Astrophysics blog
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What might Earth look like to an alien living 10 light years away? We're assuming he or she has access to a decent space telescope, of course.
Today, August 6th 2014, marks a significant milestone in European exploration of our solar system. After a 10-year, 6 billion-kilometre journey, the European Space Agency Rosetta spacecraft achieved a successful rendezvous with comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko. At 10 am this morning, Rosetta fired its rockets and altered its trajectory to go into a series of triangular passes around the comet. During these passes, data will be gathered that allow mission scientists to decide on an appropriate site for the Philae lander, due to harpoon itself to the comet in November.
On Thursday 19th June 2014 at ~18:45 BST, an explosion high in the Atacama desert in Northern Chile marked the beginning of construction of what will be the largest optical & infrared telescope in the World. The European Extremely Large Telescope (E-ELT), built by the European Southern Observatory (ESO), will be sited at a high and dry peak on Cerro Armazones, some 20 km away from ESO's Paranal Observatory.
