I would think that a nova would destroy any planets with life in nearby solar systems. I wonder if binary star systems are needed for these novas to occur.
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I would think that a nova would destroy any planets with life in nearby solar systems. I wonder if binary star systems are needed for these novas to occur.
The Lunar Reconnaissance orbiter is another of those quiet missions that rarely gets a mention on the news. This post on earthsky said that the orbiter has gone into a very low orbit (12 miles above the surface) to explore and map the dark side of the moon.I will work at this height for some time:
"Team members made the decision to change the orbit after determining that the new orbit configuration poses no danger to the spacecraft. They say LRO can operate for many years at this orbit."
Yes indeed, a nova would exterminate all organic life in that solar system.Quote:
Originally Posted by YesNo
If memory serves, supernovas occur more often in binary systems, only because the needed mass threshold is more likely with two stars; one star pulling material away from the other. But solitary stars explode too, if large enough.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Dreamwoven
I think the problem is that mapping the dark side of the Moon, just isn't 'sexy' enough for the nightly news.
I was also looking for more information about Ceres, but I couldn't find anything new. Yes, the dark side of the moon isn't as sexy as those bright spots on Ceres.
I've continued each day to check the NASA Dawn website, too. Nothing so far. I think that, like the moon orbiter, it may be able to make out more detail once its orbit is low enough. Obviously, orbiting such a small planet it will take time to get into the lowest orbit.
You may be right, Iain, the moon is not attractive enough for a news bulletin. I think the moon orbiter is looking for frozen water, hence the south pole of the moon.
4-inch cubesats for exploring deep space.
Here is a new picture of Ceres. It looks like the larger reflective surfaces are composed of smaller ones: http://www.nbcnews.com/science/space...planet-n357161
Just when I thought bigger was better, it looks like small has advantages as well.Quote:
Originally Posted by Dreamwoven
Mammutus clouds from EarthSky
They look like cotton balls in the sky.
It seems that the distinction between asteroids and comets in the asteroid belt might be becoming blurred: http://astronomynow.com/2014/11/11/a...velops-a-tail/
The more information one gets the more original categories break down. Ceres could even be a dwarf planet.
There is a wikipedia page on him. He does look interesting. This one on music of the spheres is a blog devoted to the subject.
For Americans, some of you you probably know there is a Planetary Society. I got it from earth sky.org. Has its own website and with its own cubesats and solar sail satellite.
The growing number of space telescopes is beginning to give new information on distant galaxies. See the WISE and the Spitzer,and the most luminous galaxy.
Kelvin Helmhotz clouds – also called billow clouds – form when two different layers of air in our atmosphere are moving at different speeds. This come from earth sky.org, showing several variations. Saturn and Jupiter have them as well.
Two tiny 'CubeSats' will watch 2016 Mars landing.
A CubeSat is a miniaturised satellite.
There is an interesting astronomy blog by Colin Johnson of Armagh Planetarium I have started to follow: http://www.armaghplanet.com. There is post on NASA space drive experiments. Draw your own conclusions...
The CubeSat idea is interesting at a cost of about $130,000. I wonder what people will think of using them to do.
I don't understand the "quantum vacuum virtual plasma" in the last link, but the name sounds good.
I understand that Dawn will enter its second mapping orbit on June 9th. Maybe in June the mystery of those bright spots will be resolved.
A first look at Pluto's weird moons.
That link seems to be about a new technique for a Mars landing. Just glancing around, it looks like Nix and Hydra have very ellipsoid shapes which may be caused by orbiting a binary system.
Yes, it is possible. Adding that the Pluto system is so far from the sun that gravity is weakened. We should learn more as New Horizons get closer to Pluto.
I realize I haven't been looking at the night sky. I should be able to see Sagittarius and Jupiter and Venus should be close together around Cancer.
We don't get much of a night sky at at our latitude in the middle of summer. I was awake last night and it never got properly dark...
I noticed that there wasn't much darkness here as well. Yesterday it rained and last night was cloudy, so I didn't see much. I was able to see either Venus or Jupiter the evening before. Then I got distracted and forgot to look when it was darker.
what latitude are you at? We are at 61 north, only 5 degrees south of the polar circle.
Chicago is around 40 north. I should be able to see something if it isn't cloudy.
The view of Jupiter and Venus in the evening sky is relaxing. They are so bright I can even see them.
There is also a place to vote on what you think those bright spots on Ceres are: http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/dawn/world_ceres/# I picked "Other" along with 40% of the others who answered the pole, "Ice" coming in second place with 30% of the vote.
I agree, the dazzling white blotches on Ceres are not likely to be ice, it does not even look like ice.
All star-gazing for me will have to wait until autumn when our night-time returns…
There is an item in the website Space once more raising the possibility of there being an infinite multiple of universes. Or what if the universe is endlessly vast in which there is no big bang? We know now that new stars and so new galaxies are born out of cosmic dust, in nebulae, which throws into doubt the big bang theory of the birth of our universe. It is all too simplistic a view. But now I am into big questions that leave me floundering...
It looks like the time you can view the stars is almost as limited as mine. In the summer when it is warm, there is too much light. In the winter, when it is dark enough, it is too cold. I have to leave my location to view the Milky Way, although I have seen it in Wisconsin and Indiana, neighboring rural states.
