A new multimillion-rand telescope in the Karoo will offer astronomers an unprecedented view of the stars. The MeerLICHT instrument in Sutherland will be specifically linked to the MeerKAT radio telescope array near Carnarvon in the Northern Cape. Unlike its bigger brother SALT (Southern African Large Telescope), the MeerLICHT is meant …
optical astronomy has come a long way since the time of Galileo. From the crude telescopes used to observe the moons of Jupiter, to the large self-correcting mirrors in the latest generation of optical telescopes, the range of instruments available to today's astronomer is astonishing. There is however the persistent …
THE discovery of x-ray emission from the newest visitor to the realm of solar system on March 27: the Comet Hyakutake (pronounced yah-koo-tah- kay) by the German x-ray satellite called the Roentgen Satellite (ROSAT), has puzzled astrophysicists the world over. The comet was emitting x-rays in an unusual crescent pattern …
Biologist Robert Wharton of the Desert Research Institute in Reno, Nevada, US, is convinced that there once existed life on the Mars, planet. For the past 17 years, Wharton has been melting holes into the surface of Antarctic glacial lakes and diving below in search of life in any form. …
THOSE taking a trip to space need no longer subsist on a staple diet of frozen food straight out of tins. The National Aeronautics and Space Administration in the us announced recently that a new strain of wheat has been developed that can be grown on international space stations and …
THE comet c/1995 01, more popularly known as Hale-Bopp, has continued to surprise astronomers since its discovery last summer. Discovered at a distance of seven astronomical units from the sun (an astronomical unit is equal to the mean distance between the sun and the earth), the comet is almost one …
NEUTRON stars are among the most interesting candidates for observation in the universe. These are super-dense bodies, left behind after the occurence of a supernova explosion which results in the death of an extremely massive star. Some neutron stars can accrete (combine) material from other stars and thereby turn into …
THE post -World War II period witnessed the rapid development of many parts of the world. Burgeoning town apd cityscapes ~parkled witl.I millions of lights. And consequently, the night sky over a typical suburb in the us shines five-10 times brighter than the natural night sky, and that above a …
LARGE quantities of alcohol - ethanol - as consumed by earthlings have been recently found in abundance in the spatial region. Ethanol was discovered by two radio astronomers Geoff Macdonald and Rolf Habing from the Kent University in Canterbury, UK, close to a newly formed star known as G34.3+1.15. The …
'THE pie in the sky' is no longer miles too high. The keck Telescope, the world's biggest optical telescope, is helping astronomers achieve what they had always dreamt of doing - probing the spectra of extremely distant, and hence faint, objects in space. The main telescope is operated by a …
THE farthest hazy horizons of the universe seem to emerge clear, as astronomers working with the Keck telescope in Hawaii have recently claimed to have observed the most distant galaxy (and the oldest) known to humankind as yet. Embedded in the constellation Virgo some 14 billion fight years away, this …
Researchers at the Palomar Observatory, Caltech, USA, have recently reported the coolest brown dwarf with the lowest mass. Brown dwarves are star-like objects which have a mass less than 0.08 times that of the sun and are unable to sustain the thermonuclear reactions in their interiors. Most of their gravitational …
The Bubble Space Telescope team at the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) has recently released the most detailed pictures or optical images of the universe ever seen. The composite picture shows what scientists call the bewildering assortment of at least 1,500 galaxies in a tiny undistinguished patch of the …
THE plucky American spacecraft Galileo, which went into orbit around Jupiter after successfully delivering a 'suicide probe' in December last year, has gradually begun to unveil the mysteries surrounding the planet's atmosphere. , After a reasonably long wait, scientists at the us National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) have now …
THE earth may not be the only planet capable of supporting life. Two new planets sighted recently can possibly do the same, as they show the ability to hold water and other building blocks of life. The exciting discovery was announced on January 17, 1996 at the winter meeting of …
A JOINT venture between the European Space Agency and the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), us, has led to the launching of the us $1 billion Solar and Helioscopic Observatory (SOHO) from Cape Canaveral in the us. The main focus of SOHO will be on recording information about the …
IN THE vast expanses of the universe, the fact that we are the only planetary system around a star would stand out to be against all laws of probability. The chances are that there are many such extrasolar planets in the numerous galaxies which make up the universe. The rub …
IT IS being hailed as one of the most ,epochal' moments in the history of unmanned space exploration by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), USA: Jupiter, the largest planet in Our solar system, now has an Earthly visitor - Galileo. Defying adverse predictions, Sur mounting all delays, disasters, …
Galileo, en route to Jupiter, flew within 2,400 km of the asteroid Ida to discover a natural satellite, Dactyl. Ida is a member of the Koronis family of asteroids, which are believed to have been created when an enormous body, perhaps 200-300 kin in diameter, was smashed in a collision …
ONE of the curious facts of our universe to how it is that the deeper one in space, the more one travels in time. This is because light (or signals emitted from a distant in space take time to reach us; the signals we recieve must have ted a long …
Even as the recent photographs from the Hubble Space Telescope made news, radio observations made over the last three years by the NASA Deep Space Network anten- na at Goldstone, California, and the Very Large Array - a collection of radio telescopes outside Socorro, New Mtsdw - turned the spotlight …
