Sometimes astronomy is like sports. It’s fun to watch what’s going on day after day, reading the magazines and web sites for all the current events in astronomy. 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 stays on top of all the latest events, and even makes a lot of the news itself. Here are just some of the current events shown in mid November of 2008.
One of the most important current events in astronomy NASA discussed in November was the late month launch of the shuttle Endeavour. Refueling the International Space Station was its goal. The mission also included a number of spacewalks outside the station to perform routine maintenance. Space walks are not just spacewalks they are also learning experiences that apply to future missions. The space station is very important for furthering the science of astronomy.
Another of the current events in astronomy discussed by NASA in November was a staggering discovery made by the Hubble Telescope. It took a historic visible light image of a planet circling another sun. The effort dates way back to the 1980’s when NASA’s IRAS, an infrared telescope, discovered dust around the star. Scientists knew this was a sure sign that planets might circle the sun.
Current and events in astronomy can also be about what happened a long time ago. Images of the moon taken in 1966 and 1967 are being restored in the Lunar Orbiter Image Recovery Project. Luckily much of this data had been removed from tape and stored in analog form. NASA has already shown off some of these images.
Astronomy is a huge field. Current events in astronomy could cover volumes each day. Always looked to the sky!