Spaceflight 🚀
Spaceflight 🚀  ·  10 months ago

Content Warning

@VRubinObs 🔭 Today, #astronomers are aware of only about 40 percent 📊 of potentially hazardous #asteroids ☄️ - close-flying objects that are large enough to cause continent-wide destruction if they were to impact 💥 Earth. "The idea is, if there is an object like that, we want to find it while it’s maybe 40 or 50 years out, because that gives us enough time to figure out how we’re going to deflect it.” https://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/this-revolutionary-new-observatory-will-locate-threatening-asteroids-and-millions-of-galaxies-180984514/

#Observatory#Astronomy#AsteroidThreat

Astro Hawk (Ian Kluft) 🚀🛰️
Astro Hawk (Ian Kluft) 🚀🛰️  ·  3 months ago

Content Warning

"Astronomers just deleted an asteroid because it turned out to be [he who shall not be named]’s Tesla Roadster" by Astronomy Magazine (apparently inactive acct @astronomymag if you know them, bug them to reactivate) - #Asteroid#2018CN41 was "discovered" and then deleted because it's a car. The car was used as a dummy weight for the initial demonstration launch of Falcon Heavy in 2018. https://www.astronomy.com/science/astronomers-just-deleted-an-asteroid-because-it-turned-out-to-be-elon-musks-tesla-roadster/ #astronomy #traffic#LowFlyingRocks#LowFlyingCars
Galaxy Map
Galaxy Map  ·  3 months ago

Content Warning

We're now two-thirds of the way to the 100 euros we need to make the new improved Acrux star board game prototype. I'm hoping that we can raise the remaining amount today and I can start work on it this weekend.

Thank you to everyone who has contributed so far. We just need a few more tips to put us over the top (and for me to stop nagging you!)

Please help: https://tiptopjar.com/kevinjardine

#boardgames #astronomy #gaiamission

Corey S Powell
Corey S Powell  ·  4 months ago

Content Warning

Remembering another notable date in history: 100 years ago this month, Edwin Hubble proved that our galaxy is just one small island in a vast cosmic sea.

Our awareness of galaxies is just one century old! I dig into the full story in my latest Invisible Universe column:

https://invisibleuniverse.substack.com/p/the-100th-birthday-of-the-universe #space #science #astronomy #history

Edwin Hubble’s glass photographic plate H335H, obtained with the 100-inch Hooker Telescope Oct. 5/6, 1923, shows the galaxy M31. Three “new” stars are marked in black with the letter N. However, Hubble later noted that the star at the top right was present on earlier plates but fluctuated in brightness. He subsequently crossed out the N and marked it with “VAR!” in red. This is the Cepheid variable M31-V1, which Hubble used to calculate the distance to M31 and solve the mystery of the spiral nebulae.
Edwin Hubble’s glass photographic plate H335H, obtained with the 100-inch Hooker Telescope Oct. 5/6, 1923, shows the galaxy M31. Three “new” stars are marked in black with the letter N. However, Hubble later noted that the star at the top right was present on earlier plates but fluctuated in brightness. He subsequently crossed out the N and marked it with “VAR!” in red. This is the Cepheid variable M31-V1, which Hubble used to calculate the distance to M31 and solve the mystery of the spiral nebulae.
Edwin Hubble’s glass photographic plate H335H, obtained with the 100-inch Hooker Telescope Oct. 5/6, 1923, shows the galaxy M31. Three “new” stars are marked in black with the letter N. However, Hubble later noted that the star at the top right was present on earlier plates but fluctuated in brightness. He subsequently crossed out the N and marked it with “VAR!” in red. This is the Cepheid variable M31-V1, which Hubble used to calculate the distance to M31 and solve the mystery of the spiral nebulae.
Dr. John Barentine FRAS
Dr. John Barentine FRAS  ·  4 months ago

Content Warning

The best-ever reconstructed views of the #MilkyWay #galaxy as seen from the outside, released today on the occasion of the end of ESA Gaia science observations. #Astronomy
Galaxy Map
Galaxy Map  ·  4 months ago