The multiverse does seem to be a consequence of there being a big bang. If the universe had a beginning, and eternity is eternal, there must have been many of these events.
The description of Robert Grosseteste's work linked in the Space article you refer to, http://www.space.com/25301-multivers...osseteste.html, makes me think we might be misinterpreting him. The article refers to an "extra reason" Grosseteste had, but I don't know what it was. Today, many think we need a multiverse not just because eternity is eternal and what happened once would happen again, but to get to our universe there must have been a lot of failed universes out there where life could not survive. However, all of these universes may have succeeded in generating life.
I think the big bang is true, because we don't see anything older than 14 billion years in our universe. It is probably more complicated than we are currently aware.
Thanks for the link YesNo, that was it, the Grosseteste article.
The plans that are being made for tunnelling probes seem quite fantastic. This article is an example of that: http://www.space.com/29644-cryobot-t...kly_2015-06-15
It amazes me that there is an ocean there under the ice. I would have thought it would be solid ice all the way down.
We are starting to get more information on Pluto and its moons:
Society for Popular Astronomy [email protected]
TWO CHAOTICALLY TUMBLING PLUTO MOONS
Space Telescope Science Institute (STScI)
A comprehensive analysis of all available Hubble data shows that two of Pluto's moons, Nix and Hydra, are wobbling unpredictably. Scientists believe that the other two small moons, Kerberos and Styx, are probably in a similar situation. Such chaos may arise because the moons are embedded in a dynamically shifting gravitational field caused by the system's two central bodies, Pluto and Charon, orbiting one another. The variable gravitational field induces torques that send the smaller moons tumbling in unpredictable ways. The torques are increased by the fact that the moons are ellipsoidal rather than spherical. Hubble's monitoring of Pluto's four outer moons has also shown that three of them, Nix, Styx, and Hydra, are locked together in a resonance with a precise ratio among their orbital periods. That ties together their motions in a way similar to that of three of Jupiter's large moons. Hubble provides observational evidence that the satellites are also orbiting chaotically. However, that does not necessarily mean that the system is on the brink of flying apart. Astronomers would need to know a lot more about the system before they could determine its long-term fate. Surprisingly, Hubble also found that the moon Kerberos is as dark as charcoal, while the other satellites are as bright as white sand. It was predicted that pollution by dust blasted off the satellites by meteorite impacts should coat all the moons, giving their surfaces a homogeneous look. The New Horizons probe, which will fly by the Pluto-Charon system in July, may help to settle the question of the asphalt-black moon as well as the other oddities uncovered by Hubble. The new discoveries are being used in the planning of the New Horizons observations. The chaos in the Pluto-Charon system may offer insights into how planets orbiting a double star might behave. We are learning that chaos may be a common trait of binary systems, and the Kepler space observatory has found several planetary systems orbiting double stars.
Clues to the Pluto chaos first came when astronomers measured variations in the brightness of the two moons Nix and Hydra, which changed unpredictably. The team analyzed Hubble images of Pluto taken in 2005-2012 and compared the changes in the moons' reflectivity with dynamical models of spinning bodies in complex gravitational fields. Virtually all large moons, as well as small moons in close-in orbits, keep one hemisphere facing their parent planet, as the Moon does to the Earth, so the satellites' rotations are perfectly matched to their orbital periods, as a consequence of gravitational tides between moon and planet. (Hyperion, which orbits Saturn, is the only other Solar System example of chaotic rotation; it is due to the combined gravitational forces of the planet and it largest moon, Titan). Pluto's moons are hypothesized to have formed by a collision between Pluto and another similar-sized body early in the history of the Solar System. Pluto's large companion, Charon, which is almost half the size of Pluto itself, was discovered in 1978. Hubble discovered Nix and Hydra in 2005, Kerberos in 2011, and Styx in 2012. Those little moons, measuring just tens of miles across, were found as part of a search for potential hazards to the New Horizons spacecraft flyby. Pluto and Charon are called a double planet because they orbit about a common centre of gravity that is located in the space between the bodies. Some people regard the Earth--Moon system as a double planet, too, although its centre of gravity falls within the Earth. (Our Moon has 1/80th of the Earth's mass, whereas Charon has 1/8th of Pluto's mass.) A combination of data from Hubble, New Horizons's brief close-up look, and eventually the James Webb space telescope, should lead to increased understanding of the Pluto-Charon system. No ground-based telescope has yet been able to detect the smallest moons.
It is interesting that the smaller moons of Pluto have only recently been discovered and then mainly as research for New Horizons.
Also the idea that Pluto and Charon may be a "double planet", or probably better put double dwarf planet, is because the center of gravity is outside both Pluto and Charon unlike the Earth-Moon center of gravity which is inside the Earth.
We know that Saturn's largest moon, Titan, has surface lakes of ethane and methane and there are plans to send a probe to investigate these more closely. Now Jupiter's moon Europa is also known to have sub-surface oceans and there are plans to send a probe there too.
I haven't seen anything new pop up in searches on Ceres. I was hoping there would at least be closer images.
A couple nights ago, I saw the big dipper while I watched the moon set. I check my vision based on how clearly I can see the moon at night. My astigmatism sometimes gives me many images of the moon, most of them blurry.
Ceres Google search iso'd to last 1 hour: https://www.google.com/search?q=cere...g&ved=0CA8QpwU
Ta ! (short for tarradiddle),
tailor STATELY