cosmic blobs.

The glow of cosmic blobs in optical light had remained a mystery for the astronomers but with the help of telescopes such as Chandra X-ray Observatory,Spitzer Space Telescope and Hubble they have found that the source of power is coming from growing supermassive black holes and from newly forming stars.