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[Melchiah]

Different views of Jupiter’s Great Red Spot. It’s an atmospheric storm that has been raging in planet’s southern Hemisphere for at least 400 years. This ancient storm is so large that three Earths could fit inside it.
Image credit: NASA/ESA

 

[WeAreStarStuff]

Nice pics. Funny enough whenever I see your posts I always know it's by you before I even see who posted it.

 

[Concept17]

New potentially habitable planet found, 500 light years from here.

http://www.pbs.org/newshour/rundown/kepler-finds-new-earth-like-planet-500-light-years-away/

 

[Melchiah]

Nice pics. Funny enough whenever I see your posts I always know it's by you before I even see who posted it.

Heh, that's kinda interesting. I guess my posts tend to circle around similar themes.

 

[Melchiah]

http://www.iflscience.com/space/pair-supermassive-black-holes-spotted

Pair of Supermassive Black Holes Spotted

Photo credit: Artist's impression of a binary supermassive black hole system / ESA--C. Carreau

For the first time in an ordinary galaxy, astronomers have spotted a hidden pair of supermassive black holes in orbit around each another. The binary system was discovered because they were ripping apart a star just as an observatory happened to be looking in their direction.

Two supermassive black holes are the smoking gun that the galaxy has merged with another. That’s because most massive galaxies (including our own) are thought to harbor at least one supermassive black hole at their center. Until now, only a few candidates have been found, and all of them have been in active galaxies where they’re ripping gas clouds apart -- a destructive process that heats up gas so much that it shines at many wavelengths. They’re labeled “active” because of the resulting bright center.

More in the link.

 

[Melchiah]

A view of Antarctica with sea ice at its maximum, 21.9.2005, made from the data taken by the AMSR-E instrument, a device designed to capture temperatures and sea ice concentration onboard NASA’s Aqua satellite.

8400x8400 images of the whole earth can be found here:
http://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/vis/a000000/a003400/a003402/index.html

 

[Lucky Forward]

The Onion: Modernized Space Camp Allows Kids To Simulate Frustration Over Lack Of Funding

HUNTSVILLE, AL—Aiming to provide attendees with an authentic glimpse into the nation’s space program, representatives for the U.S. Space & Rocket Center announced Thursday that its newly updated Space Camp will allow children to simulate the anger and mounting frustration experienced by NASA personnel over a continual lack of funding.

Camp organizers explained that the redesigned education program will offer kids the unique opportunity to contend with all of the budgetary restrictions and bureaucratic red tape impeding the progress of actual astronauts and researchers, allowing children from grades four to six to immerse themselves in a true-to-life NASA environment in which financial shortfalls and endless procedural delays plague them at every turn.

“We put camp attendees in the shoes of dedicated NASA scientists whose attempts to further scientific understanding through the analysis of asteroid composition are halted by one of our camp staffers playing the role of a U.S. senator targeting all ‘nonessential’ initiatives,” said counselor Tyler Campbell. “When they take their seats in our mock congressional chamber, campers will work together to deliver an impassioned yet ultimately futile request for continued support of NASA until they have no choice but to stand up and leave, having just witnessed their life’s work go up in smoke.”

“When you see the stunned expressions on these kids’ faces as they realize their goals and dreams are no longer attainable because of political pressures completely out of their control, that’s when you know they’ve gained a valuable understanding of our space program,” Campbell added.

 

[Melchiah]

http://www.cfa.harvard.edu/news/2014-14

Astronomers Find a New Type of Planet: The "Mega-Earth"

Astronomers announced today that they have discovered a new type of planet - a rocky world weighing 17 times as much as Earth. Theorists believed such a world couldn't form because anything so hefty would grab hydrogen gas as it grew and become a Jupiter-like gas giant. This planet, though, is all solids and much bigger than previously discovered "super-Earths," making it a "mega-Earth."

"We were very surprised when we realized what we had found," says astronomer Xavier Dumusque of the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics (CfA), who led the data analysis and made the discovery.

"This is the Godzilla of Earths!" adds CfA researcher Dimitar Sasselov, director of the Harvard Origins of Life Initiative. "But unlike the movie monster, Kepler-10c has positive implications for life."

The team's finding was presented today in a press conference at a meeting of the American Astronomical Society (AAS).

The newfound mega-Earth, Kepler-10c, circles a sunlike star once every 45 days. It is located about 560 light-years from Earth in the constellation Draco. The system also hosts a 3-Earth-mass "lava world," Kepler-10b, in a remarkably fast, 20-hour orbit.