Content Warning

This Saturday, my star-themed board game, Acrux, based on data from ESA's Gaia and Hipparcos survey missions, will have its public debut at the Dutch Board Games Association (Ducosim) game fair in Amersfoort. I am busy improving my prototype to make it look as good as possible! #boardgames #astronomy #gaiamission
Astro Hawk (Ian Kluft) 🚀🛰️
Astro Hawk (Ian Kluft) 🚀🛰️  ·  4 months ago

Content Warning

"An Evening Sky Full of Planets" is #NASA #astronomy picture of the day #APOD - Rare but occasionally-recurring spectacle in the sky: most of the visible planets line up briefly in a single night-sky view while our orbits put us all on the same side of the Sun. https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap250111.html
NASA Astronomy Picture of the Day (APOD) for 2025-01-11: photo caption from https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap250111.html An Evening Sky Full of Planets Image Credit & Copyright: Dario Giannobile Explanation: Only Mercury is missing from a Solar System parade of planets in this early evening skyscape. Rising nearly opposite the Sun, bright Mars is at the far left. The other naked-eye planets Jupiter, Saturn, and Venus, can also be spotted, with the positions of too-faint Uranus and Neptune marked near the arcing trace of the ecliptic plane. On the far right and close to the western horizon after sunset is a young crescent Moon whose surface is partly illuminated by earthshine. In the foreground of the composite panorama captured on 2 January, planet Earth is represented by Mount Etna's lower Silvestri Crater. Of course Earth's early evening skies are full of planets for the entire month of January. On 13 January, a nearly Full Moon will appear to pass in front of Mars for skywatchers in the continental U.S. and Eastern Canada.
NASA Astronomy Picture of the Day (APOD) for 2025-01-11: photo caption from https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap250111.html An Evening Sky Full of Planets Image Credit & Copyright: Dario Giannobile Explanation: Only Mercury is missing from a Solar System parade of planets in this early evening skyscape. Rising nearly opposite the Sun, bright Mars is at the far left. The other naked-eye planets Jupiter, Saturn, and Venus, can also be spotted, with the positions of too-faint Uranus and Neptune marked near the arcing trace of the ecliptic plane. On the far right and close to the western horizon after sunset is a young crescent Moon whose surface is partly illuminated by earthshine. In the foreground of the composite panorama captured on 2 January, planet Earth is represented by Mount Etna's lower Silvestri Crater. Of course Earth's early evening skies are full of planets for the entire month of January. On 13 January, a nearly Full Moon will appear to pass in front of Mars for skywatchers in the continental U.S. and Eastern Canada.
NASA Astronomy Picture of the Day (APOD) for 2025-01-11: photo caption from https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap250111.html An Evening Sky Full of Planets Image Credit & Copyright: Dario Giannobile Explanation: Only Mercury is missing from a Solar System parade of planets in this early evening skyscape. Rising nearly opposite the Sun, bright Mars is at the far left. The other naked-eye planets Jupiter, Saturn, and Venus, can also be spotted, with the positions of too-faint Uranus and Neptune marked near the arcing trace of the ecliptic plane. On the far right and close to the western horizon after sunset is a young crescent Moon whose surface is partly illuminated by earthshine. In the foreground of the composite panorama captured on 2 January, planet Earth is represented by Mount Etna's lower Silvestri Crater. Of course Earth's early evening skies are full of planets for the entire month of January. On 13 January, a nearly Full Moon will appear to pass in front of Mars for skywatchers in the continental U.S. and Eastern Canada.
Corey S Powell
Corey S Powell  ·  4 months ago

Content Warning

A sweet astronomy story, for a little break:

Earth & its Moon were forged from a violent collision. But Pluto and its giant moon, Charon, came together with a gentle kiss. A similarly soft process may have occurred all across the outer solar system.

https://www.sciencenews.org/article/pluto-charon-moon-kiss #space #science #astronomy #love

Galaxy Map
Galaxy Map  ·  4 months ago

Content Warning

My Acrux board game set up for play. The new action card feature where you are allowed to buy up to three cards that give you one-time powers like jumping to any star or emptying an opponent's ore supply has turned out to be very popular.

After six months of play testing I think the game is basically finished so I am now looking at ways to promote it and find a publisher.

#boardgames #astronomy #gaiamission

Corey S Powell
Corey S Powell  ·  4 months ago

Content Warning

Newly discovered: A pair of supermassive black holes (40 million times as massive as the Sun) cuddling in a distant galaxy.

