Galileo's World-Changing Telescope Turns 400

Conservatives tie astronomer's ideas to moral decline

(NEWSER) - Not only did Roman Catholics arrest Galileo for saying the Earth revolves around the sun—a handful of them still insist he was wrong. It's a small movement, but a few conservative Roman Catholics are turning to Church teachings and a dozen Bible verses as proof of a geocentric universe, the Chicago Tribune reports. Heliocentrism, which puts the sun at the center of the solar system, "becomes dangerous if it is being propped up as the true system when, in fact, it is a false system," said Robert Sungenis, leader of the movement. More»

The stars are 13.1B light years

(NEWSER) - Astronomers in Chile have spotted the most distant galaxy in the universe—some 13.1 billion light years away. Its light has taken almost the whole life of the universe to get to us: The light photons detected by the astronomers started their journey when the universe was just 4% of its current age, or a mere 600 million years after the Big Bang, the Daily Telegraph reports. More»

Blizzard 5 times bigger than Snowmageddon

(NEWSER) - America's "Snowmageddon" winter storm this year would be no big deal on Saturn, where an ammonia-ice storm at least 5 times larger—so massive and turbulent that amateur astronomers can see it from earth —is currently raging. NASA's Cassini spacecraft, orbiting Saturn, is picking up data from the wild blizzard in the planet's "storm alley," but astronomy enthusiasts back on earth are also taking part in the Saturn storm watch. More»

Kepler will find habitable planet like ours: astronomer

(NEWSER) - The Kepler spacecraft prowling the far reaches of the Milky Way will soon find a habitable planet similar to earth, a leading astronomer is convinced. Recent technological advances in the observation of planets outside our own solar system have rapidly brought us closer to finding earth's "twin" planet, says Michel Mayor, the scientist who discovered the first extrasolar planet in 1995. More»

(NEWSER) - Scientists are calling on amateur astronomers to help solve the centuries-old puzzle of a super-bright star that goes dim every 27 years. Epsilon Aurigae will fade out from this fall to spring 2011; this time around, scientists are looking to ordinary sky-watchers to provide extra data on the mysterious companion believed to be blocking the star's light, Wired reports. More»