NGC 4666. Click for a larger version. Credit: ESO

A very nice new release from the ESO. I’ve included the press release below, but if you have the time the site has additional images.

NGC 4666 is in the Constellation Virgo.

It’s even viewable from the Northern Hemisphere:
RA: 12h 45m 06.0s  Dec: -00°28’00″  (Epoch 2000)
It’s kind of small (Size: 4.2′ x 1.4′) but with a back yard telescope but at a magnitude 10.8 it is sufficiently bright you should be able to pick it out with dark adapted eyes.

The ESO press release:

The prominent galaxy NGC 4666 in the centre of the picture is a starburst galaxy, about 80 million light-years from Earth, in which particularly intense star formation is taking place. The starburst is thought to be caused by gravitational interactions between NGC 4666 and its neighbouring galaxies, including NGC 4668, visible to the lower left. These interactions often spark vigorous star-formation in the galaxies involved.
Read more »

Hurricane Earl from the ISS. Wallpaper sizes below. Images: Douglas Wheelock aboard the ISS / Twitpic / NASA

Time for some new wallpaper on this machine. This is a picture of Hurricane Earl taken by Astronaut Douglas Wheelock aboard the International Space Station will do very nicely.

Earl is a Category 4 storm and is expected to come up the US east coast and have some sort if impact from the Carolinas to Nova Scotia.  Visit the National Hurricane Center for the details.

You can see more of Doug’s images on Twitpic (where this image came from), there are some real nice shots there so be sure to check it out.

Thanks to Doug for sharing!

Here are a few wallpaper versions:

Most people aren’t aware that between 1961 and 1984, the USSR sent a series of probes to Venus.  All together, ten probes were landed on the surface of Venus, and thirteen were able to return atmospheric data from the planet.

“Venera” is the Russian word for “Venus”, it looks kinda like this in Cyrillic:  Behepa.

Believed location of the Venera landers, archival image

The series was very successful, becoming the first man-made device to enter the atmosphere of another planet (Venera 4), to soft-land on another planet (Venera 7), to return images from another planet surface (Venera 9), and to perform radar mapping of Venus (Venera 15).  Of course, during the time period this occurred, the US and the USSR were fussy with each other, so this amazing accomplishment didn’t receive a lot of air time in the West.

Venera 7 lander capsule, NASA archival image

The probes started out designed to land on a planet much like Earth, but when the atmosphere of Venus was discovered to be so much heavier and more hostile than that of Earth, the hull of the probes was strengthened to survive entry and landing.  We got the first images from the surface of Venus from the Venera probes:

Venera 9 panorama of Venusian surface (1975), archival image

The Venera orbiters mapped much of the surface of Venus, while the landers returned information of surface conditions, including some soil samples.  Venera 12 possibly even recorded lighting on Venus.

An interesting aside is that one of the Venera series that didn’t make it out of Earth’s orbit, becoming renamed “Kosmos 96″, is believed to have crash-landed near Kecksburg, Pennsylvania.  It then became tangled up in what was known as the “Kecksburg Incident” among UFO enthusiasts.

All in all, the Venera series is a wonderful chapter in space exploration… one that didn’t receive near the attention it deserved.  Do you remember Venera?

Hat tip to Don — this is really good.

I’ve watched this over and over focusing on one thing or another, in the beginning you can follow individual asteroids.  The orbital elements were taken from the ‘astorb.dat’ data created by Ted Bowell and associates at http://www.naic.edu/~nolan/astorb.html.

Scott Manley did a nice job putting things together.

UPDATE:  SOLVED by Emily at 12:02 CDT, a new record!

It’s Saturday again, and time for a riddle.  I’ll make today’s riddle easy, so if you’ve been hanging back through a couple of difficult ones, today is your day.  This one should be solved quickly, so get your guess in early.  And, by the way, even if you aren’t 100% sure of your answer, try it anyway.  Nobody is going to laugh at you.

Okay?  You ready to go?  Moving right along…

Today’s answer is an object.

It exists in the real world.

This is a singular thing, although for much of its history it was thought to be two things.

It was known to ancient man, but they didn’t know at what they were looking.

Our own knowledge of this thing has increased a great deal in the last 35 years, for a specific reason.

In the past, this object has been associated with speech, writing, arithmetic, and the conveyance of knowledge from one area to another.

It has many interesting features; in fact, some of them are downright weird.

This hard-shelled candy has a soft, chewy center.

That should do it.  You know where to find me; lurking as usual.  Remember, this one will go fast…

… in fact, speed is what it’s all about!

Fiddleback meets saxaphoneback

Take a look at this; from the New Jersey Institute of Technology, it’s the clearest, most detailed image of a sunspot taken in natural light:

NJIT/BBSO NST sunspot

Amazing.  This is from the New Solar Telescope (NST) at the Big Bear Solar Observatory (BBSO), using adaptive optics.  From the press release:

NJIT Distinguished Professor Philip R. Goode and the Big Bear Solar Observatory (BBSO) team have achieved “first light” using a deformable mirror in what is called adaptive optics at Big Bear Solar Observatory (BBSO). Using this equipment, an image of a sunspot was published yesterday on the website of Ciel et l’Espace, as the photo of the day: http://www.cieletespace.fr/node/5752

“This photo of a sunspot is now the most detailed ever obtained in visible light,” according to Ciel et l’Espace. In September, the publication, a popular astronomy magazine, will publish several more photos of the Sun taken with BBSO’s new adaptive optics system.

Here’s a link to the press release if you’re interested in reading more about it.