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A painting from 1617 appears to show a type of telescope thought not to have been built until much later. It's hard to find an invention more emblematic of the birth of modern science than the telescope. And yet surprisingly little is known about its early development. The inventor of the telescope remains unknown to this day. Now a study of the paintings of Jan Brueghel the Elder, a Flemish painter of the Baroque era who was working in Amsterdam at the beginning of the 17th century, is throwing some light on the early development of the telescope. It has...

PARIS (AFP) – The launch of two large European telescopes designed to probe the origin of galaxies and the Big Bang, originally set for May 6, has been postponed, the European Space Agency (ESA) said Monday. ... The Herschel telescope will collect data on the coldest and most distant objects ever observed to explore the history of how stars and galaxies formed. The telescope's primary mirror -- the largest ever to be launched in space -- is a novel and advanced concept using 12 silicon carbide petals brazed together into a single piece. Planck will examine "cosmic microwave background" radiation...

Battered and somewhat broken, a sentinel stands between the Earth and the Sun, continually watching for impending solar storms and other activities. For a decade, the spacecraft - the Solar and Heliospheric Observatory, or SOHO - has not only peeled back many mysteries of the Sun but also revolutionized studies of the space weather that bathes every corner of the solar system. Scientists and engineers around the world are celebrating SOHO's 10th anniversary and heralding it as one of the most productive spacecraft ever flown. Built by the European Space Agency and operated by NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in...

The Sombrero Galaxy appears to hover in space like a glowing UFO in a new composite image made from three of NASA's Great Observatories. Data from a trio of space telescopes – Chandra, Spitzer and Hubble – have been combined to produce the new image. Chandra observations reveal hot gas that glows in X rays and extends about 60,000 light years from the centre of the galaxy, which itself is only 50,000 light years wide. The gas is probably being blown outwards by a wind driven by supernova explosions in the galaxy.

Low mass M- and K-type stars are much more numerous in the solar neighborhood than solar-like G-type stars. Therefore, some of them may appear as interesting candidates for the target star lists of terrestrial exoplanet (i.e., planets with mass, radius, and internal parameters identical to Earth) search programs like Darwin (ESA) or the Terrestrial Planet Finder Coronagraph/Inferometer (NASA). The higher level of stellar activity of low mass M stars, as compared to solar-like G stars, as well as the closer orbital distances of their habitable zones (HZs), means that terrestrial-type exoplanets within HZs of these stars are more influenced by...

DALSA Semiconductor has today announced that it has developed the worlds first sensor with a total resolution of over 100 million pixels. To be more specific this single sensor, developed for astronomy, has 10,560 x 10,560 pixels, 111 million in total. The active area of the sensor measures approximately four by four inches and has a 9 µm pixel pitch. This sensor has been developed in conjunction with Semiconductor Technology Associates for the US Naval Observatory.

A major dust storm has just broken out on Mars and the event will be visible this weekend with good-sized backyard telescopes. The timing is incredible. Amateur skywatchers around the world are planning to gaze at Mars Saturday night because it will be closer to Earth than anytime until the year 2018. The dust storm was no more than a small bright dot Thursday yet it was large and obvious Friday, as seen in images taken by Clay Sherrod at the Arkansas Sky Observatories. NASA took note and is monitoring signals from its Mars rovers, one of which has detected...

A new generation of ground-based telescopes could be up to 10 times the size of existing instruments and have vision 40 times as sharp as the Hubble space telescope.Astronomers have been hailing the plans, as a European project to build an Extremely Large Telescope (ELT) enters a design testing phase. An ELT is vital if the pace of astronomical breakthroughs is to continue, say experts. The plans were outlined at the UK National Astronomy Meeting in Birmingham. Concepts for ELTs include the Thirty Meter Telescope (TMT) being considered by the US and Canada; and the Euro50 and Overwhelmingly Large Telescope...

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Planet-building is dusty work, and now two space telescopes have captured images of cosmic construction materials: disks of dust circling stars about the same size as our sun. Pictures released on Thursday from NASA (news - web sites)'s Hubble and Spitzer telescopes give the clearest look yet at the early and late phases of the planetary construction process. Most astronomers believe planets are created from the disks of dust and gas that form around young stars, and the younger the star, the bigger the dusty disk. Big gas giant planets like Jupiter form first, then smaller rocky...

Scientists are divided about the use of the Moon as a base to develop ways to travel to Mars, according to reports given to the US government. Some have said the possibility of water-ice existing at the lunar poles would allow a moonbase to use the ice as rocket fuel for a Mars mission. Others contend that it would be too difficult to extract. And there is disagreement about whether the moon is a good alternative to space as a base for advanced telescopes. In January, President Bush redirected the US space effort sending astronauts back to the Moon and...

By Mitch Tobin , ARIZONA DAILY STAR With pressure from the University of Arizona, the U.S. Forest Service has quietly begun pruning and cleaning the forest around the telescopes atop Mount Graham. The work, within critical habitat for an endangered squirrel, comes as UA officials worry about a catastrophic wildfire roaring through a $120 million telescope complex that environmentalists and some American Indians have fought for more than a decade. In 1996, flames from a 6,716-acre wildfire came within 200 yards of the telescopes. As the monsoon arrives, the top of the Pinaleno Mountains, 75 miles northeast of Tucson, is...