Astronomy
- First proof that “plunging regions” exist around black holes in space | University of Oxfordwww.ox.ac.uk First proof that “plunging regions” exist around black holes in space | University of Oxford
An international team led by researchers at Oxford University Physics have proved Einstein was correct about a key prediction concerning black holes. Using X-ray data to test Einstein’s theory of gravity, their study gives the first observational proof that a “plunging-region” exists around black ho...
- Telescope with a Mercury Mirror - Sixty Symbols
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Prof. Meghan Gray explains some of the physics behind building a liquid mirror telescope, such as the ILMT in India.
- NOAA says ‘extreme’ Solar storm will persist through the weekendarstechnica.com NOAA says ‘extreme’ Solar storm will persist through the weekend
So far disruptions from the geomagnetic storm appear to be manageable.
- NASA’s Webb Hints at Possible Atmosphere Surrounding Rocky Exoplanetscience.nasa.gov NASA’s Webb Hints at Possible Atmosphere Surrounding Rocky Exoplanet - NASA Science
Researchers using NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope may have detected atmospheric gases surrounding 55 Cancri e, a hot rocky exoplanet 41 light-years from Earth. This is the best evidence to date for the existence of any rocky planet atmosphere outside our solar system. Renyu Hu from NASA’s Jet Pro...
- How NASA's Roman mission will hunt for primordial black holesphys.org How NASA's Roman mission will hunt for primordial black holes
Astronomers have discovered black holes ranging from a few times the sun's mass to tens of billions. Now a group of scientists has predicted that NASA's Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope could find a class of "featherweight" black holes that has so far eluded detection.
- [Scott Manley] Old Data & New Discoveries: How 'THOR & Computational Astronomy' Discovered 27,500 Asteroids
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- Vera Rubin's Primary Mirror Gets its First Reflective Coatingwww.universetoday.com Vera Rubin's Primary Mirror Gets its First Reflective Coating
First light for the Vera Rubin Observatory (VRO) is quickly approaching and the telescope is reaching milestone after milestone. A few weeks ago, the observatory announced that its digital camera, the largest one ever made, is complete. Now the observatory has announced that its unique primary/terti...
- Long ago, a lake on Mars might have been sprawling with microbeswww.space.com Long ago, a lake on Mars might have been sprawling with microbes
Curiosity discovered manganese oxide in bedrock in a Martian region that may have been a shoreline billions of years ago.
- Biologists Find Mutated and Genetically Distinct Strains of Multi-Drug Resistant Bacterium on ISSwww.sci.news Biologists Find Mutated and Genetically Distinct Strains of Multi-Drug Resistant Bacterium on ISS | Sci.News
Enterobacter bugandensis is primarily found in clinical specimens including the human gastrointestinal tract.
- Sun unleashes near X-class solar flare: M9.5 eruption sparks radio blackouts across the Pacific (video)www.space.com Sun unleashes near X-class solar flare: M9.5 eruption sparks radio blackouts across the Pacific (video)
The solar flare is the most powerful eruption from sunspot region R3654 yet.
- Webb captures iconic Horsehead Nebula in unprecedented detailwww.esa.int Webb captures iconic Horsehead Nebula in unprecedented detail
The NASA/ESA/CSA James Webb Space Telescope has captured the sharpest infrared images to date of one of the most distinctive objects in our skies, the Horsehead Nebula. These observations show a part of the iconic nebula in a whole new light, capturing its complexity with unprecedented spatial resol...
- [SciShow] The Rarest Objects in The Solar System Are from...Elsewhere...
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- Laser on NASA's Psyche asteroid probe beams data from 140 million miles awaywww.space.com Laser on NASA's Psyche asteroid probe beams data from 140 million miles away
There's a very cool experiment attached to a spacecraft on its way to a potentially metal asteroid.
- Hundreds of black 'spiders' spotted in mysterious 'Inca City' on Mars in new satellite photoswww.livescience.com Hundreds of black 'spiders' spotted in mysterious 'Inca City' on Mars in new satellite photos
Every spring, creepy black 'spiders' sprout up on Mars as buried carbon dioxide ice releases dusty geysers of gas. New ESA images show the phenomenon has begun in the strange Inca City formation.
- Daily Telescope: The ambiguously galactic duoarstechnica.com Daily Telescope: The ambiguously galactic duo
Hubble continues to deliver the goods.
- NASA officially greenlights $3.35 billion mission to Saturn’s moon Titanarstechnica.com NASA officially greenlights $3.35 billion mission to Saturn’s moon Titan
Dragonfly will push the boundaries of engineering and science as it explores Titan.
- Voyager 1 contact restoredwww.usatoday.com Contact restored with NASA’s Voyager 1 space probe
NASA has regained full contact with the Voyager 1 space probe, the most distant human-made object in the universe, scientists announced Monday.
cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/14585017
> Voyager 1 contact restored
- Astronomers Discover 454 New Asteroids in Main Beltwww.sci.news Astronomers Discover 454 New Asteroids in Main Belt | Sci.News
A set of 632 main-belt asteroids (178 previously known and 454 unknown objects) has been identified in the archival images from the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope.
