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A group of astronomers from the US, Europe, Chile and South Africa have determined that 70,000 years ago a recently discovered dim star is likely to have passed through the solar system's distant cloud of comets, the Oort Cloud. No other star is known to have ever approached our solar system this close - five times closer than the current closest star, Proxima Centauri. In a paper published in Astrophysical Journal Letters, lead author Eric Mamajek from the University of Rochester and his collaborators analyzed the velocity and trajectory of a low-mass star system nicknamed "Scholz's star." The star's trajectory...

Highlighted by astronomers at the University of Rochester and the European Southern Observatory, the star — nicknamed “Scholz’s star” — has a very low tangential velocity in the sky, but it has been clocked traveling at a breakneck speed away from us. In other words, from our perspective, Scholz’s star is fleeing the scene of a collision with us. “Most stars this nearby show much larger tangential motion,” said Eric Mamajek, of the University of Rochester. “The small tangential motion and proximity initially indicated that the star was most likely either moving towards a future close encounter with the solar...

Scholz's star -- named after the German astronomer who discovered it -- approached less than a light-year from the Sun. Nowadays it is almost 20 light-years away, but 70,000 years ago it entered the Oort cloud, a reservoir of trans-Neptunian objects located at the confines of the solar system. ... Now two astronomers from the Complutense University of Madrid, the brothers Carlos and Raúl de la Fuente Marcos, together with the researcher Sverre J. Aarseth of the University of Cambridge (United Kingdom), have analyzed for the first time the nearly 340 objects of the solar system with hyperbolic orbits (very...

Legendary astronaut John Young, who twice ventured into space in pioneering two-man Gemini capsules, orbited the moon and then walked on its cratered surface before commanding two space shuttle missions, including the program’s maiden flight, has passed away. NASA confirmed the death early Saturday in a posting on Twitter: “We’re saddened by the loss of astronaut John Young, who was 87. Young flew twice to the Moon, walked on its surface & flew the first Space Shuttle mission. He went to space six times in the Gemini, Apollo & Space Shuttle programs.” Tweeted astronaut Terry Virts: “Rest In peace John...

I listened to Lisa Lazuli speak about Hillary Clinton's Astrology Chart, and it sounded like she was going to predict her winning, but when she speaks about Trump she gets excited, and in the end says Trump will win. Many other things come out that makes her believe this. She says Trump was born during a lunar eclipse. John Kennedy was a Gemini, so is Mike Pence. Bush, Sr was a Gemini also. I think all of what we're seeing now is the last gasp of a failed campaign for the democrats. If the rest of the Republican would be...

NASA has apparently been stripping and reusing parts from old spacecraft, because when you have lofty goals and a limited budget, you gotta do what you gotta do. For instance, it's salvaging the four water tanks installed on the space shuttle Endeavour this week, so the agency can use them to build a new storage system for the International Space Station. Those tanks can store 300 liters in all that can last for 25 to 27 days: they're expected to help free more time for the crew to spend on their experiments. Also, according to NASA spokesperson Daniel Huot, they...

Explanation: Fifty years ago, on June 3, 1965, Edward White stepped out of the orbiting Gemini 4 spacecraft to become the first US astronaut to walk in space. White is captured in this photo taken by mission commander James McDivit from inside the capsule as White's spacewalk began over the Pacific Ocean on Gemini 4's third orbit. Planet Earth, spacecraft, and tether are reflected in White's gold tinted helmet visor. A gas powered manuevering gun is held in his right hand. Though the gun ran out of gas after only 3 minutes, he continued to manuever by twisting his body...

You can follow live coverage of the shower at the link. They are using a meteor shower radio, from their listening post in New Mexico, to listen when the meteors strike the atmosphere and leave an ionized gas trail that reflects radio waves. The radiant is located in the constellation of Gemini which is in the NW direction about 40 degrees above the horizon. Dress warmly!

Orbiting the Sun once every 11.9 years, oppositions of Jupiter occur about once every 13 months or about 400 days, as the speedy Earth overtakes the gas giant on the inside track. This means that successive oppositions of the planet move roughly one astronomical constellation eastward. In fact, this year’s opposition is it’s northernmost in 12 years, occurring in the constellation Gemini. “Opposition” means that an outer planet is rising “opposite” to the setting Sun. As this opposition of Jupiter occurs just weeks after the southward solstice, Jupiter now lies in the direction that the Sun will occupy six months...

Explanation: In 1787, astronomer William Herschel discovered the Eskimo Nebula. From the ground, NGC 2392 resembles a person's head surrounded by a parka hood. In 2000, the Hubble Space Telescope imaged the Eskimo Nebula in visible light, while the nebula was imaged in X-rays by the Chandra X-ray Observatory in 2007. The above combined visible-X ray image, with X-rays emitted by central hot gas and shown in pink, was released last week. From space, the nebula displays gas clouds so complex they are not fully understood. The Eskimo Nebula is clearly a planetary nebula, and the gas seen above composed...

