Bringing the Universe to Earth

Two weeks has elapsed since scientists at CERN announced the dramatic finding that the heavy muon neutrino was observed to travel faster than the speed of light. Since then scientists have been furiously investigating the results and seeking to explain why or, perhaps more importantly, why not.

Clear skies permitting, there is a rare chance to view a distant supernova over the coming nights. The supernova, SN2011fe, is located in the Pinwheel Galaxy, M101, some 21 million light-years away.

First observed around 10 days ago, the Type Ia supernova is expected to reach a peak magnitude in the coming night of around +10. This makes it a viable target for small telescopes and high powered binoculars.

The Juno spacecraft launched today on an Atlas 5 rocket on a five-year journey to Jupiter. Once there it will spend around a year understanding the origin and evolution of Jupiter.

NASA racked up another first over the past weekend as the Dawn spacecraft entered orbit around the asteroid 4-Vesta.

Vesta, discovered in 1807 by Heinrich Olbers, is the brightest asteroid and the second most massive after Ceres. This tiny world lives in the asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter and is just over 500 km in diamater.

The Dawn mission utilises an ion propulsion system, similar to the one used on ESA's SMART-1 lunar mission. This allows the spacecraft trajectory and velocity to undergo gradual alterations to allow the gravity of Vesta to capture the spacecraft into orbit. After a year in orbit the ion drive will be used again to break out of orbit and head for Ceres.

Scientists hope, through the study of these asteroids by a single set of instruments, to derive details on separate evolutionary paths of these worlds as well as important clues as to conditions in the early solar system.

15:29 UT, 11:29 EDT - Launch

The Space Shuttle Atlantis has launched from pad-39A at the Kennedy Space Centre in Florida. It represents the last flight of the Shuttle and brings to an end to just over 30 years over flights from this remarkable space vehicle. Despite two tragic failures the Shuttle has been an icon of the manned exploration of space in recent years including its missions to the ISS and its defining missions to repair the Hubble Space Telescope.