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Astronomy News - Planets and the Sun
Discovery of an extra-solar planet with Earth-like temperature - 20th April 2010
A recent article in Nature has detailed the discovery of a planet over 1500 light years away that may have a surface temperature conducive to supporting life. The planet, designated CoRoT-9b, is believed to be of a similar size to Jupiter and is orbiting its parent star at a distance similar to Mercury. Read more...
Obama cancels plans for U.S. return to Moon - 26th February 2010
President Obama this month decided to cancel the current plans that would have taken American astronauts back to the Moon by 2020. Read more...
New mission planned to explore Jupiter and the Galilean moons - 11th March 2010
At a recent conference in Texas scientists from NASA and ESA have drawn up plans to send a pair of spacecraft to study Jupiter and the planet's four largest moons: Europa, Io, Callisto, and Ganymede. The mission, known as The Europa-Jupiter System Mission, will focus on Europa and Ganymede, as they are two of the most likely locations of liquid water in the solar system. Read more...
The Search for Solar Storms - get involved! - 18th March 2010
A new website - Solar Stormwatch - where anyone and everyone and log on and help scientists identify solar storms has been launched. Read more...
NASA releases stunning first-light images from the Solar Dynamics Observatory - 4th May 2010
NASA has now released the first-light images taken from the Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO). This advanced spacecraft has shown the Sun in unprecedented detail and has amazed scientists with the quality of the images so far. Read more...