The Earth Has a Second Moon, And No One Noticed All This While

Researchers have discovered that an object, now dubbed 2020 CD3, has been gravitationally bound to earth for about three years now. And it is only now that we have discovered it. It was on February 19 that astronomers at the Catalina Sky Survey in Arizona spotted a dim object moving quickly across the sky somewhere close to earth. The same object was then observed by researchers at six more observatories around the world who confirmed the presence of what can now be considered a minimoon. The researchers say the new and perhaps temporary minimoon is probably between 1.9 meters and 3.5 metres across, which is around the same size as a mid-size car.

Astronomers say that the new minimoon orbit isn’t stable, and the 2020 CD3 could eventually catapult itself away from Earth. “It is heading away from the Earth-moon system as we speak,” says Grigori Fedorets at Queen’s University Belfast in the UK, told the New Scientist. Incidentally, this isn’t the first-time earth has had an additional moon, albeit temporarily. In 2006, the 2006 RH120 remained within the earth’s gravitational pull between September 2006 and June 2007 before it managed to wriggle free. Chances are, this minimoon will too.

Search For Alien Llife Begins As World's Largest Radio Telescope Starts Operating

BEIJING, CHINA: The world's largest radio telescope began operating in southwestern China Sunday, a project which Beijing says will help humanity search for alien life. The Five-hundred-metre Aperture Spherical Radio Telescope (FAST), nestled between hills in the mountainous region of Guizhou, began working around noon, the official Xinhua news agency reported.

Hubble Space Telescope

The Hubble Space Telescope (HST) is a space telescope that was launched into low Earth orbit in 1990, and remains in operation. With a 2.4-meter (7.9 ft) mirror, Hubble's four main instruments observe in the near ultraviolet, visible, and near infrared spectra. The telescope is named after the astronomer Edwin Hubble. Hubble's orbit outside the distortion of Earth's atmosphere allows it to take extremely high-resolution images with negligible background light. Hubble has recorded some of the most detailed visible-light images ever, allowing a deep view into space and time. Many Hubble observations have led to breakthroughs in astrophysics, such as accurately determining the rate of expansion of the universe.

Pluto

Pluto is the largest object in the Kuiper belt, the tenth-most-massive known body directly orbiting the Sun; and the second-most-massive known dwarf planet, after Eris in our Solar System.

Our Solar System

Ancient astronomers observed points of light that appeared to move among the stars.The Solar System comprises the Sun and the objects that orbit it.The Solar System formed 4.6 billion years ago from the gravitational collapse of a giant molecular cloud. The vast majority of the system's mass is in the Sun, with most of the remaining mass contained in Jupiter. The four smaller inner planets, Mercury, Venus, Earth and Mars, also called the terrestrial planets, are primarily composed of rock and metal. The four outer planets, called the gas giants, are substantially more massive than the terrestrials. The two largest, Jupiter and Saturn, are composed mainly of hydrogen and helium; the two outermost planets, Uranus and Neptune, are composed largely of substances with relatively high melting points (compared with hydrogen and helium), called ices, such as water, ammonia and methane, and are often referred to separately as "ice giants". All planets have almost circular orbits that lie within a nearly flat disc called the ecliptic plane.

Planet Saturn

Saturn is the sixth planet from the Sun and the second largest planet in the Solar System, after Jupiter. Named after the Roman god of agriculture, its astronomical symbol (♄) represents the god's sickle. Saturn is a gas giant with an average radius about nine times that of Earth. While only one-eighth the average density of Earth, with its larger volume Saturn is just over 95 times more massive

Northern Lights

Northern Lights is a common name for the Aurora Borealis (Polar Aurorae) in the Northern Hemisphere.

Supermassive Black Hole About to Eat Gas Cloud?

A simulation shows how a gas cloud approaching our galaxy's supermassive black hole may break apart.

Last Weekend's Lunar Eclipse

Lunar Eclipse Pictures:Seen in a composite picture taken from Sweden on Saturday, the moon emerges from the last total lunar eclipse for three years.

The entire lunar eclipse was visible from East Asia, Australia, and the far western part of North America that includes Alaska and Canada's Yukon and Northwest Territories.

In Sweden and the rest of northern Europe, the full moon emerged from Earth's shadow as the natural satellite rose on Saturday night.

400 Trillion Miles Away, a Comet Storm Waters a World

An artist's conception illustrates a storm of comets around a star near our own, called Eta Corvi
A fusillade of comets 400 trillion miles away may be a replay of the early days of Earth

The Nobel Prize in Physics 2011

The Nobel Prize in Physics 2011 was awarded "for the discovery of the accelerating expansion of the Universe through observations of distant supernovae" with one half to Saul Perlmutter and the other half jointly to Brian P. Schmidt and Adam G. Riess.

Compelling New Evidence for Flowing Water on Mars

A combination image made with 3-D modeling illustrates possible evidence of liquid water active on Mars today.
NASA / JPL-Caltech / Uinversity of Arizona / Reuters

In a paper published this week in the journal Science and announced at a press conference at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in Pasadena, mission scientists revealed the appearance of seasonal streaks at key points on the Martian surface, looking for all the world like the tracks of water rivulets running down-slope, collecting at the base of the incline and then evaporating back into the atmosphere.
Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO), which has been circling the Red Planet since 2006, have produced the first compelling evidence of flowing, salty water on the Martian surface. Water may mean biology — and biology, of course, would mean Martians.

Pass Out the Cigars! Pluto Is a Papa By Michael D. Lemonick

An image of the Pluto system taken by the Hubble Space Telescope's Wide Field Camera 3 ultraviolet visible instrument with newly discovered fourth moon P4 circled, taken on on July 3, 2011.
NASA / ESA / M. Showalter (SETI institute)

The image that popped up in Hubble's gallery on June 28 didn't show any rings — but it did show that Pluto has a moon nobody knew about.
Tiny P4 should have a real name. "We're tossing around some ideas," says Showalter, "but the name has to come out of Greek mythology associated with Hades and the underworld." That's according to the International Astronomical Union, which has to formally approve the names of heavenly objects — and which has strict and sometimes arcane guidelines for what's permitted. Underworld myths are the rule for moons of Pluto; for moons of Uranus, it's got to be characters from the works of Shakespeare and Alexander Pope — specifically Pope's poem "The Rape of the Lock." That required Showalter to learn the verses well. "I'm the discoverer of two moons of Uranus," he says. "We named them Cupid and Mab."