Astronomy & Observing News

Giant Telescopes Snare Surprising Quadruple Star

An infrared ground-based view (1) of a wide binary system in the molecular cloud MBM 12. The same view using Gemini's adaptive optics system (2) reveals that the upper star is actually a close pair. In a longer exposure of the upper, close pair (3) another faint object is resolved,…

Astronomy & Observing News

NASA Kills FAME Over Blown Budget

The ill-fated FAME mission, which would have measured 40 million star distances with vastly improved precision, is unlikely to become more than this conceptual drawing.Courtesy US Naval Observatory. Following several budget increase requests over the past year, the Full-Sky Astrometric Mapping Explorer (FAME) has been denied the funding necessary to…

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