In 30 minutes, at 1955 EST, the Space Shuttle Endeavour is scheduled to launch. It will visit the International Space Station to deliver equipment to make living at ISS much easier on astronauts. This mission is STS-126.

You can watch the launch on NASA TV.

[tags]space shuttle, endeavour, international space station, nasa[/tags]

Phil Plait has the all-caps news, but it’s too huge to keep to one website.

Hubble has spotted a planet around Fomalhaut, the brightest star in Aquarius. This isn’t your normal “oh yeah we’ve seen evidence for a planet through wiggles in spectral lines” planetary discovery, this is an actual picture of a planet.

And that’s not all! Gemini North spotted two planets around a star named HR 8799. Two! It’s the first image of a planetary system outside our own!

Just go read Plait’s story about the new planets. He does this awesome discovery justice.

Edit: because Phil’s picture is flagged as private, here are the two pictures of the three planets:

[tags]astronomy, planets, fomalhaut, hr 8799, exoplanets, hubble, gemini[/tags]

At around 0246 UT (about two hours and twenty minutes from now), the Earth will be hit by an asteroid. 2008 TC3 was discovered last night by Richard Kowalski and a team at Mt. Lemmon Observatory in Arizona, and further observations pinned down its orbit enough that calculations can be made that predict the asteroid will enter the Earth’s atmosphere somewhere near Sudan.

But don’t worry! This asteroid is between 2 and 5 meters in diameter. Asteroids this size enter the Earth’s atmosphere all the time at a rate of a few per year. This is the first time one’s been spotted before it enters the atmosphere though.

If you want to pretend you’re on 2008 TC3 as it barrels into the Earth, check out this awesome animation.

[tags]astronomy, asteroid, 2008 tc3, richard kowalski[/tags]

SCUBA-2, being a revolutionary instrument and all, is still in the process of being commissioned at JCMT. It shipped with “engineering-grade” arrays, which are of lower quality than “science-grade” arrays. They have more dead pixels and the remaining pixels are noisier than the requested spec. They can still be used for commissioning, as they can detect photons, only not well enough to do proper science with.

The science-grade arrays are still being manufactured in a rather long and complicated process, involving groups from the National Institute of Standards and Technology in Boulder, Colorado, the UK Astronomy Technology Centre and the Scottish Microelectronics Centre in Edinburgh, Scotland, the Astronomy Instrumentation Group at the Cardiff University in Wales, and of course the Joint Astronomy Centre in Hilo, Hawaii. Bits and pieces get flown all over the place, and it’s a wonder that nothing serious has happened to the arrays or any bits of them*.

Until June 9, when NIST researchers discovered that a vial of plutonium was cracked and some particles spilled from the vial. Understandably this has lead to the closure of the lab while cleanup and investigations are done. Unfortunately this lab had either parts of the arrays or the full arrays in it. They’re not expecting to get into the lab until August, when we find out if the radiation event caused any damage to the sensitive SCUBA-2 array electronics.

Since then, NIST has found that some of the plutonium entered the sanitary sewer system at levels below state and federal limits, and that some NIST employees show evidence of internal plutonium exposure. Obviously SCUBA-2 should take a back seat to more important concerns.

But full operation SCUBA-2 has just been pushed back again. How much is still uncertain, but a month is probably the lower limit.

*One of the more serious problems to date came when one of the groups was preparing the arrays for shipping and accidentally dropped a crate on or tightened a lid on one of them, crushing one of the corners. Whoops.

[tags]scuba2, jcmt, nist, astronomy, plutonium, radiation, ukatc[/tags]

Just when you thought that HiRISE taking pictures of Phoenix wasn’t cool enough… Emily at the Planetary Society Weblog has an even cooler picture:

Sweet!

Emily has more HiRISE photos, specifically these ones of the landing site. Go check them out!

[tags]mars, phoenix, hirise, mars reconnaisance orbiter, astronomy, planetary society[/tags]

Seriously, how can you come up with a picture cooler than this one:

What is it? It’s the Phoenix Lander parachuting down to the surface of Mars. Why is it cool? Because it was taken by the HiRISE camera on the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter. It’s the first time that a spacecraft has taken a picture of another spacecraft descending to land on another planet. How cool is that? You can even see the tethers connecting the Phoenix lander to the parachute!

Press release: nasa.gov

[tags]phoenix, mars, hirise, mars reconnaisance orbiter, nasa[/tags]