Kepler-10c was originally spotted by NASA's Kepler spacecraft. Kepler finds planets using the transit method, looking for a star that dims when a planet passes in front of it. By measuring the amount of dimming, astronomers can calculate the planet's physical size or diameter. However, Kepler can't tell whether a planet is rocky or gassy.

Kepler-10c was known to have a diameter of about 18,000 miles, 2.3 times as large as Earth. This suggested it fell into a category of planets known as mini-Neptunes, which have thick, gaseous envelopes.

The team used the HARPS-North instrument on the Telescopio Nazionale Galileo (TNG) in the Canary Islands to measure the mass of Kepler-10c. They found that it weighed 17 times as much as Earth - far more than expected. This showed that Kepler-10c must have a dense composition of rocks and other solids.

"Kepler-10c didn't lose its atmosphere over time. It's massive enough to have held onto one if it ever had it," explains Dumusque. "It must have formed the way we see it now."

Planet formation theories have a difficult time explaining how such a large, rocky world could develop. However, a new observational study suggests that it is not alone.

Also presenting at AAS, CfA astronomer Lars A. Buchhave found a correlation between the period of a planet (how long it takes to orbit its star) and the size at which a planet transitions from rocky to gaseous. This suggests that more mega-Earths will be found as planet hunters extend their data to longer-period orbits.

The discovery that Kepler-10c is a mega-Earth also has profound implications for the history of the universe and the possibility of life. The Kepler-10 system is about 11 billion years old, which means it formed less than 3 billion years after the Big Bang.

...

More in the link

 

[LuFel]

oh wow!! the MegaEarth!!

 

[Melchiah]

oh wow!! the MegaEarth!!

The Godzilla of Earths!

 

[Norml]

Live stream of a Falcon 9 satellite launch in 30 min.
http://youtu.be/EzX_wFm4OH4

 

[Naked Snake]

Spoiler

Dead-

Party pooping:

Voyager has NOT left the Solar system?: http://youtu.be/G2IpgL_ivBY

 

[dubc35]

Well if it hasn't then we can expect more articles of it leaving the solar system? Sweet!

Spoiler

f me

 

[Mario]

Well if it hasn't then we can expect more articles of it leaving the solar system? Sweet!

Spoiler

f me

Don't know what I'd do if we were suddenly robbed of regular "Voyager has really left the solar system this time" and "Scientists actually on the verge of cloning wooly mammoth" headlines.

 

[jambo]

This is just gorgeous

http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap140718.html

Ou4: A Giant Squid Nebula
Image Credit: Romano Corradi (IAC),
Nicolas Grosso, Agnès Acker, Robert Greimel, Patrick Guillout

Explanation: A mysterious, squid-like apparition, this nebula is very faint, but also very large in planet Earth's sky. In the mosaic image, composed with narrowband data from the 2.5 meter Isaac Newton Telescope, it spans some 2.5 full moons toward the constellation Cepheus. Recently discovered by French astro-imager Nicolas Outters, the remarkable nebula's bipolar shape and emission are consistent with it being a planetary nebula, the gaseous shroud of a dying sun-like star, but its actual distance and origin are unknown. A new investigation suggests Ou4 really lies within the emission region SH2-129 some 2,300 light-years away. Consistent with that scenario, the cosmic squid would represent a spectacular outflow of material driven by a triple system of hot, massive stars, cataloged as HR8119, seen near the center of the nebula. If so, this truly giant squid nebula would physically be nearly 50 light-years across.

 

[Freeza Under The Shower]

that's a pen- !

Spoiler

actual pen

 

[Melchiah]

The dark ambient of deep space.
http://youtu.be/-MmWeZHsQzs

NASA Space Sounds - Information about the recordings and sample sounds of the planets, moons and rings of planets in our Solar System. [Note: both Song of Earth and Voice of Earth are man made compositions of the original Earth recordings.] For live 24hr sound from space, see: http://www.radio-astronomy.net/

 

[Gr1mLock]

The dark ambient of deep space.
http://youtu.be/-MmWeZHsQzs

Saturn sounds the creepiest. Very cool though.

 

[DD]

Ariane 5 launch, live in 10 minutes here: http://www.iflscience.com/space/watch-esa’s-ariane-5-rocket-launch-live

 

[AtomnayaKlubnika]

The dark ambient of deep space.
http://youtu.be/-MmWeZHsQzs

Track of this million of billion years!

