The Ulysses spacecraft has been heroically studying our sun for more than 17 years, almost four times its expected lifetime. But now, the mission might be finally succumbing to the harsh environment of space. Mission managers say the spacecraft will likely “die” in the next month or two.

read more | digg…

Today is February 29th, the ‘extra’ day we are given every four years to bring the calendar back into sync with the actual time it takes the Earth to go around the Sun. Leap years are actually much more complicated than most people think with exceptions every 100 years, but…

This week’s featured item from the Orbiting Frog Shop comes from the Astronomy section. Coasters depicting the relative sizes of the planets let you see how your cups and mugs fit into the Solar System.

My Tippex comes in at about a Neptune whilst my mug is a Venus or a Jupiter depending…

The mini-moons of Pluto, Nix and Hydra, were discovered in 2005 (but named in 2006) during an observation campaign by the Hubble Space Telescope. The discovery of these mini-moons increase the number of natural satellites orbiting Pluto to three (including larger moon Charon). But where did these satellites come from?

read…

As a community of astronomy blogs we ought to be digging the Carnival of Space each week. So here’s the Carnival Oscars Digg submission. Get digging!

read more | digg story

This image is a composite of 9 images taken from Youngstown, Ohio during the February 20, 2008 total Lunar eclipse. Digg this one up folks, it’s an awesome picture. Well done to them.

read more | digg story

NASA is gearing up to crash two probes into the moon’s South Pole on purpose to look for hidden water. Crude, but effective. I hope they don’t hit any Chinese astronauts.

read more | digg story

Tonight: The Moon is visible towards the south in the morning sky. The star Antares in Scorpius is to the left of the Moon. With binoculars or a telescope, the Moon”s most picturesque mountain range can be seen, the Apennine Mountains. Apollo 15 landed near the Apennines in 1971 brining…

Carnival of Space #43 is out in the wild, hosted this week by Stars with a Bang! and Oscar-themed. I have won Best Animated Feature. [Link]

For more info on the Carnival and how to get involved, visit Universe Today.

Watch as General Cartwright, Vice Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff shows how the Navy Aegis missile launches and successfully destroys the rogue spy satellite. Next time, they should mount a camera on the actual missile.

read more | digg story

Tonight: Mercury is now 1.1° above Venus. Look for Venus and Mercury low in the ESE 45 minutes before sunrise. Jupiter is 27° to the upper right of the pair. Mars and Saturn are visible in the evening sky. Saturn is found in the west 5° to the lower left…

New calculations predict that the Earth will be swallowed up by the Sun in about 7.6 billion years unless the Earth’s orbit can be altered.

read more | digg story

Named after the Roman goddess of love & beauty, Venus is often called Earth’s twin as the two planets are close in size, but that’s where the similarity ends. The massive clouds that cover Venus create a greenhouse effect that keeps the planet at a sizzling 864°F. The bizarre weather…

Tonight: Venus passes Mercury. Look for the two planets in the morning sky very close to the ESE horizon. Venus and Mercury are 1.2° apart. Mercury is found to the upper left of Venus. The pair are 26° to the lower left of Jupiter. Look 45 minutes before sunrise.

Link to…

This week is Chris’ turn to host the Carnival of Space.

We just had a great star formation talk from Professor Ralf Klessen from the Institute for Theoretical Astrophysics at the Center for Astronomy at Heidelberg University. During that talk he put up a great slide showing the famous Pillars of Creation from the Eagle Nebula (M16) in both infrared and the…

These two mighty galaxies are pulling each other apart. Known as ” The Mice” because they have such long tails, each spiral galaxy has likely already passed through the other. They will probably collide again and again until they coalesce.read more | digg story

Tonight: Venus and Jupiter are 25° apart. Mercury is 1.6° from Venus. Look for Venus and Mercury very close to the ESE horizon 45 minutes before sunrise. Jupiter is to the upper right of Venus. Mars is visible high in the evening sky. Mars today is the same distance as…

UPDATE: New Google Earth tracking files for Space Telescopes are now up.

Hot on the heels of putting all the SCUBA data onto Google Sky, I am now sharing some Google Earth goodies. The KML files below will allow you to view the location of any satellite on Google Earth with latitude,…

Tonight: Saturn is at opposition. Opposition is a point in a planet”s orbit when it is opposite in the sky from the Sun. A line drawn from the Sun to Saturn would pass through the Earth. Opposition also marks the time when a planet officially switches from a morning object…

Backdropped against the blackness of space, the STS-122 external fuel tank begins its relative separation from the space shuttle Atlantis. The fan-shaped bright area is the result of ET venting after orbiter separation.read more | digg story

Tonight: Mars and Saturn are visible in the evening sky. Mars is found high in the sky near the tips of the horns of Taurus the Bull. Saturn is near the western horizon at dusk in the constellation of Leo the Lion. Mars is now 90.8 million miles from the…

These are the top stories from the Digg Space category for the week ending Saturday 23rd of February 2008:

• 1 Awesome picture of lunar eclipse.
• 2 The Milky Way is twice the size we thought it was
• 3 Satellite Shoot-Down — Here”s the Video!!
• 4 Video of Spy Satellite Getting Shot Down
• 5 Bright Meteor Streaking…

Tonight: Mercury is shining at +0.4 magnitude. It”s 3.5° to the left of Venus. Venus is much brighter at -3.8 magnitude. Look for Mercury and Venus very close to the ESE horizon 45 minutes before sunrise.

Link to Skynotes

Over the summer I created a Google Sky layer that enabled anyone to access the entire SCUBA submm catalogue of maps and objects in a dynamic fashion. Google Sky was released in August and the open file format means anyone can create data for display. This layer is now publicly…

My two previous posts have covered what ESA is currently working on and and what ESA may be doing in the decade 2015-2025. So what happens next? Well it may seem crazy to speculate on what we will be sending into space almost twenty years from now, but these things taken…

Tonight: Mercury is 4.4° to the left of Venus. Look for the two inner planets very close to the ESE horizon 45 minutes before sunrise. The pair are getting closer each morning. Next week the two will be 1.1° from each other. Look to the west at the same time…

So I didn’t get to see the lunar eclipse last night because of the cloud. But no matter! Thanks to the internet I already have a wealth of videos and images available. The one above is from Flickr user Viaan. Here are some of the best I have spotted so…

US officials have confirmed that they’re going to use modified SM-3 missiles fired from a cruiser and destroyer off the Northwest coast of Hawaii to take the thing out.read more | digg story

In my previous post, detailing tonight’s Lunar Eclipse (the last until December 2010), I included a YouTube video I made showing what you might expect to see if it is clear. Well included here is the same video plus two more showing the same event from the perspective of the…

Tonight: The Earth”s shadow will fall on the Moon this evening giving us this year”s only total lunar eclipse. The Moon will seem to fade away as the full Moon moves in to the shadow. Once the Moon is totally into the darkest part of the shadow or umbra, the…