Stars and clouds of gas often form breathtaking patterns in space. Scientists at NASA have grown fond over the years of giving creative names to these celestial bodies. In a new photo that the agency is showing off, the Running Chicken Nebula is displayed in crimson glory. You can check it out by clicking on the "read more" link below.

Astronomers announce that they finally found a triple-asteroid system that is very near Earth. This is the first time that astronomers have found such as while the said system is known to exist, they are rarely found.

Know more about the discovery by clicking the "read more" link below.

Boris Shustov, a Russian astronomer and director of the Institute of Astronomy, reported the possibility of the Apophis asteroid becoming a threat in 2029 as it crosses Earth's orbit. This was announced in a recent press release by the Novosti new agency.

Don't expect Bruce Willis or any other heroic astronauts to try and blow up the asteroid, though. Shustov said that doing so would likely cause more harm than good. Instead he proposed using a micro-satellite to nudge it into a safer orbit instead.

He elaborated the plan saying: "To blast an asteroid, as some hot shots suggest, is quite an unpredictable step, and a more cautious approach is welcomed now."

The predicted impact is estimated to be even more powerful than the Tunguska asteroid that hit Siberia during 1908. Considering that the Tunguska event contained a force about 1,000 times more powerful than the atomic bomb that the United States dropped on Hiroshima, this could spell dire news for the planet indeed.

Imagine Earth not as the blue and green orb we know today. Imagine it as a psychedelic purple planet. According to microbial geneticist Shil DasSarma from the University of Maryland, ancient purple microbes dominated early Earth.

Today's plants are green because of chlorophyll - the pigment that makes photosynthesis possible. Green leaves absorb the reds and blues in the electromagnetic spectrum (or wavelengths of light) and reflect the greens. The fact is that the sun transmits most of its energy on the greens - so why did today's plants evolve not using the precious green light?

According to DasSarma, the explanation might be simple. There might have been another light-sensitive molecule that takes the green and reflects the reds and blues which causes it to emit a purple color. This ancient light-sensitive molecule was dubbed "retinal" and can be found today in another photosynthetic microbe called halobacteria.

DasSarma speculates that the retinal microbes dominated early Earth (imagine a massive clump of them making a purple spot on the Earth). The chlorophyll using microbes came later and evolved to harness the reds and blues that the retinals did not use since they couldn't complete with the then big boys. So how did chlorophyll become the dominant color? It may have been that the greens were simply more efficient than the purple retinals. According to William Sparks, an astronomer for the Space Telescope Science Institute in Maryland, "Chlorophyll may not sample the peak of the solar spectrum, but it makes better use of the light that it does absorb." DasSarma's theory is still based on speculation but the information fits with what scientists already know. The evidence that shows that retinal developed earlier that chlorophyll:

• Retinal has a simpler molecular structure than chlorophyll, which made it easier to produce in oxygen deprived early Earth
• Retinal production followed a process that resembles that of fatty acid and scientists think that the acid is essential in the development of cells.
• The halobacteria (misnomer since it's not a bacteria but a mibrobe) comes from an ancient group called archaea which dates back to a prehistoric Earth sans the oxygen atmosphere.

The full article awaits after the jump!

Don't stock up on food and batteries just yet. This storm is unlike any other most in our age groups have ever seen. The storm isn't even on the Earth, it's on the sun.

Astronomer Mausumi Dikpati of the National Center for Atmospheric research has predicted that come 2012, the Earth will experience a solar maximum, a phenomenon that last happened in 1958. This happens as a sunspot, a huge mass of violent magnetism, intensifies an area of the sun as it causes weird things to happen.

More than a heat storm, the solar max unleashes a barrage of magnetism that can be felt even in the Earth. Dikpati says he won't be surprised if modern electronics such as GPS and mobile phones will be affected.

That's not the only strange thing that can happen. As the sun spot drags on for years and prompts the solar max to rage on, atmospheric and astronomic frills can be seen on Earth. During the last solar max, Aurora Borealis was seen in Mexico.

Dikpati's prediction is bold in the sense that no scientists before him have come close to being able to accurately predict the cycle of sunspots. Once thought of as a semi=random occurrence, Dikpati asserts that there exists such a thing as a "solar conveyor belt" made of magnetism which drags sun spots along a path.

