The Night Sky

[CELLFISH]

BLACK MOON ???‍?

 

[Roccus7]

Astronomy humor: Subaru sees Mercury flaming out!!

OK, the real 'splanation... The group of stars up top is an open cluster of stars, the Pleiades or 7 Sisters to most of us, but to our Japanese friends, it's SUBARU, ergo the car company's star logo. The "comet" below is NOT a comet, but it's the planet Mercury.

Here's why there's a "tail": Long exposures of our Solar System's innermost planet may reveal something unexpected: a tail. Mercury's thin atmosphere contains small amounts of sodium that glow when excited by light from the Sun. Sunlight also liberates these molecules from Mercury's surface and pushes them away. The yellow glow from sodium, in particular, is relatively bright. Pictured, Mercury and its sodium tail are visible in a deep image taken last week from La Palma, Spain through a filter that primarily transmits yellow light emitted by sodium. First predicted in the 1980s, Mercury's tail was first discovered in 2001. Many tail details were revealed in multiple observations by NASA's robotic MESSENGER spacecraft that orbited Mercury between 2011 and 2015.

 

[Roccus7]

The Parade of Planets over the first pyramid, the Step Pyramid of Djoser!!

 

[wader]

‘Cosmic horror.’ NASA pinpoints terrifying ‘sounds’ echoing from distant black hole

“The void itself has a voice and we have just heard it.”

www.yahoo.com

‘Cosmic horror.’ NASA pinpoints terrifying ‘sounds’ echoing from distant black hole​

he unsettling “sounds” of a black hole can finally be heard thanks to new NASA technology, and listeners are calling the result hypnotic and downright “terrifying.”

NASA posted a 34-second recording on YouTube May 4, explaining the source of the sinister recording comes from deep within the Perseus Galaxy Cluster, some 250 million light years from Earth.

“The popular misconception that there is no sound in space originates with the fact that most of space is essentially a vacuum, providing no medium for sound waves to propagate through,” NASA reported.

“A galaxy cluster, on the other hand, has copious amounts of gas that envelop the hundreds or even thousands of galaxies within it, providing a medium for the sound waves to travel.”


Those “ripples” have been made audible with a sound machine — a process called “sonification” — after NASA says it overcame the challenge of raising the “astronomical data” to a level humans can hear.

NASA dodged describing the results from the black hole — which has such a strong gravitational pull that nothing, including light, can escape its invisible grasp — but the sound could be likened to ghostly howls ... or the collective moan of a billion lifeforms.

There are more than 5,000 reactions and comments on NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center Facebook page, some using terms like “eerily beautiful” and “menacing,” while another warned to “stay the hell away from this place.”

Some described it as the “sound of darkness,” while others guessed we might be hearing cries from the underworld.

 

[jpd]

‘Cosmic horror.’ NASA pinpoints terrifying ‘sounds’ echoing from distant black hole

“The void itself has a voice and we have just heard it.”

www.yahoo.com

‘Cosmic horror.’ NASA pinpoints terrifying ‘sounds’ echoing from distant black hole​

Great soundtrack for Halloween - no kids coming to your door!

 

[wader]

A Monster Black Hole in a Galaxy 236 Million Light-Years Away May Have Just Flipped Its North and South Poles

A Nasa team studying studying a galaxy named 1ES 1927+654 just documented some strange activity, which might be the result of changes in a monster black hole's magnetic field.

www.yahoo.com

 

[jpd]

 

[Matts]

The moon sure was bright Tuesday

 

[wader]

Rare night-sky event on tap with 5 planets and moon all visible

It hasn't happened since 1864 and isn't expected to occur again until 2040.

www.pennlive.com

At about a half-hour before sunrise on Friday, all five planets visible to the naked eye and the moon will line up in an arc across our night sky.

It will be the first time in 18 years that so many planets will be visible to the unaided eye and the first time since March 1864 that Friday’s configuration will be visible. It won’t happen against until 2040, according to NASA.

 

[jpd]

Wait....wait....

Wild solar weather is causing satellites to plummet from orbit. It's only going to get worse.

The change coincided with the onset of the new solar cycle, and experts think it might be the beginning of some difficult years.

www.space.com

 

[Roccus7]

Wait....wait....

Wild solar weather is causing satellites to plummet from orbit. It's only going to get worse.

The change coincided with the onset of the new solar cycle, and experts think it might be the beginning of some difficult years.

www.space.com

On the flip side, we may get some great aurora activity!!!

 

[Avenger]

Rare night-sky event on tap with 5 planets and moon all visible

It hasn't happened since 1864 and isn't expected to occur again until 2040.

www.pennlive.com

View attachment 50276

At about a half-hour before sunrise on Friday, all five planets visible to the naked eye and the moon will line up in an arc across our night sky.

It will be the first time in 18 years that so many planets will be visible to the unaided eye and the first time since March 1864 that Friday’s configuration will be visible. It won’t happen against until 2040, according to NASA.

We got up early to see the alignment. Unfortunately between obstructions, clouds and morning glow we couldn't see Mercury, but otherwise the planets put on a good show.

 

[Roccus7]

We got up early to see the alignment. Unfortunately between obstructions, clouds and morning glow we couldn't see Mercury, but otherwise the planets put on a good show.

A group of 5 Italian amateur astronomers got together to put this college together with all the visible planets in the morning sky, including the elusive Saturn and Uranus, although there are may some here that might resemble the later...

 

[Avenger]

NASA is releasing the first images from the Webb telescope live at 10:30 today:

NASA Live - NASA

NASA live: Follow live television broadcasts on NASA+, the agency's streaming service, and NASA's social media channels with this schedule of upcoming live events including news briefings, launches and landings.

www.nasa.gov

if you're interested.

 

[jpd]

NASA is releasing the first images from the Webb telescope live at 10:30 today:

if you're interested.

Looks like Hubble to me, lol.
Maybe these are farther out or something.

 

[Avenger]

Looks like Hubble to me, lol.
Maybe these are farther out or something.

View attachment 51100

I have to admit, they can take something that should be impressive and interesting and make it pretty tedious.

Scientists.

 

[Roccus7]

Looks like Hubble to me, lol.
Maybe these are farther out or something.

View attachment 51100

You need to see a split screen of the Hubble and Webb shots.

Southern Ring Nebula from Hubble:

Southern Ring Nebula from Webb:

 

[jpd]

New Nova special on PBS tomorrow night, on the Webb telescope from concept to completion.

 

[wader]

NASA's James Webb telescope captures groundbreaking images of distant galaxies

Thanks to the telescope's deep and sharp infrared images, Earthlings are getting a more detailed look at distant galaxies than was ever possible.

www.npr.org

some amazing pictures at the link

What looks much like craggy mountains on a moonlit evening is actually the edge of a nearby, young, star-forming region NGC 3324 in the Carina Nebula. Captured in infrared light by the Near-Infrared Camera (NIRCam) on NASA's James Webb Space Telescope, this image reveals previously obscured areas of star birth.

The image captures part of a "stellar nursery called NGC 3324 at the northwest corner of the Carina Nebula," NASA said. It's roughly 7,600 light-years from Earth.

"The blistering, ultraviolet radiation from the young stars is sculpting the nebula's wall by slowly eroding it away," the agency added. "Dramatic pillars tower above the glowing wall of gas, resisting this radiation. The 'steam' that appears to rise from the celestial 'mountains' is actually hot, ionized gas and hot dust streaming away from the nebula due to the relentless radiation."

 

[Matts]

Pretty impressive moon last night!