IYA News
Welcome to the International Year of Astronomy!
The kickoff event for the International Year of Astronomy (IYA) in the United States took place on Tuesday January 6th, 2009 at the annual American Astronomical Society meeting in Long Beach, California. Beginning and ending with sidewalk observing, the proceedings featured introductory remarks by U.S. IYA leaders Doug Isbell and Steve Pompea, followed by NASA IYA lead Hashima Hasan, who unveiled a sneak peak of mural-sized images of the spiral galaxy Messier 101 from NASA’s Great Observatories. NASA’s contribution to the event also included a display of images from the "From Earth to the Universe" global cornerstone project and the "Visions of the Universe: Four Centuries of Discovery" exhibit for libraries.
Visit the U.S. IYA Newscenter for the full scoop – including a virtual ribbon cutting of the IYA presence in Second Life and news on the world premier of the new PBS television documentary "400 Years of the Telescope".
Hubble Space Telescope Servicing Mission 4 (SM4)
Follow the Space Shuttle Atlantis and the STS-125 astronauts on their journey to repair and upgrade the Hubble Space Telescope! Astronauts are set to perform five spacewalks to install two new instruments, repair two inactive ones, and perform the component replacements that will keep the telescope functioning at least into 2014.
Check out the latest SM4 information:
- http://www.nasa.gov/hubble
- http://hubblesite.org
- http://www.spacetelescope.org
- http://www.nasa.gov/education/hubble
- http://amazing-space.stsci.edu/sm4/
Follow SM4 wherever you go:
- http://www.facebook.com/pages/Last-Mission-to-Hubble/25618454345
- http://www.myspace.com/electronChaos
- http://twitter.com/HubblePAO
- http://twitter.com/Astro_Mike
- http://twitter.com/IamHubble
- http://www.youtube.com/NASATelevision
Let NASA know you are watching SM4:
For Educators - Check out the "Top Stars" contest for inspiring uses of Hubble in science, technology, engineering, or mathematics education:
Monthly Feature
During each month of the International Year of Astronomy, we'll highlight some key NASA missions, space science discoveries, and night-sky wonders that you can discover with your own observations and explorations, and we'll connect you to related NASA resources and events.
Join us each month of 2009 as we explore:
| 2009 | » Hot Topics | » Go Observe! |
|---|---|---|
| January | Telescopes and Space Probes: Today's Starry Messengers | Venus |
| February | Our Solar System | The Moon |
| March | Observing at Night... and in the Day | Saturn |
| April | Galaxies and the Distant Universe | The Whirlpool Galaxy |
| May | Our Sun | The Sun |
| June | Clusters of Stars | The Hercules Cluster |
| July | Black Holes | Our Galaxy: the Milky Way |
| August | Rocks and Ice in the Solar System | Perseids |
| September | Planets and Moons | Jupiter |
| October | What is the Fate of the Universe? | Andromeda |
| November | The Lives of Stars | The Crab Nebula |
| December | Discovering New Worlds | The Orion Nebula |
Additional News
Additional IYA related News & Events can be found on the official IYA News and Press Releases pages.
Galaxies Collide
Galaxies are in constant motion. This pair of crashing galaxies is called "The Antennae" because the long streamers of stars thrown off early in the collision resemble an insect’s antennae.