geekosystem

It's with great sadness today that we bring you news of the passing of the Herschel Space Observatory. After more than three years of dutiful service to astronomers and appreciators of the beauty of space, the telescope's supply of liquid helium coolant has run dry, and it is officially out of commission.

The amount of debris orbiting the Earth is alarming. It's a threat to both space science, and business -- space business. The European Space Agency just wrapped up its 6th European Conference on Space Debris to decide what to do about it. One of the ideas? Let's shoot harpoons and nets at the junk. How soon before Space Junkers is a show on the Discovery Channel?

Astronomers at the European Space Agency have found a binary star-and-black-hole that orbit one another once every 2.4 hours, making them the most swiftly orbiting binary objects ever recorded. Of course, the star -- a tiny red dwarf just 20% as massive as our own Sun-- is being actively consumed by the black hole, so this is less like traditional orbiting, like we do with the Sun, and more like watching a cat play with a wounded mouse on a cosmic scale. Keep reading to get a look at the ESA's animated rendering of the new fastest known orbit in action.

The Herschel Space Observatory's mission to photograph the stars is winding down, so we wanted to take the chance to remember some of the finest images Herschel captured during its three-year tour of duty. Now, yes, some of these images are color corrected and touched up to highlight the more spectacular points contained within them -- like the star forming inside a galactic bubble eight times more massive than our sun. In our view, that doesn't make them any less valuable to astronomers studying them, which is the whole point. It also makes them way better eye-candy for the rest of us to gape at, so we're just going to be thankful for it, rather than nitpicky.

Since it's launch in 2009, the European Space Agency's Herschel Space Telescope has treated us to some truly amazing images of space. All good things must come to an end, though, and the ESA's shiniest toy is just about out of time. Sometime in the next couple of weeks, the liquid helium tanks that provide coolant for the telescope's impressive instrumentation will run dry, marking the close of a good run for one of the most powerful instruments ever used to capture images of space.

Personally, I think it looks more like Black Manta's helmet than a Space Invader, but this image of a spiral galaxy taken with the Hubble Space Telescope sure looks like something other than a spiral galaxy. That's because the light from the "Space Invader" galaxy is being bent around a galaxy cluster called Abell 68. The process by which this happens helps astronomers see much further into deep space, but often results in distortions, though this is the first time it's resulted in a video game reference that we know of.

Do you remember a simpler time? As time before, say, a couple of weeks ago when we weren't all living in constant mortal fear of being crushed by a giant rock from outer space? Yeah, neither do we. Luckily, NASA and the ESA are on the job of intercepting potentially killer asteroids. The space agencies have partnered on a project known as Asteroid Impact and Deflection Assessment (AIDA) which they hope will be able to one day knock earthbound asteroids off course, and they've selected a test candidate for the project. To save the Earth -- or at least prove they could -- NASA and ESA will collide a small spacecraft with the binary asteroid Didymos in just... nine years? Don't they know we'll all have been killed by giant space rocks by then? Come on, guys, a little sense of urgency, huh?

The Sun, it will surprise no one, is very, very hot. What is surprising -- and consistently baffling to researchers -- is that there are certain parts of the sun that are actually rather chilly. You know, in comparison to the rest of the Sun, which, as we've covered, is just exceedingly warm. The European Space Agency's (ESA) Herschel observatory may have made a stride or two towards understanding the strange phenomenon, though, as it has recorded the first evidence of a similar cool outer layer in a star that isn't the Sun. The same cool layer has been observed for the first time in Alpha Centauri A, a relatively nearby star noted for its similarities to our own Sun.

Now that the dust has settled from last Friday's spectacular meteorite explosion over Russia, the facts are slowly coming in about just how big the explosion really was, and it's turning out to be a bigger blast than pretty much anyone initially suspected. According to an assessment released today by the European Space Agency (ESA), the meteorite that fell to Earth in Russia's Chelyabinsk region and injured nearly 1,000 people could have done much worse, as it exploded with the force of 30 atomic bombs. Keep reading for the full breakdown and another look at the unprecedented blast.

We can't think of a single better way to start your day than with the Herschel Space Observatory's two latest incredible photographs of our nearest galactic neighbor, the Andromeda Galaxy. The new images use Herschel's ultra-sensitive instruments to get a better look at the gas and dust that make up so much of Andromeda, resulting in photos that suffuse the galaxy with an otherworldly glow. Which is actually pretty appropriate, when you think about it. Keep reading for more images and details on how Herschel captured them.

2012 is over, and it was a pretty great year for all sorts of entertainment, as we pointed out earlier today. Sometimes, though, we're in a more ruminative mood, and in those moments, we like nothing more than looking at pictures of space, wishing and hoping that one day, we'll even get to visit. Until then, though, photos will have to do -- it turns out that 2012 was one heck of a year for those, too, though. We welcome you to 2013 with a retrospective of the best images of some of our new favorite places in the universe that last year had to offer, courtesy of the Hubble Space Telescope, Cassini probe, International Space Station, and more. Have a very happy new year, everyone, and be sure to check back with us for the best images from space from 2013 -- we couldn't be more excited to bring them to you as they happen.

Scientists at the European Space Agency (ESA) are seeing increased levels of sulfur dioxide in the already rather poisonous atmosphere of Venus. There are a couple of possible explanations for the spike in levels of the gas, but right now, we're going to get excited about the coolest possibility, which is that the ESA's Venus Express probe is seeing the results of some not insignificant volcanic activity on the surface of the planet.

Galaxies are a lot like people -- some are notable for their shape, or their age, or their brightness, but others you can only notice how very, very loud they are. These radio galaxies emit vast quantities of energy on radio wavelengths, and Hercules A is among the loudest we know of, with the supermassive black hole at it's center putting out about a billion times more energy along radio wavelengths than the Sun. Now, courtesy of a collaboration between the Hubble Space Telescope and the Very Large Array (VLA) radio telescope,  we can visualize what all that energy would look like and, well, it's pretty serious stuff. For a look at how the visualization took shape, you can check out the video below.

A training seminar for astronauts from around the world ended up being more fruitful than anyone imagined earlier this year, as participants turned up an never-before-seen species of crustacean during their journey. The new species was discovered during the course of the European Space Agency's CAVES training program, which sends teams of astronauts into unusual environments to hone their skills in field geology, meteorology, and cataloging new species -- so you have to think that at least one of those objectives went down as a clear success this trip.

The European Space Agency's (ESA) Planck Space Telescope has laid it's super-powerful eye in the sky on a never before seen cosmic phenomenon. The above photo is Planck's first image of a pair of galaxy clusters connected by a cloud of superheated gasses that spans a mind-boggling distance of 10 million lightyears. No word yet on if this actually represents the Asgardian Rainbow Bridge of Thor fame, so in the absence of good evidence, we're just going to really, really hope so.