The National Space Science & Technology Center agreed with Dikpati. Solar Physicist David Hathaway said that Dikpati made all the points clear and true. However, he says that the solar max should come in 2011, not 2012. "History shows that big sunspot cycles 'ramp up' faster than small ones," he says.

Last month, Pluto was tossed out of the family of planets by the International Astronomical Union - but perhaps its not all bad, because even as Pluto has lost one family, it seems to have gained another.

Today, the "hot new thing" in planetary science is the Kuiper Belt - a ring of icy debris that orbits outside the Solar System proper. Many of these "Kuiper objects" - of which Pluto is now considered a part - is the "attic of the solar system," a veritable archaeological treasure house of artifacts dating from its earliest days.

Astronomers have identified some 1,100 Kuiper Belt objects , and there may be has many as half a million more. Many of these bodies are larger than 20 miles wide. One appears to be mostly rock with a coating of ice. Some are big snowballs. Some are less dense than ice, indicating a Swiss-cheese-like structure. A lot of them have moons. "The more we learn, the weirder it looks," says Harold Levinson of the Southwest Research Institute in Boulder, Colorado.

Many Kuiper Belt objects have orbits similar to Pluto’s, and have been dubbed the "Plutinos."

Like Pluto, these have orbits, often at a sharp angle to the rest of the solar system. At least one of these -  nicknamed "Xena" -  is larger than Pluto.

Less than twenty years ago, the Kuiper Belt was not even on  maps of the solar system. Pluto (actually Neptune at that time, since Pluto had slipped inside Neptunian orbit) marked the outer limit. An astronomer during the 1950's, Gerard Kuiper (for whom the belt is named) theorized that such a region of small objects had existed at one point, but that Pluto (at the time believed to be much larger than it is) had pushed them out of our region of space.

The existence of Pluto - being a "rocky" planet that is half ice, with its tilted and irregular orbit - provided the first clues to astronomers that there was something else out there beyond the known solar system. Considering was these objects are teaching scientists about the formation of the solar system, this would seem to more than compensate Pluto for its elimination from the planetary roll.

Seems like everything in the cosmos is in orbit around something else. Planets orbit stars, moons orbit planets - and dwarf galaxies orbit big galaxies.

This is not news, of course. However, the discovery of four new satellite galaxies of the Milky Way has made the news. This increases the number of the Milky Way's satellites to 20, but the real news is that the discovery is starting to make scientists re-think their ideas about "dark matter."

Just what "dark matter" is has been, so far, maddeningly vague. Scientists agree that it exists, and has something to do with the formation and movement of just about everything in the universe. The most recent idea is that "dark matter" consists of "warm, fast-moving particles." However, the recent discovery of these additional dwarf galaxies in orbit around the Milky Way has challenged this view.

Unlike the Milky Way, which is about 100,000 light years across, these dwarf companions are only a few hundred to a few thousand. They are thought to clump together, eventually forming larger galaxies. By observing these dwarf galaxies, scientists hope to understand this process better.

If the exact number of orbital dwarf galaxies could be determined (the latest discovery suggests there are far more out there than previously thought), it could help scientists to understand more about the nature of "dark matter," which can presently be observed only indirectly - by studying its gravitational effect on light and "normal" matter.

Currently, there are two models of dark matter. The "warm" model suggests that matter moves too quickly to clump together, while "cold" matter moves slowly, easily forming clumps - such as galaxies. Knowing how many dwarf galaxies are out there and how they are distributed would help in distinguishing between the two models. "If there really are 40 to 50 clumps out there, it really starts to look bad for warm dark matter models," says astronomer James Bullock of UC Irvine.

The ongoing debate as to what exactly constitutes a "planet" has aroused some ire among astronomers at the meeting of the International Astronomical Union in Prague. The planet definition committee offered three new definitions in an attempt to mollify the scientists that had rejected the first proposal. However, most of the scientists in attendance rejected these as well.

The latest proposal continues to define planets as round objects that orbit the Sun, but adds the following: "In our solar system, we distinguish between the eight 'classical' planets as the dominant objects in their local population zones, and 'dwarf' planets, which are not." This is an attempt to find common ground with the astronomers who had come up their own definition last week.

