Astronomy News

The entire universe is astronomy. It's due to the fact that astronomy is all about the universe. Astronomy news is interesting, to say the least, and can be found in media reports as well as on web sites such as those maintained by astronomy magazines and agencies like NASA. Let's look at some of the more interesting tidbits.

The magazine “Astronomy” is a great source of astronomy news. NASAs IBEX, Interstellar Boundary Explorer, was one exciting story. Just as weathermen examine fronts and the interaction of hot air with cold air and dry air with wet air, IBEX is interested in such fronts and their interaction in outer space. To be exact it is the solar wind and how it interacts with space beyond the reach of the sun. IBEX is also set to map the boundaries of our solar system.

More astronomy news covered by Astronomy magazine is the discovery of a new aurora on Saturn that's unlike any other known aurora in the solar system. Charged particles interact with the planet's magnetic field to form an aurora. Earth's aurorae come from charged particles from the solar wind. Jupiter produces the particles and the magnetic field that creates its auroras. Saturn's aurora, which covers a very large area, has been seen in infrared and will teach scientists a lot about this phenomenon.

“Universe Today” is yet another great source of astronomy news. On November 13, 2008 it carried the story of contact reestablished with the Mars rover. The culprit was a big dust storm. But Spirit recovered from this low-power dilemma. Its solar panels couldn't get sun in the dust storm, and scientists feared it would go into a low power coma-like mode from which it would not wake. However, the rover woke up so it's business as usual.

Contact with intelligent life may be a matter of less than 15 years thanks to the Allen telescope array, at least that's what's in astronomy news. The array currently is made up of 42 antennas, but will expand over time to include 350 small radio antennas that search the sky for signals that mean intelligence. When it finally includes 350 antennas, by 2025, scientists involved with the project say it will reach far enough into space to finally pull in signals from intelligent extraterrestrials.

Finding another intelligent race somewhere out there sure would be huge astronomy news.