Explanation: Open clusters of stars can be near or far, young or old, and diffuse or compact. Found near the plane of our Milky Way galaxy, they contain from 100 to 10,000 stars, all of which formed at nearly the same time. Bright blue stars frequently distinguish younger open clusters. M35, on the upper left, is relatively nearby at 2800 light years distant, relatively young at 150 million years old, and relatively diffuse, with about 2500 stars spread out over a volume 30 light years across. An older and more compact open cluster, NGC 2158, is at the lower right....

Explanation: In this evocative night skyscape a starry band of the Milky Way climbs over Yosemite Valley, Sierra Nevada Range, planet Earth. Jupiter is the brightest celestial beacon on the wintry scene, though. Standing nearly opposite the Sun in the constellation Taurus, the wandering planet joins yellowish Aldebaran and the Hyades star cluster. Below, Orion always comes up sideways over a fence of mountains. And from there the twin stars of Gemini rise just across the Milky Way. As this peaceful winter night began, they followed Auriga the charioteer, its alpha star Capella near the top of the frame.

An interesting story surrounds last month's  50th anniversary celebration of the  Mercury-Atlas 6 manned space flight... John and Annie Glenn with VP Johnson, 1962 John Glenn's own true heroFor half a century now the world has applauded John Glenn as a heart-stirring American hero. He lifted the nation's spirits when, as one of the original Mercury astronauts, he was blasted alone into orbit around the Earth; the enduring affection for him is so powerful that even now people find themselves misting up at the sight of his face or the sound of his voice. But for all these years, Glenn has...

Planned Parenthood Files Injunction Request to Allow Opening of Aurora Clinic Desperate move to circumvent local laws By Matthew Cullinan Hoffman AURORA, ILLINOIS, September 14, 2007 (LifeSiteNews.com)--In a desperate move to circumvent local laws, Planned Parenthood filed an emergency injunction petition yesterday in Federal court to allow its new clinic in Aurora, Illinois to open. The city government is reviewing Planned Parenthood's permit filing based on accusations that the real purpose of the "health center" was hidden from city officials: to provide abortions.  The original filing, on March 22, 2007, stated that the occupant would be the "Gemini Health Center",...

(AP) -- The massive jolt that rocked Hawaii damaged some of the world's most advanced equipment for gazing into outer space. Scientists at many of the 13 telescopes atop Mauna Kea, a dormant volcano on the Big Island, are still examining their implements to gauge the extent of the problems. Many have suspended their celestial observations to inspect equipment for flaws. Christian Veillet, executive director of the Canada-France-Hawaii Telescope, said an encoder - a device enabling astronomers to keep track of what part of the sky they are looking at - had a chunk taken out of it when Sunday's...

In recent years the early era of the Air Force’s manned space program have become less murky. Although the details of this early period are still relatively scarce, scholars—many of them working for the Air Force or with its support—have unearthed clues about efforts by General Bernard Schriever to get the Air Force into the manned spaceflight program by any possible means. One project that is now much clearer is the short-lived Blue Gemini program, which was a natural outgrowth of Schriever’s goal to get Air Force officers—blue suiters, as they called themselves—into orbit as soon as possible.

CAPE CANAVERAL -- John Young, who walked on the moon and later commanded the first space shuttle mission, is retiring from NASA this month at 74 years old. The Orlando native first flew to space in 1965 on a Gemini mission with the late Gus Grissom. In 1972, he walked on the moon in the next-to-last Apollo flight. Almost a decade later, Young and pilot Bob Crippen took Columbia on its maiden voyage. The National Air and Space Museum in Washington plans a special celebration in Young's honor on Tuesday.

The longest serving astronaut in history made his retirement plans official today. John W. Young, who has spent 42 years at NASA, plans to leave the space agency on Dec. 31. Young, who commanded the first shuttle mission and flew twice to the moon, was the first human to fly in space six times and the only astronaut to pilot four different spacecraft. He flew in the Gemini, Apollo and space shuttle programs. "John's tenacity and dedication are matched only by his humility," said NASA Administrator Sean O'Keefe. "He's never sought fame and often goes out of his way to...

LONDON (Reuters) - People born in May in the northern hemisphere have a higher than average risk of developing multiple sclerosis, researchers said on Tuesday. An analysis of data from studies of more than 42,000 people in Canada, Britain, Denmark and Sweden showed that May babies have a 13 percent increased chance of suffering from the illness later in life, but that having a November birthday decreased the average odds by 19 percent. "If you are born in May, your risk is higher than any other month and if you are born in November your risk is lower than any...

Gordon Cooper, one of the nation's first astronauts on the Mercury and Gemini missions, has died, NASA confirms.