- Caltech Researchers Find Evidence of a Real Ninth Planet
Caltech researchers have found evidence of a giant planet tracing a bizarre, highly elongated orbit in the outer solar system. The object, which the researchers have nicknamed Planet Nine, has a mass about 10 times that of Earth and orbits about 20 times farther from the sun on average than does Neptune (which orbits the sun at an average distance of 2.8 billion miles). In fact, it would take this new planet between 10,000 and 20,000 years to make just one full orbit around the sun.
- Scale of the Universe: Discover the vast ranges of our visible and invisible world.scaleofuniverse.com Scale of the Universe: Discover the vast ranges of our visible and invisible world.
Scale of Universe is an interactive experience to inspire people to learn about the vast ranges of the visible and invisible world.
- [SciShow] The Solar System is Beige
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TIL Venus is a mostly featureless white ball in the visible spectrum.
- Astronauts To Patch Up NASA’s NICER Telescopescience.nasa.gov Astronauts To Patch Up NASA’s NICER Telescope - NASA Science
NASA is planning to repair NICER (Neutron star Interior Composition Explorer), an X-ray telescope on the International Space Station, during a spacewalk later this year. It will be the fourth science observatory in orbit serviced by astronauts. In May 2023, scientists discovered that NICER had devel...
- The great commercial takeover of low Earth orbitwww.technologyreview.com The great commercial takeover of low Earth orbit
Axiom Space and other companies are betting they can build private structures to replace the International Space Station.
- Here's What NASA's Rovers See During an Eclipse on Marsfuturism.com Here's What NASA's Rovers See During an Eclipse on Mars
NASA's Perseverance rover is on Mars, it had been able to capture Mars’ two moons — Deimos and Phobos — float past in front of the Sun.
- Astronomers discover Milky Way’s biggest stellar black hole – 33 times size of sunwww.theguardian.com Astronomers discover Milky Way’s biggest stellar black hole – 33 times size of sun
BH3 spotted when scientists chanced upon star in Aquila constellation ‘wobbling’ under its gravitational force
- BepiColombo Detects Oxygen and Carbon Ions in Magnetosphere of Venuswww.sci.news BepiColombo Detects Oxygen and Carbon Ions in Magnetosphere of Venus | Sci.News
In August 2021, the ESA/JAXA Mercury-bound BepiColombo spacecraft performed its second flyby of Venus and provided a short-lived observation of its induced magnetosphere.
- Advanced solar sail mission prepares to catch the wind in the void of spacenewatlas.com Advanced solar sail mission prepares to catch the wind in the void of space
NASA is gearing up to launch an advanced solar sail spacecraft later this month. Using a new boom made of lightweight polymer composites, the Advanced Composite Solar Sail System is scheduled to lift off on April 24.
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- ESA’s Euclid Space Telescope Fix Exceeds Expectations
cross-posted from: https://sh.itjust.works/post/17700325
> >In a 26 March update, ESA announced that after the very first two mirrors were warmed by just 34 degrees, Euclid’s sight was restored, with the telescope’s optics achieving a 15% gain in sensitivity. The process only took a few minutes, with the mirror being warmed from -147 to -113 degrees. The procedure was so successful that it has given operators the confidence to repeat it every couple of months, if necessary, without much impact on Euclid’s six-year survey. > > > >“We expect ice to cloud the VIS instrument’s vision again in the future,” explained Reiko Nakajima, Euclid VIS instrument scientist. “But it will be simple to repeat this selective decontamination procedure every six to twelve months and with very little cost to science observations or the rest of the mission.”
- Car-size asteroid discovered 2 days ago flies 30 times closer to Earth than the moonwww.livescience.com Car-size asteroid discovered 2 days ago flies 30 times closer to Earth than the moon
A newly discovered asteroid got within 12,000 miles of Earth on a harrowing, ultra-close approach today. The space rock won't return for 70 years.
- Total Solar Eclipse - From 30 Years to 3 Minutes & 20 Seconds
Hey everyone, just an update to my last post from Sunday night.
The eclipse went off without a hitch -- thankfully, I am not personally capable of interfering with celestial events -- and I have to say, nothing could have ever possibly prepared me for the experience. No photo has ever actually captured what I saw Monday afternoon. I don't think any of them have come close.
Picture of my own attached for total lack of effect.
As I looked down at my camera screen and watched the last light of the crescent Sun disappear from my view, I felt totality occur. The umbra of the Moon swept over me while I looked down, and the world got noticeably chilly. The wind died down. The world was silent for a hiccup. I immediately and excitedly looked up, and I think my brain broke.
Hovering in the sky over Potato World was an black, alien orb, surrounded by a thin ring of brilliant white and pink shimmering fire. It was something straight out of a science fiction movie, and not necessarily a good one, either. It looked so incredibly fake.
It looked downright cartoony.
