European astronomers have discovered a planet with about the
mass of the Earth orbiting a star in the Alpha Centauri system —
the nearest to Earth. It is also the lightest exoplanet ever
discovered around a star like the Sun. The planet was detected
using the HARPS instrument on the 3.6-metre telescope at ESO’s
La Silla Observatory in Chile. The results will appear online in
the journal Nature on 17 October 2012. read more:
http://www.eso.org/public/news/eso1241/ 2012 DA14 is an
approximately 40 meter diameter asteroid that will take a close
approach to Earth in early 2013. Contrary to some reports on the
web, there is no danger of it hitting us during this encounter.
This visualization shows the trajectory of the asteroid as
computed by JPL’s HORIZONS ( #Astronomy ) Pretty picture:
Enceladus, in lovely color Feb. 6, 2012 | 13:38 PST | 21:38 UTC
Here’s an awesome picture to start off the week. The data came
from Cassini’s flyby of Enceladus on January 31, 2011; it was
part of Cassini’s January 2012 data relea