space
This year the winter solstice is accompanied by a rare astronomical event: the conjunction of Jupiter and Saturn. The approach of the two giant planets has lasted months and has provided a spectacle that has become more fascinating each day,…
space
For the 30th anniversary of the Hubble Space Telescope (in orbit since 1990), NASA has released 30 extraordinary new images. These are thirty celestial bodies that are part of what is known as the Caldwell Catalogue, first published in 1995…
space
It took a good 34 months of observations by Gaia, the astronomical satellite launched by ESA (European Space Agency), to obtain the most precise 3D map of our galaxy ever made. The Milky Way now has nearly 2 billion stars,…
space
July nights have a special surprise in store for astronomy enthusiasts: Comet C/2020 F3 Neowise which, this month, is becoming more and more luminous to the point of being visible to the naked eye and photographable. The comet was observed…
space
There are only a few days to go before the launch of the mission of the Italian Space Agency PRISMA (PRecursore IperSpettrale della Missione Applicativa - Hyperspectral Precursor of the Application Mission), the satellite that will observe planet Earth with…
space
A photo taken through a dusty porthole announces the success of the InSight mission. After a 458-million-kilometre journey, the NASA probe has landed on Mars. It is the fifteenth lander to touch down on the surface of the red planet…
space
From 4 to 10 October the World Space Week (WSW) was held; it is an initiative established by the United Nations Organisation on 6 December 1999 to commemorate two important historical dates: 4 October 1957, the day of the launch…
space
Only two weeks have gone by since it went into orbit on 22 August, but the Aeolus satellite has already sent the first data on wind in our atmosphere. This revolutionary mission, the first of its kind, accomplished by the…
space
From 9 pm on Friday 27 July until 1:30 am on Saturday 28 everyone should watch the sky: we will be able to observe one of the most fascinating and not very frequent natural events. On this evening, in fact,…