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Occultation of asteroid 136199 Eris – November 6th 2010 2h15 TU – This occultation was predicted by Marcelo Assafin from Brazil about a year ago. Many astronomers worked in order to improve the astrometry, but it was a difficult task. Eris is about 32 milliarc second of diameter as seen from the Earth. One can see on Bruno Sicardy’s page that the predictions varied from Alaska to middle Chile according to whom made an astrometric reduction in order to know the position of the occulted star and that of Eris itself. -SpaceObs

Wonderful vistas from Cupola – Cupola has proved itself to be an excellent viewing platform since it was attached to the International Space Station in February. The latest photos taken from this heavenly observatory are stunning. -ESA

Astronomers Discover Merging Star Systems That Might Explode – Researchers who found the first hypervelocity stars escaping the Milky Way announced that their search also turned up a dozen double-star systems. Half of those are merging and might explode as supernovae in the astronomically near future. -Science Daily

Successful premiere – German robotic arm completes its five-year ISS mission – Germany’s first experiment in space robotics has now come to an end. On the evening of 15 November 2010, two Russian cosmonauts performed a space walk during which they removed the Rokviss robotic arm developed by the German Aerospace Center (Deutsches Zentrum für Luft- und Raumfahrt; DLR) from the experimental platform on the Russian service module Svezda and took it inside the ISS. By 2 November 2010, the Rokviss team from the DLR Robotics and Mechatronics Center in Oberpfaffenhofen had moved the robot arm into the required position for this operation. Only in this position could Rokviss be easily transported through the air lock and into the interior of the ISS. -DLR Portal

Dissolving Star Systems Create Mess in Orion – For young stars, stellar outflows are the rule. T Tauri stars and other young stars eject matter in generally collimated jets. However, a region in Orion‘s giant molecular cloud known as the Becklin-Neugebauer/Kleinmann-Low (BN/KL) region, appears to have a clumpy, scattered set of outflows with “finger-like” projections in numerous directions. A new study, led by Luis Zapata at the National Autonomous University of Mexico, explores this odd region. -Jon Voysey / Universe Today

The Lion Tamer – Leonid Meteor Shower 2010 – Are you ready to walk into the lion’s cage? Then break out your favorite skywatching gear because the 2010 Leonid meteor shower is underway -Tammy Plotner / Universe Today

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Aswan dam at Nile river

Nile river delta

Cyprus

Lonar Impact Crater

Gallery Pick of the Day

M31 - Andromeda Galaxy - Widefield - Credit: Erik Larsen

The photo above is “Pick of the Day” from one of the three galleries: Astronomy Gallery, Space Shuttle Gallery and Space Station Gallery.-

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Breaking News: A newly discovered asteroid, designated 2010 WA, is projected to fly by at the altitude of roughly 39,000 km around 3:45 UT tomorrow, November 17. The object was discovered by Catalina Sky Survey telescope at Mount Lemmon last night (Nov. 16). MPEC-2010W03

Japan probe collected particles from Itokawa asteroid – Japanese scientists have confirmed that particles found inside the Hayabusa probe after its seven-year space trip are from the asteroid Itokawa. -Jonathan Amos / BBC News

So is Pluto a planet after all? – The news last week that Eris might actually be a tiny bit smaller than Pluto led to the inevitable question: doesn’t this mean that Pluto should be a planet, after all? The simple obvious answer to this question is no -Mike Brown

Sunset on Mars – I know, it may not look like much, but think about what you’re seeing: a sunset on another world. And those images were taken by a robotic probe that took years to design and build, months to travel the hundreds of millions of kilometers to get to Mars, a harrowing few minutes to descend on a breath of fire through the thin air to land on the surface, and then nearly seven years to travel the landscape long, long past its design specifications. -Phil Plait / Bad Astronomy

Chandra Finds Youngest Nearby Black Hole – Astronomers using NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory have found evidence of the youngest black hole known to exist in our cosmic neighborhood. The 30-year-old black hole provides a unique opportunity to watch this type of object develop from infancy. -NASA

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Jon Kristoffersen took these images of Jupiter from Crete, Greece, about a week before the stripe began to return. Jupiter dances with two of its moons, Io (left) and Europa. Images: Jon Kristoffersen. Animation: Emil Kraaikamp