"Cuddling" in this case means they're about as far apart as Voyager 1 is from Earth...which is really close for such monster objects.

https://science.nasa.gov/missions/swift/nasas-swift-studies-gas-churning-monster-black-holes/ #science #space #astronomy

Watch as a gas cloud encounters two supermassive black holes in this simulation. The complex interplay of gravitational and frictional forces causes the cloud to condense and heat. Some of the gas is ejected from the system with each orbit of the black holes.
Phil Stooke
Phil Stooke  ·  5 months ago

Content Warning

This implies that the Martian names would begin with places from the far east of Ptolemy's map, and names would progress towards western places. Our names should be distributed like that. But where does the scheme start on Mars since there is no obvious place to begin? Schiaparelli found a perfect starting point. These are the traditional astronomical symbols for the Sun, Moon and planets. Schiaparelli found the Sun symbol on Mars. #Mars #astronomy
Daniel Pomarède
Daniel Pomarède  ·  5 months ago

Content Warning

Wowzer! Map of cosmic flows, by yours truly, makes it to the cover of the Nature Astronomy journal.

"Galaxies from
wherever flock
together"

I'm no poet, but could this be a Haiku?

https://www.nature.com/natastron/volumes/8/issues/12

Credits:
Image: Daniel Pomarède, Institut de Recherche sur les Lois Fondamentales de l’Univers, CEA, Université Paris-Saclay.
Cover design: Bethany Vukomanovic.

#Cosmology#Galaxies#Astronomy #Astrodon#Astrophysics#Cosmography#Cartography#Map#Cosmicflows #science#STEM #news #space

A cover of the Nature Astronomy journal, dated December 2024, Volume 8, issue number 12, featuring a three-dimensional visualization of the cosmic velocity field inferred from the Cosmicflows-4 catalog of galaxies' distances and velocities. This map spans two billion lightyears from top to bottom. The velocity field is mapped by means of tens of thousands of very thin streamlines, seeded at the positions of the catalog's galaxies. Streamlines are shown white and semi-transparent, against a black background. They exhibit a very complex pattern with multiple attractors, seen as points of convergence of the lines. A text reads Galaxies from wherever flock together.
A cover of the Nature Astronomy journal, dated December 2024, Volume 8, issue number 12, featuring a three-dimensional visualization of the cosmic velocity field inferred from the Cosmicflows-4 catalog of galaxies' distances and velocities. This map spans two billion lightyears from top to bottom. The velocity field is mapped by means of tens of thousands of very thin streamlines, seeded at the positions of the catalog's galaxies. Streamlines are shown white and semi-transparent, against a black background. They exhibit a very complex pattern with multiple attractors, seen as points of convergence of the lines. A text reads Galaxies from wherever flock together.
A cover of the Nature Astronomy journal, dated December 2024, Volume 8, issue number 12, featuring a three-dimensional visualization of the cosmic velocity field inferred from the Cosmicflows-4 catalog of galaxies' distances and velocities. This map spans two billion lightyears from top to bottom. The velocity field is mapped by means of tens of thousands of very thin streamlines, seeded at the positions of the catalog's galaxies. Streamlines are shown white and semi-transparent, against a black background. They exhibit a very complex pattern with multiple attractors, seen as points of convergence of the lines. A text reads Galaxies from wherever flock together.
Galaxy Map
Galaxy Map  ·  5 months ago

Content Warning

At the suggestion of our latest play testers, I added a star system legend on my Acrux game playing board at the upper right. The board is looking pretty good so I am considering having a quad fold version printed in Belgium.

The Acrux prototype is looking more and more like a real board game!

#boardgames #Astrodon #astronomy

Corey S Powell
Corey S Powell  ·  5 months ago

Content Warning

For some reason, the NASA folks did not link to the research paper describing the newfound dark comets.

Allow me to correct that oversight. Here is "Two Distinct Populations of Dark Comets Delineated by Orbits and Sizes":

https://arxiv.org/abs/2412.07603 #science #astronomy

  • Activities
  • Search
  • Direct Messages
  • Notifications
  • Profile
  • Groups
    • ["Sorry, a condition didn't have any `case` matching the data it was expecting", "nil"]