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Explanation: Earth's annual Geminid meteor shower did not disappoint, peaking before dawn on December 14 as our fair planet plowed through dust from active asteroid 3200 Phaethon. Captured in this southern hemisphere nightscape the meteors stream away from the shower's radiant in Gemini. To create the image, many individual frames recording meteor streaks were taken over period of 5 hours. In the final composite they were selected and registered against the starry sky above the twin 6.5 meter Magellan telescopes of Carnegie Las Campanas Observatory in Chile. Rigel in Orion, and Sirius shine brightly as the Milky Way stretches toward...

Caligula's Roman palace discovered By Bruce Johnston in Rome (Filed: 08/08/2003) The ancient palace in Rome that provided the backdrop for many of Emperor Caligula's wildest depravities has been found by British and American archaeologists. After two months of digs at the edge of the Forum close to the Palatine Hill, the group - involving Oxford and Stanford Universities, the British School at Rome, and the American Institute for Roman Culture - were confident that they had found the site. While it had been known from ancient sources that the palace was in the area, it had never been located...

Two independent groups, led by Sabine Reffert (Heidelberg-Konigstuhl State Observatory, Germany) and Artie Hatzes (Thuringia State Observatory, Germany), discovered the planet using the Doppler technique. The planet has a minimum mass of 2.9 Jupiters and orbits Pollux in a 590-day, nearly circular orbit. "What a wonderful gift that anyone, even in the center of a city, can gaze up and see a star that has a planet," says Geoff Marcy (University of California, Berkeley), a member of Reffert's group. Marcy's group has also recently announced the discovery of five new exoplanets.

Mu Arae is confirmed as only the second known extrasolar system with four planets (the other being 55 Cancri).

Virgil's demi-god city 'found'Castor and Pollux fought Aeneas at Amyclae (ANSA) - Rome, April 6 - Italian archaeologists believe they have found an ancient city where the demi-gods Castor and Pollux fought Aeneas, the Trojan hero whose descendants founded Rome . Lorenzo and Stefania Quilici of Bologna and Naples universities claim the large, massive-walled settlement dating from the VI to III Century BCE was the city of Amyclae, believed by Renaissance scholars to be somewhere near Lake Fondi between Rome and Naples . "The road there is a perfectly preserved stretch of the ancient Via Appia," said Lorenzo Quilici ....

Astronomy Picture of the Day Discover the cosmos! Each day a different image or photograph of our fascinating universe is featured, along with a brief explanation written by a professional astronomer. 2003 April 4 Clusters and Nebulae of the Hexagon Credit & Copyright: Axel Mellinger Explanation: At first, the bright stars of the large asterism known as the (northern) Winter Hexagon might be hard to pick out in this gorgeous deep sky mosaic from December 2002. But placing your cursor over the picture will reveal the hexagon's outlines and the bright clusters and nebulae along a stunning portion of...

Astronomy Picture of the Day Discover the cosmos! Each day a different image or photograph of our fascinating universe is featured, along with a brief explanation written by a professional astronomer. 2003 March 21 Stars and Planets in the Halo of the Moon Credit & Copyright: Lauri Kangas Explanation: Photographed on March 13th from Caledon, Ontario, Canada, a bright Moon was surrounded by this lovely halo. Planet Jupiter and stars Procyon, Castor, and Pollux also appear within the circle of lunar light. Castor and Pollux, twins in Greek Mythology, are appropriately bright stars of the constellation Gemini while Procyon...