Asteroid 2007 WD5 may hit Mars next month

Shanmughanathan | Sep 15 2008

In 2004, people saw comet ShoemakerLevy 9 smacking into Jupiter. It was pretty cool. Now, scientists are even more excited that an asteroid speeding at 8 miles per second is on its way to hit planet Mars. Even though it is predicted that there is only 1 in 75 chances of hitting the Red Planet, this would leave a heck of a dent were it to hit. It allows scientists to get some good data and images with that they could study better about the planet. Named 2007 WD5, the asteroid is likely to hit Mars by the end of January next year.

Earth-like planets may be forming in the Pleiades cluster

Irani | Sep 15 2008

The 400 light-years away open cluster in the constellation of Taurus and among the nearest to the Earth Pleiades seems to be ever happening, now that small, rocky planets may be in the making in the cluster! It is all happening around one of the hundreds of stars known as HD 23514 in the Pleiades cluster and interestingly, the forming planets could resemble either Earth or Mars! The star is found to be surrounded by an extraordinary number of hot dust particles, and these perhaps are the planets building blocks, researchers believe.

55 Cancri's fifth planet is perhaps not it's last one

C.S. | Sep 10 2008

Our solar system is by far the largest of about 130 planetary systems that exist. There are stars other than the sun such as 55 Cancri and mu Ara around which planets have been found to orbit. The 55 Cancri is about 41 light-years away from solar system, in the

constellation of cancer. A new fifth planet has been found to be revolving around the 55 Cancri star making it the only quintuple planetary system other than our own solar system. However, the 55 Cancri is much older and dimmer, than the sun, with only 58% of the suns luminosity. Researchers contemplate that the new planet should be 45 times the mass of earth and around half the size of Saturn. The discovery has been made and announced by a team from UC Berkeley and Carnegie planet search team. UC Berkeley astronomy professor Geoffrey Marcy said

Hard-to-find 27 pre-galactic fragments spotted in space

Apabrita | Sep 10 2008

Recently, the scientists monitored the sky for what they call teenager galaxies. It is extremely hard to find young galaxies because they are just a tiny spot in the sky. Nevertheless, the scientists managed to locate these young guys in space with their massive telescopes. A group of international researchers discovered and identified 27 pre galactic fragments. These are

supposedly the young building blocks of big galaxies in the universe. Cambridge University scientist Martin Haehnelt used European Southern Observatorys very large telescope to keep an eye on part of the universe. The monitoring was done for a constant 92 hours. Apparently, the scientists think that the galaxies are formed when smalled chunks of spatial objects get together. The Cambridge researchers did manage to locate the smaller proto galaxies in the universe.

Smith's Cloud set to collide with the Milky Way!

Ankita | Sep 10 2008

When our human mind was still busy exploring the various fascinating aspects of the universe, new and more mysterious things outside it awaits our attention. The concepts of parallel universe and life forms existing on other planets have got their share of our interests. However, the next big discovery on the

astronomical scene is that of the massive hydrogen gas cloud which is speeding towards our galaxy The Milky Way. This cloud of hydrogen gas is known as the Smiths cloud, named after the scientist who first discovered it in 1963. Till date, it was not clear as to if the cloud has emerged from the Milky Way or is coming towards it until recently, when the scientists confirmed that the latter was true. When measured with the help of the Green Bank Telescope, the cloud was found to be 11,000 light-years long and 2,500 light-years wide.