A little while ago the HTV-5 spacecraft blasted off atop a H-II rocket from the Tanegashima Space Center for a supply mission to the International Space Station. About fifteen minutes after launch, the cargo spacecraft regularly separated from the rocket’s last stage, entered a preliminary orbit and deployed its solar panels and navigation antennas.
A photograph of the galaxy NGC 428 taken by the Hubble Space Telescope shows its distorted and warped structure. Together with traces of a significant amount of stars being formed, it’s the sign of the merger between two galaxies. For this reason, its appearance could give us an idea of what will happen in a few billion years to the Milky Way in its merger with Andromeda.
Planet 51 Eridani b is the first discovered using the Gemini Planet Imager (GPI), an instrument that started operating at the beginning of 2014 with the express purpose of directly detecting planets outside the solar system. This is the smallest exoplanet observed directly so far and its characteristics suggest that resembles Jupiter when it was very young. The results of this research were published in the journal “Science”.
During the day yesterday the comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko passed the perihelion, the point of closest approach to the Sun. ESA’s Rosetta space probe was at a distance of about 327 kilometers (about 203 miles) and with its NAVCAM instrument took a series of pictures to document the comet’s activities. Thanks to the heat it’s been receiving from the Sun the spectacular jets of gas generated by ice sublimation will continue for a few weeks.
An international team of astronomers examined the data of more than 200,000 galaxies at different electromagnetic wavelengths. The conclusion is that in a section of the universe the energy output today is about half compared to two billion years ago. In essence, the universe is dying but you need not worry because it’s an extremely slow process. This research was presented at the International Astronomical Union XXIX General Assembly and will be published in the journal “Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society”.