"They have presented practically the same resolution as before," says Julio Fernandez of the University of the Republic in Montevideo, Uruguay. Fernandez was one of the authors of last week's  proposal.  He added, "Most of the people here think it makes no sense."

It seems like hair-splitting. Everyone agrees that objects in Solar orbit fall into one of three categories: – the big planets from Mercury to Neptune; a number of "dwarf" planets (i.e. Pluto, Ceres, et.al.); and asteroids.  What subject of just what constitutes a "dwarf planet" seem to be the problem. Fernandez says they aren't planets at all, while the Committee says they are.  It's a small thing until you have to answer the question of exactly how many "official" planets actually orbit the Sun. 

A lunchtime meeting turned hostile when Fernandez tried to read his alternative definition.  He was cut off by Ron Ekers, the IAU president.  "I think it was disgraceful treatment," says Brian Marsden, formerly head of the Minor Planet Center in Cambridge, Massachusetts. As more questions were prevented, one astronomer cried out: "If there is democracy, listen to the questions. Let the people speak!" More of the scientists became angered when a  member of planet committee, MIT's Richard Binzel, said: "You can vote based on physics, or maybe you have some preconceived idea of what a planet should be."

Irish astronomer Mike Bailey said "With the present state of knowledge, it's impossible to draw the line between dwarf planets and asteroids." A final resolution declaring that a planetary companion can be a full-fledged planet  if its center of gravity of the system is out in space was rejected by most of those in attendance. That resolution would have made Charon a planet, leaving other planetary companions as moons.

Now there is an attempt to reconcile the warring parties' views in preparation of a vote on the subject coming up this Thursday.

The Hubble Space Telescope has successfully identified and characterized the host star of one of the most distant planetary systems yet discovered, reports astronomer David Bennett of the University of Notre Dame University. The method used is called "microlensing," which observes distant objects indirectly by keeping track of "light-bending."

What happens is that light waves from a visible star are gravitationally bent when a smaller, invisible object with mass passes in front of it. This causes the visible object - known as the "lensing" star - to brighten and dim over a period of time. The "spike" in brightness indicates that a smaller object - a planet, or in this case, an entire solar system - too small to be observed directly is passing in front of the lensing star.

Unfortunately, if the passing object is an entire solar system, this kind of observation tells astronomers little about the host star beyond the fact that it exists. Bennett's team was able to determine the specific characteristics of this particular star (dubbed "OGLE-2003-BLG-235L/MOA-2003-BLG-53L") because it's color was different than that of the lensing star behind it.

The researchers concluded that the host star - some 19,000 light years distant - has little over 3/4 of the Sun's mass. Although smaller in terms of mass, it appears to have greater density. The planet is similar to Jupiter in terms of make-up (a gas giant) and orbit, although it is over two and a half times as big.

Telescopes have been instrumental in helping scientists find out about the big and small of our universe and everything around us. With new developments in astronomical research and telescopy, it would also be good to look back at how people used to do things before we could use computers or take pictures of outer space.

One of the more memorable scholars of two centuries past was Etienne Trouvelot, astronomer and illustrator in the late 1800s, whose observations were not only recorded in his own hand, but also in his own art.

Etienne Leopold Trouvelot (1827-1895) started his scientific work in America as an amateur entomologist, one who unwittingly caused (and unsuccessfully tried to stop) the still-existing gypsy moth infestation in Massachusetts and other American forests. When his interests shifted to the stars, he used his talents as a portrait artists to illustrate his observations with a keen eye and a steady hand. His exploits in illustrating the stars opened doors to working on the staff of Harvard's observatory, leading to an invitation to have express use of the latest (of that time) 16-inch refracting telescope of the U.S. Naval Observatory for a year.

Over the course of his scientific career, he had around 7000 astronomical illustrations under his belt and 50 academic papers. While some people may remember him more for releasing an insect plague in America (much to his regret, that is certain), many more remember him for the beauty of his science. Even if you can't appreciate his contribution to our understanding and vision of the universe, there is certainly much to appreciate, even now, in the surreal feeling his artwork gives, especially since these are meant to be the first representations of the same things scientists see in far more detail in this day and age.

Take a look at these samples of his observations and art.