Astronomy

[Danik 2016]

"Kilauea Volcano has been spewing lava and belching hazardous gases on Hawaii’s Big Island since early May, and the BBC reported on Sunday, May 20, 2018, that the situation for residents is “steadily worsening.” At the summit, a large explosion happened at around midnight on Friday night (May 18) into Saturday, sending a plume of volcanic gas some 10,000 feet (two miles, or 3 km) into the air. Early in the day on May 20, media outlets were reporting the first serious injury from Kilauea. Hawaii News Now reported:

The injured man was sitting on a balcony at his home when “lava spatter” – projectile molten rock – landed on him. “It hit him on the shin and shattered everything there down on his leg,” a spokeswoman for the county mayor said.

Lava spatters can weigh “as much a refrigerator,” she told Reuters.

The man has reportedly been hospitalized with serious injuries."

http://earthsky.org/todays-image/kil...st-injury-laze

More recent news:

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/...lcano-eruption

[Dreamwoven]

#1784: we like to believe that in this age of free information there is no censorship or that information is unlimited. Sadly that is not so. "The Local" is not accessible to all. Nor, it would seem are many websites with political content. That is very sad!

[Dreamwoven]

http://earthsky.org/space/asteroid-2...nent-immigrant

A new study has discovered the first known permanent immigrant to our solar system. The asteroid, currently nestling in Jupiter’s orbit, is the first known asteroid to have been captured from another star system. The new work is published in the peer-reviewed Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society: Letters.

The object known as ‘Oumuamua was the last interstellar interloper to hit the headlines in 2017. However, it was just a tourist passing through, whereas this former exo-asteroid – given the catchy name (514107) 2015 BZ509 – is a long-term resident.

[Danik 2016]

It deserves a better name: (514107) 2015 BZ509 doesn´t have the necessary charm for headlines. I want to suggest ET1.

[Dreamwoven]

They won't change it, there must a reason for its length and complexity.

[Dreamwoven]

https://www.space.com/40642-space-ro...xcitement.html

"The solar system just got a bit stranger. As astronomers continue their ongoing quest to find the elusive Planet Nine, a team found a space rock that lends credence to the idea that a huge super-Earth planet really exists in the outer reaches of our solar system.

The newfound asteroid, called 2015 BP519, adds to a growing body of evidence about little worlds in the solar system being perturbed by something big. Astronomers detailed its discovery and description in a new paper, adding that the bizarre angle of its orbit gives more weight to the idea that a big planet is out there — somewhere — tugging on the asteroid's path around the sun."

[Dreamwoven]

Its funny, isn't it that there is likely to be a big planet in orbit around our sun that we have not yet found!

I think the orbit is likely to be once every thousand years.

[Danik 2016]

Amazing!
As I am also interested In Astrology I wonder how Astrology is dealing with this never ending discoveries. There Pluto is considered a planet as before and one related to very powerful events.

[Dreamwoven]

I've done a search in Universe Today - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Universe_Today - for "Planet 9" and come up with many hits. It circles the sun far beyond the orbit of Neptune, so it is a Kuiper Belt object, and estimates of its orbit are well beyond every thousand years, so we really have no idea of its orbit. That is about the sum of our knowledge at this point. It is quite amusing that we know so little about this planet, given that we have a lot of indirect indications of its existence, and how far knowledge of near space has taken us.

[Danik 2016]

estimates of its orbit are well beyond every thousand years  

From the astrological point of view that means that it´s position covers 10 to 11 generations. It changes only once each millennium. That is very slow indeed.

[Dreamwoven]

https://www.space.com/40650-astronom...net-rings.html

"Astronomers may have unknowingly discovered rocky planets with rings, which they mistook for other kinds of worlds, a new study finds.

Rings surround all this solar system's gas giant planets; they most famously wrap around Saturn, but also encircle Jupiter, Neptune and Uranus. In contrast, the solar system's rocky planets all currently lack rings.

However, rocky planets can have rings. For instance, Mars' moon Phobos might once have taken the form of rings around the Red Planet, the new study's author, Anthony Piro, an astrophysicist at the Observatories of the Carnegie Institution for Science in Pasadena, California, told Space.com. And as that moon gets closer to Mars over time, Phobos will likely get torn into a ring again "on a timescale of about 50 million years,"

[Danik 2016]

Interesting post, DW. But, believe it or not, sometimes I long for old simple solar system with its moon and its sevenplanets.

[Danik 2016]

Important!

Trump to Sign New Policy Directive Aimed at Commercial Space Regulation Reforms

"PASADENA, Calif. — A new policy President Trump will sign May 24 will implement a series of regulatory reforms to support commercial space recommended by the National Space Council earlier this year.

Space Policy Directive (SPD) 2, to be signed by the president at the White House, includes several sections to carry out streamlining of launch and remote sensing regulations, creation of a "one-stop-shopping" office for commercial space, and reviews of radiofrequency and export control policy"

https://www.space.com/40692-presiden...directive.html

[Dreamwoven]

What, not even Mars and its two moons? Or the many moons of our largest planet Jupiter?

[Danik 2016]

Well, they are older discoveries. But I think the representation of the universe was more charming, when it was less cluttered. Just a bit "Little Prince" reasoning.

https://archive.org/stream/TheLittle...ge/n0/mode/2up