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Gibbous Moon

Sunset

ISS flyby

Work on the GUCP commences

Gallery Pick of the Day

IC1848 - Soul Nebula - Credit: Richie Jarvis

The photo above is “Pick of the Day” from one of the three galleries: Astronomy Gallery, Space Shuttle Gallery and Space Station Gallery.-

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Dances With Comets – C/2010 V1 Ikeya Murakami – For those of you working on your Comet Hunter’s certificates – or for those who just love these travelers from the Oort Cloud – there’s a new partner in the morning sky. Say hello to C/2010 V1 Ikeya Murakami! If you’re familiar with how a comet looks and already know the steps, then let the easiness lure you out. However, if you’ve never danced with a comet before, then come inside and we’ll teach you the steps… -Tammy Plotner / Universe Today

China released the first Chang’e-2 images – China has released the first photos from it’s recently-launched Chang’e-2 lunar orbiter! Released with some fanfare, the images get more or less straight to the point: they’re of the Bay of Rainbows (Sinus Iridium), which China has slated to be the potential landing location of it’s Chang’e-3 rover mission.-Luna C/I

In which I finally write up last week’s Deep Impact Hartley 2 press briefing – On Thursday, November 4, at 13:50 UTC, Deep Impact flew within 700 kilometers of comet Hartley 2. Hartley 2 is the smallest and most active of the five comets that have been directly by a spacecraft, and the first to be visited within the lifetime of its discoverer. The Deep Impact spacecraft performed flawlessly, with no errors in its imaging, and missing its aimpoint in time and space by only two seconds and three kilometers, respectively. -Emily Lakdawalla / The Planetary Society

Cool Star is a Gem of a Find – NASA’s Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer, or WISE, has eyed its first cool brown dwarf: a tiny, ultra-cold star floating all alone in space. -NASA/JPL

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Veil complex nebula

Orion Belt and M42

M78

Sadr and IC1318 in HST palette

Tibetan plateau

Dan Nie Er crater

C/2010 V1 Ikeya-Murakami

Madrid at night

Gallery Pick of the Day

A night view of the Nile River winding up through the Egyptian desert toward the Mediterranean Sea, and Cairo in the river delta. Such a stark contrast between the dark desolate lifeless desert of northern Africa and the Nile River teeming with life along its shores. In the distance... the eastern Mediterranean on a beautiful autumn evening. - Credit: Douglas Wheelock, Expedition 24/25

The photo above is “Pick of the Day” from one of the three galleries: Astronomy Gallery, Space Shuttle Gallery and Space Station Gallery.

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Sunspot 1121 Unleashes X-ray Flare – Active sunspot 1121 has unleashed one of the brightest x-ray solar flares in years, an M5.4-class eruption at 15:36 UT on Nov. 6th. -NASA

The moon that almost wasn’t – Cassini images of Saturn and its environs never get tiresome. And in fact, they can be downright jolting… like this stunning shot of the icy moon Mimas. -Phil Plait / Bad Astronomy

Missing Milky Way Dark Matter – Although dark matter is inherently difficult to observe, an understanding of its properties (even if not its nature) allows astronomers to predict where its effects should be felt. The current understanding is that dark matter helped form the first galaxies by providing gravitational scaffolding in the early universe. -Jon Voysey / Universe Today

Arianespace’s fifth Ariane 5 is ready to receive its Intelsat 17 and HYLAS 1 satellite payloads – The Ariane 5 for Arianespace’s fifth heavy-lift mission of 2010 has moved to the Final Assembly Building at the Spaceport in French Guiana, where it will be fitted with a dual-passenger payload of the Intelsat 17 and HYLAS 1 satellites. -Ariane Space

42nd Lunar and Planetary Science Conference – The 42nd Lunar and Planetary Science Conference will be held March 7–11, 2011, at The Woodlands Waterway Marriott Hotel and Convention Center, located at 1601 Lake Robbins Drive, The Woodlands, Texas, just north of Houston’s George Bush Intercontinental Airport (IAH). The abstract submission and registration forms are now open -NASA/Lunar Science Institude

