September 14, 2009 - Just Passing Through

Published in cooperation with The Planetary Society

Spend the year in space, one week at a time

Recent Weeks

July 26, 2010 - Return to Flight

July 19, 2010 - Depth Perception

July 12, 2010 - United Nations

July 5, 2010 - Crowded House

June 28, 2010 - Fourth of July Blast

June 21, 2010 - Another Handshake in Space

June 14, 2010 - Mother Nature’s Particle Accelerators

June 7, 2010 - Radio Rings

May 31, 2010 - Watch That First Step

May 24, 2010 - THEMIS of Arabia

May 17, 2010 - Sprucing up the Station

May 10, 2010 - Liberating Star Stuff

May 3, 2010 - An Arm by Any Other Name

April 26, 2010 - Tectonic Feast

April 19, 2010 - Two Decades of Discovery

April 12, 2010 - Long Stay for Sergei

April 5, 2010 - View From The Far Side

March 29, 2010 - Triple-Teaming a Black Hole

March 22, 2010 - Final Resting Place

March 15, 2010 - Lost In The Glare

March 8, 2010 - Double Martian Birthday

March 1, 2010 - Ultraviolet Explorations

February 22, 2010 - The Heart of the Soul Nebula

February 15, 2010 - Disposable Camera

February 8, 2010 - Sideways Mission

February 1, 2010 - All Eyes on M51

Customer Comments

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--Paul P., Fair Oaks, CA

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144 full-color pages
6" x 9", spiral bound
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Weekly photo essay
Daily Moon phases
Night sky events
Space trivia
Holidays
Room for notes/appts

The Week in Space

September 14-20, 2009

Just Passing Through NASA’s third and final High Energy Astronomical Observatory (HEAO-3) was launched thirty years ago this week. HEAO-3 carried a cryogenic gamma-ray spectrometer, which functioned for about five months. A direct descendent of the HEAO-3 is the Chandra X-Ray Observatory, which also studies high-energy phenomena but at slightly longer wavelengths. When Chandra observed the colliding galaxies in the Bullet Cluster, it showed that the bullet-shaped pink lump at the bottom is the hot gas from one galaxy cluster, which passed through the hot gas from the other, larger cluster during the collision. Blue areas show where most of the mass of the clusters exists. That they are separate from the visible matter (in pink) gives credence to the existence of dark matter.

Image credit: X-ray: NASA/CXC/M.Markevitch et al; Optical: NASA/STScI; Magellan/U.Arizona/D.Clowe et al; Lensing Map: NASA/STScI; ESO WFI; Magellan/U.Arizona/D.Clowe et al.