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NASA announced key pre-selected Discovery Missions
Today NASA announced three future key missions preselected as part of the Discovery program named GEMS, TiME and Comet Hopper. This is an important announcement, which was anxiously eagerly expected...
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Kepler-16: Exoplanets around binary star systems DO exist
Kepler-16 is another great discovery coming from the Kepler telescope, the 10th NASA Discovery mission which is devoted to finding Earth-size exoplanets by monitoring variations of brightness due to...
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Is the triple Asteroid Minerva a baby-Ceres?
The official EPSC-DPS press-release about our latest discovery on the analysis of the moons of (93) Minerva and understanding of the composition of this main-belt triple system is finally out. Artistic...
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Searching for Fragments of the Sutter’s Mill Meteorite
An update about the Sutter’s Mill Meteorite that I mentioned yesterday. A few hours ago, I saw the pieces that Peter Jenniskens brought at the SETI Institute. I am not a meteorite expert but they...
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Another fireball on Jupiter?
An amateur astronomer reported the visual detection of a fireball on Jupiter at 11:35 UT (September 10 2012) last night. It was confirmed on a video recorded from Texas. This is the 6th impact of...
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The Russian Meteor and Lessons Learned on Meteor Impacts
Almost 12h after the event, it is time to gather my notes on the Russian meteor event (#RussianMeteor) and my thoughts on this impact and those which may come soon. Meteor captured from a dashboard...
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Take a break today, read this poem “Across the Dark, the Pioneers”
If you need a break today, you should read this poem by G. Landis published recently in the Starship Century Book. Truly inspiring! Pioneer 10 or Pioneer 11 spacecraft in the outer Solar System...
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Asteroid Minerva finds its magical weapons in the sky
The International Astronomical Union has chosen the names Aegis and Gorgoneion for the two moons of the asteroid (93) Minerva. My team discovered the small moons in 2009 using the W. M. Keck Telescope...
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Surprising discovery: a ring around an asteroid
Some may say that our universe is full of beauty, others argue that it is our solar system that surprises us the most, but ultimately I will say that it is the world of small solar system bodies which...
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First Discovery Of An Earth-Sized Planet In The Habitable Zone
Source: SETI Institute Press-release MOUNTAIN VIEW, CA – For the first time, an Earth-sized planet has been found in the habitable zone of its star. This discovery not only proves the existence of...
View ArticleDiscovery of a Super-Earth?
Great news today! A. Leger from the Institut d’Astrophysique Spatiale (IAS) and his collaborators announced the discovery of the smaller super-Earth called CoRoT-Exo-7b. This discovery was made...
View Articleabout the star of the COROT super-Earth
Dear readers, Yesterday I wrote a post and an update about the possible discovery of a super-Earth exo-planet by COROT mission. I completely forgot to give you information about the star around...
View ArticleURGENT: possible impact on the southern pole of Jupiter?
Hello, if you have access to a telescope you should know that an amateur astronomer in Australia reported the observations of a scare on the atmosphere of Jupiter which could be resulting from an...
View ArticleJupiter got a bruise.. only one but a large one.
Hello, Last Sunday I posted on my blog an announcement about the possible recent impact on Jupiter atmosphere. I did not realize that a lot of my colleagues read this blog. On Sunday evening Paul...
View ArticleJupiter impact 2009 – follow-up observations
Hello, I am sorry for not having written much on this blog over the last week. After we confirmed using the Keck NIRC2 image that indeed Jupiter must have been impacted, I have been very busy with...
View ArticleA fantastic night at Keck observatory – A follow-up
Hello, Yesterday I was observing at Keck Observatory as you could read in my previous post. I was not very positive when I wrote my post since the summit was in the fog and clouds. A few minutes after...
View ArticleThe discovery of a new triple asteroid – (93) Minerva
Hello, So I was quite mysterious after my observations at Keck Observatory, and I briefly mentioned that we discovered something interesting during the night. I will give a little bit more details in...
View ArticleMinerva and its two moons – confirmed!
Hello, You may remember that I posted on my blog that we discovered a forth triple asteroid system in the main-belt. I submitted our discovery to the International Astronomical Union through a circular...
View ArticleI discovered the Galilean Satellites with my Galileoscope :-)
The end of the weekend… It was a very pleasant one since I went camping near Lake Camanche with my family and friends and we enjoyed a last glimpse of summer without Internet and G3. It gives me also...
View ArticleAn update about the LCROSS mission
Last June, I mentioned the LCROSS mission which was aimed at impacting the surface of the Moon. 113 days after its journey, this event indeed happened on October 9 2009. At 04:31 UT the Centaur upper...
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