And it hit me like a ton of bricks. I wept as I stared at it, completely unable to maintain composure. I gawked at how bright the solar corona actually was -- I had completely expected to have to strain to see it. I marveled as I realized I was seeing, with my own two, naked eyes, solar prominences arching over the limb of the Moon. And I just sobbed through the whole experience.
My fiancee, whose interest in this had seemed to be primarily a mix between modest curiosity in a significant natural and cultural event and support for my interest, also cried at seeing it, while her son sat on the ground with his mouth hanging open.
It was both the longest and the shortest 3 minutes of my life. When it was over, I just stood in the field in a daze, periodically pressing my camera's shutter button. In just a few minutes following the end of totality, the field, in which hundreds of people had gathered, was nearly empty. Only a handful of us remained, and most of the others had heavier equipment than my DSLR and tripod.
At the end of the day, I didn't quite get the pictures I wanted. I had hoped to get bracketed exposures during totality, and I had assumed that my camera's settings for that when using the LCD display as digital viewfinder would be the same as when using the optical viewfinder, and they weren't. But I'm not too fussed about it. The pictures still turned out significantly better than I could have hoped for.
I'll be posting the rest of my photos -- including some pictures of Potato World itself -- to my PixelFed account, which can be found here, if anyone's interested: https://pixey.org/i/web/profile/384533916920271164
- Scientists Race to Protect Future Lunar Telescopesspectrum.ieee.org The Far Side: Astronomy vs. Free Enterprise on the Moon
The far side of the moon could be perfect for radio astronomy. But not if NASA, China and SpaceX launch lunar missions with powerful radio transmissions.
- 2024 Total Solar Eclipse: Through the Eyes of NASA (Telescope Feed)
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- Huge star explosion to appear in sky in once-in-a-lifetime eventphys.org Huge star explosion to appear in sky in once-in-a-lifetime event
Sometime between now and September, a massive explosion 3,000 light years from Earth will flare up in the night sky, giving amateur astronomers a once-in-a-lifetime chance to witness this space oddity.
- After 30 years, I'm finally going to see a total solar eclipse. Also, Potato World is a thing.
I'm sitting in a dark hotel room on the eve of my first - and possibly only - total solar eclipse, with my partner and step-son, and I am positively awash with emotions.
I have been waiting for this day for 30 years, since my first partial eclipse in May of 1994. That was an underwhelming experience for many reasons, but not the least of them was that I had nothing and no one to view the eclipse with.
Three decades, two astronomy degrees, 5 years operating a planetarium, and 5 years as a guide at the local observatory later, and I'm fully prepared. Today, I have more viewing glasses than i have fingers, two cameras with filters, I have my family, and I am smack dab in the middle of the path of totality.
And the forecast calls for clear skies.
I can't believe it. I can't believe that this is actually happening for me. That everything looks like it's going to work out.
The only disappointment is that I discovered that Potato World exists - it's the New Brunswick potato museum (and it's next door to my hotel) - but it's closed!
- The solar eclipse and the horned devil comet: Two good reasons to look up on April 8www.usatoday.com The solar eclipse and the horned devil comet: Two good reasons to look up on April 8
If the breathtaking view of a solar eclipse April 8 isn't enough, skygazers may also be able to see the "devil comet."
- Fake Vs Counterfeit Eclipse Glasses. Did You Get Any?
So I bought 2 sets because it looked like one set was briefly lost in the mail and this past week I got an email from Amazon that said one set I bought were “fakes.”
- Both sets have printing that matches legitimate manufactures.
- The “legitimate” set have all black filters (not the metalized filters I am used to like Thousand Oaks Optical) the “fakes” have the metalized filters.
- Both sets of glasses have the same transmittance as the Thousand Oaks filter material I use on my telescope and cameras.
- The build quality of the “legitimate” glasses is quite a bit worse than the “fakes” with the two layers of paper being misaligned
So, what I suspect is that I actually received a crappy set of “real” glasses and a well made set of counterfeits, this seems in line with the press release made by the American Astronomical Scociety.[0]
> Some of these newly identified counterfeits are indistinguishable from genuine Qiwei products and appear to be safe. Others look like Qiwei’s eclipse glasses, but when you put them on, you realize they are no darker than ordinary sunglasses. So, these products are not just counterfeit, but also fake –– they’re sold as eclipse glasses, but they are not safe for solar viewing.
So, did anyone get unlucky enough to get some ‘real-fake’ glasses? An did anyone get a set of legitimate glasses with the non-metalized filter?
[0] https://aas.org/press/american-astronomical-society-warns-counterfeit-fake-eclipse-glasses
- Rainbow-like pattern found on planet outside solar systemwww.bbc.com Rainbow-like pattern found on planet outside solar system
Scientists think the phenomenon could be beaming from an ultra-hot planet similar to Jupiter.
- The world's largest digital camera is ready to investigate the dark universewww.space.com The world's largest digital camera is ready to investigate the dark universe
With a 3,200-megapixel LSST camera, the Vera C. Rubin Observatory will create the "greatest movie of all time and the most informative map of the night sky ever assembled."