Friday, January 8th, 2010

Astronomy Meeting Highlights

This Hubble image taken by the observatory’s new Wide Field Camera 3 in Infrared highlights some of the oldest galaxies ever seen. NASA, ESA, G. Illingworth (UCO/Lick Observatory and University of California, Santa Cruz) and the HUDF09 Team

This week, astronomers associated with the Kepler planet-spotting observatory announced their first results. In six weeks of observation, they've found a collection of 5 new alien worlds, one like Neptune and four like less dense versions of Jupiter. Other researchers using the recently-refurbished Hubble Space Telescope unveiled images of the most distant galaxies yet seen. We'll hear about those efforts, and get the latest from researchers at this week's meeting of the American Astronomical Society.