The academic year has kicked off in stellar fashion for the UW-Madison astronomy department, as researchers from the university have contributed to two rare glimpses of the cosmos in recent weeks.
Using thousands of images captured by NASA's orbiting Spitzer Space Telescope, researchers from UW-Madison collaborated with other national research teams to compile two massive images of the Large Magellanic Cloud, a small galaxy situated adjacent to the Milky Way. The images are to appear in the Astronomical Journal in late 2006.
In a development slightly closer to home, a separate team of astronomers led by UW-Madison space scientist Lawrence Sromovsky used NASA's Hubble Space Telescope to capture a rare image of Uranus as the shadow of one of its moons raced across it. The rarity of the occasion is due to the sun's alignment with the planet's northern hemisphere—an event that happens once every 42 years.
