Current Events in Astronomy

Astronomy, at times, can be like a sport. A lot of people love to keep up with it on a day to day basis. Interesting stories hit the news each day. That includes new images brought in from satellites and telescopes, new discoveries about the nature of planets and stars and other objects, as well as breakthroughs and just every day small progress in the tools and techniques used to make these discoveries.

A good place to find out about a lot of this is on NASA's website. NASA both breaks the news and makes the news when it comes to astronomy and space. A quick look at NASA's web site in mid November revealed some pretty big current events in astronomy.

The shuttle Endeavor launched in November, which was an important one of the many current events in astronomy. Its mission was to re-supply and repair the International Space Station. This included a number of space walks to perform routine maintenance on the outside of the station. Such space walks aren't only immediately important for the goals they accomplish, but important in the development of techniques and experiences that apply to future missions. While some might argue that the space station is more space related than necessarily astronomy related, there is a lot of science going on there, including observations of outer space which definitely falls under the heading of astronomy.

Another of the current events in astronomy discussed by NASA in November was a staggering discovery made by the Hubble Telescope. For the first time, a planet was seen orbiting another star in the visible light spectrum. It all began in the 1980s when IRAS, a NASA satellite telescope, used infrared to discover dust around the star. That was a tell tale sign that planets might orbit this star located about 25 light years away from our own little planet.

Current and events in astronomy can also be about what happened a long time ago. NASA announced details of a Lunar Orbiter Image Recovery Project designed to restore images of the moon taken by five Lunar Orbiter spacecraft that visited the moon in 1966 and 1967. This data was taken from tape drives. Some of these photographs have already been released to the public.

Astronomy is as big as the universe it covers. Also large is a list of current events in astronomy. Keep watching!