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The International Astronomical Union has 
issued names for the two recently discovered moons of Pluto. They are to be called Hydra and Nix. Nix is the smaller of the two satellites, measuring somewhere between 29 and 85 miles in diameter. Hydra measures in at somewhere between 38 and 104 miles.
According to NASA the main camera on HST will be back on line by next Monday. NASA engineers believe they have located the problem and can reset the camera.
On the morning of July 3 UTC (July 2 CDT), asteroid 2004 XP14 will pass by Earth within slightly over 268,000 miles, a distance just more than to the Moon. The news media are of course, throwing up headlines that make it look like we are barely scraping by without collision such as this one at Fox News web site. Hopefully I will be able to video tape the close pass on the night of July 2.
Venus Express captures an astounding weather phenomenon, a double vortex at the planet's south pole.
NIce post and great writing over at Jay Manifold's A Voyage To Arcturus. Too bad we don't see more action on his blog.
The main camera on HST has ceased functioning. No word yet as to what is wrong or if it can be fixed. Since Hubble has not been serviced in years, it's not surprising that this has happened. If it can't be repaired and the shuttle can't get to it, astronomy research will be set back a very long way.
Stating that 25% of the light in the universe comes from black holes seems dichotomous (is that really a word?) but NASA believes that is the case:
Up to one quarter of the light brightening the universe comes from the massive crush of matter succumbing to the extreme gravity of black holes. Scientists have long understood that amount of light means black holes have the colossal appetite to ingest whole stars and huge amounts of gas. But a critical question has always remained: how they can continue to devour so much?
Seems pretty weird to me. Read about it here.
The first quasar, 3C273, was discovered in 1963 and astronomers have been finding new things about it ever since. It's astonishing but true that the jet and radiation from this massive black hole extend out about 100,000 light years.
Correction: I should have said that 3C273 was the first quasar discovered, not the first quasar. No one knows if it's the first or not.
This is kind of off the subject of astronomy but I couldn't resist it. Maybe we could get a couple of these to work at some local TV stations.
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