 

[DD]

What does space sound like?

 

[Dice]

The dark ambient of deep space.
http://youtu.be/-MmWeZHsQzs

miranda is pretty calming. i could meditate to that.

neptune is the planet of nap time.

fucking hell saturn is a place of death.

uranus sounds as cold as it is.

 

[Melchiah]

Europa


EDIT: Solar System suckers

EDIT.2:

NASA’s Cassini spacecraft captured Saturn’s rings and planet Earth and its moon. This is only the third time that Earth has been capture from the outer solar system.

 

[Mario]

This just came up in my Facebook feed, and I thought it was cool - a visualization of the comet the Rosetta spacecraft is meeting to show its 3km scale in context of how that would look on Earth

Graphic Shows The Size Of Rosetta's Comet
http://www.iflscience.com/space/graphic-shows-size-rosettas-comet

 

[abstract alien]

That is actually legit terrifying

 

[Melchiah]

Soviet model makers built this spacecraft based on the designs and notes of Konstantin Tsiolkovsk. Late in his life, much of Tsiolkovsky’s theoretical work focused on ideas about transporting humans into space on board rockets. Although this model, reflecting the scientist’s ideas, grossly overestimates the living space available on board a rocket, it does convey a sophisticated understanding of the physical constraints of space travel for that time. Among Tsiolkovsky’s concerns were the effects of acceleration and weightlessness on the human body.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Konstantin_Tsiolkovsky

Konstantin Eduardovich Tsiolkovsky (1857-1935) was a Russian and Soviet rocket scientist and pioneer of the astronautic theory, of Polish descent. Along with his followers, the German Hermann Oberth and the American Robert H. Goddard, he is considered to be one of the founding fathers of rocketry and astronautics. His works later inspired leading Soviet rocket engineers such as Sergey Korolyov and Valentin Glushko and contributed to the success of the Soviet space program.

 

[zerosum]

The Onion: Modernized Space Camp Allows Kids To Simulate Frustration Over Lack Of Funding

I know it's satire, but damn, that's depressing because of how much truth it does contain.

 

[WeAreStarStuff]

Space X Rocket just self terminated

http://www.nbcnews.com/science/spac...fter-anomaly-during-test-flight-texas-n186436

 

[Naked Snake]

Which dot is the Moon? Is it the bright one below Earth and slightly to the right? I'm always fascinated by seeing the Earth and Moon in one image from a distance.

 

[fallout]

Rosetta continues to impress:

http://blogs.esa.int/rosetta/2014/08/23/cometwatch-22-august/

 

[mario_O]

Which dot is the Moon? Is it the bright one below Earth and slightly to the right? I'm always fascinated by seeing the Earth and Moon in one image from a distance.

Nope. The Earth and the Moon at this distance appear as a single dot of light.

 

[Naked Snake]

Nope. The Earth and the Moon at this distance appear as a single dot of light.

Daayumn. My feeble brain forgot to factor in all that distance, do'h.

 

[Melchiah]

Saturn as seen from behind the moon.

 

[Freeza Under The Shower]

this is a silly question, but I need this data anyway, so here goes: is there a kind of simulator for the solar system (Kuiper belt included) that can calculate the visibility of an object from Earth at a certain time of day (future dates obviously), what the distance between objects are (which includes eccentricity and so on), and what speed an object travelling between them would have and the time that would take (and possible trajectory, but that's pushing it)?

I mean, the first is relatively easy to find, but the other two are a bit more problematic.

 

[Melchiah]

Yerkes observatory observes a comet as it breaks up in the atmosphere. Astrophotography, 1908-1919:

A total solar eclipse on May 29, 1919:

"Photographie de la couronne du soleil, avec lettre d’envoi par le baron N. Raulbars au prince Roland Bonaparte" Helsinki, Finland, 28 May 1897.

 

[Gunsmithx]

huh I knew that earth had a pretty large moon for it's size but that chart really makes it hit home.

 

[Socreges]

I am now the proud owner of a (beginner) telescope! Celestron Travel Scope 50

Going out star gazing tomorrow night in a very rural area. Any tips? Good resources (videos, websites) for beginners?

 

[fallout]

I am now the proud owner of a (beginner) telescope! Celestron Travel Scope 50

Going out star gazing tomorrow night in a very rural area. Any tips? Good resources (videos, websites) for beginners?

I always recommend Terence Dickinson's NightWatch. It's a fantastic entry level book that has everything from the formation of the universe, to the different types of telescopes, to star charts with recommended beginner objects.

