The Week in Space

March 16-22, 2009

Grab Bags of Stars  A cluster brimming with millions of stars glistens in this Spitzer Space Telescope image. Omega Centauri, 17,000 light-years away but visible to the naked eye, is the biggest and brightest of about 150 globular clusters orbiting our Milky Way galaxy.  Globular clusters are over 12 billion years old, and usually formed all at once. Omega Centauri is unusual in that its stars are of different ages and compositions, pointing to a different origin: it might be the core of a dwarf galaxy that was ripped apart and absorbed by our Milky Way long ago.  The red and yellow stars are older, larger, dustier red giants that shine in infrared light; the blue stars are younger, less evolved stars like our Sun that are brighter in visible light. Some of the red spots in the picture are distant galaxies beyond our own.

Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/NOAO/AURA/NSF

Weekly Calendar

March 16-22, 2009

Holidays - Sky Events - Space History

Monday 16

Tuesday 17

St. Patrick’s Day

Antares 0.2° south of Moon

1930: Jim Irwin born
1958: Vanguard 1 launched, first solar-powered satellite
1972: NASA issues request for proposals for Space Shuttle

Wednesday 18

Last Quarter Moon 1:47 pm

1965: Voskhod 2 launched, Alexei Leonov takes world’s first spacewalk
1980: Soviet rocket explosion kills 50 workers at Plesetsk launch pad

Thursday 19

1970: First powered flight of X-24A lifting body

Friday 20

Saturday 21

Sunday 22

Jupiter 1.5° south of Moon

1982: STS-3 Columbia launched
1996: STS-76 Atlantis launched
1997: Comet Hale-Bopp closest approach to Earth

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