A new web page offers an overview of known Near Earth Asteroids (NEAs) which may have close encounters with the Earth in the next 200 years. NEAs present a clear and present danger to the world’s population. Once every 200 years a medium-sized NEA (diameter 40-1000 m) hits the Earth and causes serious local damage. Once …
Category: News items
Astronomers find recoiling super-massive black hole
In a distant remote galaxy, astronomers have possibly found a super-massive black hole that is recoiling out of the galaxy at high speed. The black hole, visible with X-rays as a clear star, is not located as normal in the centre of the galaxy. Recoiling black holes are interesting because they provide insights into how …
HIFI on the trail of new water in the Universe
HIFI’s quest for water sheds new light on the birth of stars in different regions of the Universe. This much became clear at The First Results Symposium of the Herschel space telecope, with onboard the Dutch space instrument HIFI. With HIFI scientist discovered ionised water for the first time in space. These electrically charged water …
Herschel First Results Media Day
Media representatives are cordially invited to celebrate the release of the first results from ESA’s Herschel infrared space telescope. The theme of the media day is: Revealing the Hidden Side of Star Formation. The event will take place at Space Expo, at the European Space Research and Technology Centre (ESTEC), Noordwijk, The Netherlands on 6 …
The Netherlands and Japan decide on cooperation in space science
The Netherlands and Japan have decided to cooperate in the development and application of new space science. That was the gist also of an earlier agreement in 2009 between the Japanese space agency JAXA and SRON, but now also the Netherlands Space Office (NSO) and JAXA have signed an agreement in Tokyo. It was signed …
Stars mesmerize visitors of Star Weekend at NEMO
Image Stars mesmerize visitors of NEMO during the Star Weekend on april 10th and 11th. Young and old can enjoy a ‘heavenly’ programme with special lectures and workshops for children, such as ‘What is a Black Hole?’and ‘Build your own Spectrometer’. Or participate in the Google Earth Quiz and look through the ‘Nutty Viewer’, and win …
Herschel-HIFI unveils precursors of life-enabling molecules in Orion Nebula
ESA’s Herschel Space Observatory has revealed the chemical fingerprints of potential life-enabling organic molecules in the Orion Nebula, a nearby stellar nursery in our Milky Way galaxy. This detailed-spectrum, obtained with the Heterodyne Instrument for the Far Infrared (HIFI) – one of Herschel’s three innovative instruments – demonstrates the gold mine of information that Herschel-HIFI …
International Conference: ten years of X-ray astronomy using Dutch gratings
From March 15 to 17, 2010, Utrecht is the center of X-ray astronomy. More than one hundred astronomers from all over the world will discuss the hottest objects in the universe. The conference is organized by SRON Netherlands Institute for Space Research and Utrecht University. There will be a lot of attention for the results …
New insight in ozone chemistry above North Pole
A flight of the balloon instrument TELIS has provided new insight into the chemistry of ozone above the North Pole, where the depletion of ozone is much more complex than above the South Pole. We now know more about ozone depleting substances in the stratosphere, such as the elusive but very agressive bromine oxide and chloride oxides which …
HIFI resumes quest for water in Universe
The back up system of HIFI, the state of the art Dutch space instrument on ESA’s Herschel space telescope, has been switched on successfully. Due to an unexpected voltage peak in the electronic system HIFI has been inactive for more than 160 days, but on Thursday evening 14 January Mission Control in Darmstadt confirmed that …