If you're heading out tonight, here are some ideas for what to try and look for (I'm assuming that you're still hanging around a 49N° latitude):

• The Moon. It will off to the SW following sunset. You'll likely be able to see it well before the Sun is completely set. With your scope, you'll be able to see craters and mountains along the terminator (where the dark part of the moon meets the sunlit part).
• Saturn. It will be the bright star-like object near the Moon. This is the crown jewel of observing the night sky. With your scope, you'll be able to make out the rings.
• Mars. It will also be near the Moon. It'll look like a little red fuzzball.
• The Milky Way. That band of cloudy stuff that starts somewhere in the SW and works its way overhead? That's our galaxy. If you patiently path along it with your scope (particularly in the south), you'll see countless stars and some fuzzy patches, which could be nebulae or star clusters.
• If you're feeling adventurous, try looking up how to find the Andromeda galaxy. It's actually visible to the unaided eye. In your scope, it'll look like a cloud surrounding a brighter centre that fills the field of view.

Hope that helps. I'm bumming around for most of the day, so feel free to hit me up with follow-ups. Clear skies!

 

[Socreges]

Above and beyond, fallout! Thank you so much

I'll report back later.

 

[Melchiah]

Ring Nebula

 

[fallout]

What's really neat about the Ring Nebula is that the blue dot you see in the middle of the image is the white dwarf remnant of the star that created the nebula.

 

[Melchiah]

What's really neat about the Ring Nebula is that the blue dot you see in the middle of the image is the white dwarf remnant of the star that created the nebula.

Cool. I didn't know that.

 

[Buggy Loop]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rENyyRwxpHo

Was this posted? Cause if not its a must watch imo. It details the milky way's position in the super cluster that a team of scientists defined, mapped and called it Laniakea.

 

[Melchiah]

This is the first photo ever taken from space.

A photo taken from 101 miles up by V-2 Number 21, which launched on March 7, 1947.

http://petapixel.com/2014/09/03/first-photo-ever-taken-space/

Nowadays, anybody with an Internet connection has seen tens if not hundreds of photographs taken from space. Astronauts tweet them, Hubble sends them down… rovers even putter around planets other than our own taking pictures.

But it all started with the photograph above from 1946, the first ever photo taken from space.

The story behind this photo, as told in Air & Space Magazine back in 2006, takes place on October 24th, 1946. A V-2 missile launched from the White Sands Missile Range in New Mexico used an on-board 35-millimeter motion picture camera to snap this photograph from 65 miles above our heads, capturing the Earth in all its grainy, black-and-white glory and making history at the same time.

More in the link.

 

[Socreges]

I always recommend Terence Dickinson's NightWatch. It's a fantastic entry level book that has everything from the formation of the universe, to the different types of telescopes, to star charts with recommended beginner objects.

So I ordered it last week and it just arrived. And.... it's the 1998 edition that is For Use Through 2010. Did you link me to that one deliberately as there is no consequence (or no significant consequence for someone that's a beginner like me)? Or should I return it and try for the Fourth Edition that's good through 2025?

 

[fallout]

So I ordered it last week and it just arrived. And.... it's the 1998 edition that is For Use Through 2010. Did you link me to that one deliberately as there is no consequence (or no significant consequence for someone that's a beginner like me)? Or should I return it and try for the Fourth Edition that's good through 2025?

Haha, shit. I didn't even notice. Honestly, I think that the differences are pretty minor.

How did your observing go?

 

[Socreges]

Haha, shit. I didn't even notice. Honestly, I think that the differences are pretty minor.

How did your observing go?

Overcast and by the time the clouds had cleared a bit the moon and planets were below the horizon!

Next weekend might be a good opportunity...

 

[Niks]

I think that seeing Saturn through a telescope is something everyone should experience at least once in their lives.

Yeah, still remember the first time I saw it. Amazing feeling.

 

[fallout]

Overcast and by the time the clouds had cleared a bit the moon and planets were below the horizon!

Next weekend might be a good opportunity...

Shitty. Keep in mind that the Moon and planets are visible from within the city. Although, at this point, the moon is pretty bright and won't be much to look at.

 

[Insane Metal]

I posted on the MSL thread but no one noticed

Curiosity has reached the lower reaches of Mount Sharp, finally! Just a few hundred meters more for the final destination. Obviously there'll be a lot of work at the site. Drilling, laser zapping, etc.