HELLO, NEIGHBOR: The newfound galaxy Leo P, which lies some five million light-years away from the Milky Way.Image: From Katherine L. Rhode et al. in The Astronomical Journal,vol. 145, page 149; 2013. Reproduced by permission of the AAS.

In recent years astronomers have extended their view almost to the very edge of the observable universe. With the venerable Hubble Space Telescope researchers have spotted a handful of galaxies so faraway that we see them as they appeared just 400 million years or so after the big bang.

But even as astronomers peer ever deeper into the universe to explore the cosmic frontier, others are finding new realms to explore in our own backyard. Such is the case with Leo P, a dwarf galaxy that astronomers have just discovered in the Milky Way’s vicinity. At a distance of some five million or six million light-years from the Milky Way, Leo P is not quite a next-door neighbor, but on the vast scales of the universe it counts as a neighbor nonetheless.

Intriguingly, Leo P seems to have kept to itself, rarely if ever interacting with other galaxies. So the discovery, detailed in a series of studies in The Astronomical Journal, offers astronomers a rare glimpse at a cosmic object unsullied by disruptive galactic encounters. It also suggests the presence of other small galaxies that await discovery in our corner of the cosmos.

via Astronomers Discover New Neighbor Galaxy to the Milky Way: Scientific American.

This artist’s illustration shows the European Space Agency’s infrared Herschel Space Observatory set against a background image of the Vela C star-forming region. The space telescope launched in 2009 and ended its mission in 2013.Image: ESA/PACS & SPIRE Consortia, T. Hill, F. Motte, Laboratoire AIM Paris-Saclay, CEA/IRFU – CNRS/INSU – Uni. Paris Diderot, HOBYS Key Programme Consortium

After nearly four years mapping the “hidden universe,” the largest infrared telescope ever launched into space has reached the end of its life, European Space Agency officials say.

The $1.4 billion Herschel Space Observatory has exhausted the vital supply of liquid helium coolant that allowed it make the most sensitive and detailed observations of the cosmos in infrared light, ESA officials announced Monday (April 29).

The infrared space telescope’s official end was recorded by a ground station in Australia, which recorded an increase in temperature for all of the spacecraft’s instruments during the telescope’s daily communications session. It began its mission in May 2009. [Amazing Photos from the Herschel Space Telescope]

via World’s Largest Infrared Space Telescope Shuts Down Forever: Scientific American.

As McEnery worked through her inbox, an automatically generated report arrived from NASA’s Robotic Conjunction Assessment Risk Analysis (CARA) team based at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md. On scanning the document, she discovered that Fermi was just one week away from an unusually close encounter with Cosmos 1805, a defunct spy satellite dating back to the Cold War.

The two objects, speeding around Earth at thousands of miles an hour in nearly perpendicular orbits, were expected to miss each other by a mere 700 feet.

“My immediate reaction was, ‘Whoa, this is different from anything we’ve seen before!'” McEnery recalled.

via NASA – The Day NASA’s Fermi Dodged a 1.5-ton Bullet.