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Crescent Moon in Ophiuchus

IC 1318 / gamma Cyg nebula

Double Cluster

M45 - Pleiades

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The shadowy hand of Eris – On Friday night Eris was predicted to pass directly in front of a relatively faint star in the constellation of Cetus. You might think that this sort of thing happens all of the time, but you’d be wrong. Eris is so small in the sky and stars are such tiny points of light that, though they get close frequently, their actually intersections are rare. When they do intersect, though, something amazing happens: the star disappears. And since we know how fast Eris is moving across the sky, seeing how long the star disappears gives us a very precise measure of the size of Eris. Or, to be more exact, a very precise measure of a single chord passing through the body. -Mike Brown

New Supernova Lights Up Leo – A new supernova? Darn right. Lighting up Leo? Well… not without some serious visual aid, but the fact that someone out there is watching and has invited us along for the ride is mighty important. And just who might that someone be? None other than Tim Puckett. -Tammy Plotner / Universe Today

Shuttle waits out weather, technical issues – Stormy weather, a fuel leak and cracked foam thwarted NASA’s attempts to launch the shuttle Discovery this week, eventually prompting managers to push the shuttle’s final blastoff until at least Nov. 30. These views of Discovery on launch pad 39A were taken Tuesday and Thursday. -Spaceflight Now

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Discovery on launch pad 39A

SN 2010jl

Aurora Borealis

IC405

Gallery Pick of the Day

Hubble Space Telescope has imaged a striking galaxy called NGC 4452, which appears to lie exactly edge-on as seen from Earth. The result is an extraordinary picture of billions of stars observed from an unusual angle. The bright nucleus can be seen at the centre, along with the very thin disc that looks like a straight line from our unusual viewing position. To complete the picture, a hazy halo of stars on the periphery of the galaxy makes it seem to glow. - Credit: NASA/ESA HST

The photo above is “Pick of the Day” from one of the three galleries: Astronomy Gallery, Space Shuttle Gallery and Space Station Gallery.

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Discovery launch scrubbed again due to LH2 leak – Nov 5, 2010 – The launch of Space Shuttle Discovery has been officially scrubbed at 12:11 UTC due to a leak of Liquid Hydrogen at the Ground Umbilical Carrier Plate (GUCP) detected during the tanking process. Leaks at the GUCP delayed launches for STS-119 and STS-127.

NASA EPOXI Flyby Reveals New Insights Into Comet Features – NASA’s EPOXI mission spacecraft successfully flew past comet Hartley 2. Scientists say initial images from the flyby provide new information about the comet’s volume and material spewing from its surface. -NASA/JPL

Hartley 2′s jets – It was a very happy set of scientists, engineers, managers, and administrators who filled the Jet Propulsion Laboratory’s Von Karman auditorium this afternoon to do the postgame show on Deep Impact’s flyby of Hartley 2. -Emily Lakdawalla / The Planetary Society

Amazing close-ups of comet Hartley 2! – Just an hour ago as I write this, the NASA spacecraft EPOXI passed just 700 km from the nucleus of comet Hartley 2! The flyby was successful, and it took incredible images of the comet’s solid heart -Phil Plait / Bad Astronomy

NASA Mission Successfully Flies by Comet Hartley 2 – NASA’s EPOXI mission successfully flew by comet Hartley 2 and the spacecraft has begun returning images. Hartley 2 is the fifth comet nucleus visited by a spacecraft. Scientists and mission controllers are currently viewing never-before-seen images of Hartley 2 appearing on their computer terminal screens. -NASA/JPL

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Sun now through Lasco C3

Hartley 2 from up close

RSS Rollback

Ground Umbilical Carrier Plate

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Animation of Deep Impact close-approach images - About an hour after its closest approach of Hartley 2, Deep Impact downlinked five precious images taken during the nearest part of its flyby. The top two images were taken 82 and 16 seconds before closest approach, and the bottom three 18, 57, and 117 seconds after closest approach (image times are 13:58:07, 13:59:13, 13:59:47, 14:00:26, and 14:01:26 UTC on November 4, 2010). They show a very active comet with numerous jets. Credit: NASA / JPL / UMD / animation by Emily Lakdawalla

The photo above is “Pick of the Day” from one of the three galleries: Astronomy Gallery, Space Shuttle Gallery and Space Station Gallery.-