SPACE

Firefly Aerospace's Blue Ghost lunar lander sits in the company's clean room

Firefly Aerospace announced this morning that its Blue Ghost lunar lander "aced" environmental testing and that the company is preparing to send the spacecraft to Cape Canaveral ahead of a mid-January launch fireflyspace.com/news/firefly...

Bluesky now has over 10 million users, and I was #446!

NASA’s Spitzer, TESS Find Potentially Volcano-Covered Earth-Size World Astronomers have discovered an Earth-size exoplanet, or world beyond our solar system, that may be carpeted with volcanoes.

NASA’s Spitzer, TESS Find Potentially Volcano-Covered Earth-Size World http://www.nasa.gov/feature/goddard/2023/nasa-s-spitzer-tess-find-potentially-volcano-covered-earth-size-world#.ZGVdJJ2IqBM.twitter

Images From NASA’s Perseverance May Show Record of Wild Martian River Evidence left in rocks is leading scientists to rethink what watery environments looked like on ancient Mars.

Images From NASA’s Perseverance May Show Record of Wild Martian River https://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/images-from-nasas-perseverance-may-show-record-of-wild-martian-river via @NASAJPL

Webb Looks for Fomalhaut’s Asteroid Belt and Finds Much More Three glowing disks of dusty debris encircling a young star are reminiscent of our solar system’s asteroid belt.

Webb Looks for Fomalhaut’s Asteroid Belt and Finds Much More https://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/webb-looks-for-fomalhauts-asteroid-belt-and-finds-much-more via @NASAJPL

New Study of Uranus’ Large Moons Shows 4 May Hold Water The work is based on new modeling and explores how oceans could exist in unlikely places in our solar system.

New Study of Uranus’ Large Moons Shows 4 May Hold Water https://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/new-study-of-uranus-large-moons-shows-4-may-hold-water via @NASAJPL

What phenomenon is behind a mysterious line of stars? Neil deGrasse Tyson and comedian Chuck Nice explore the possibility of a triple galaxy collision and a runaway black hole with theoretical astrophysicist Saavik Ford. A Quick Note from The StarTalk Producers: We delight in the mysteries of the universe as they continue to unfold through the work of scientists and the scientific method. For the following explainer, we note that the Black Hole described has yet to be confirmed, and in the days that followed publication of the original research paper, alternative explanations have been put forth, leaving this a hotly contested subject — for now. Such is the frontier of research. Get the NEW Cosmic Queries book (5/5 ⭐s on Amazon!): https://amzn.to/3dYIEQF Support us on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/startalkradio FOLLOW or SUBSCRIBE to StarTalk: Twitter: http://twitter.com/startalkradio Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/StarTalk Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/startalk About StarTalk: Science meets pop culture on StarTalk! Astrophysicist \u0026 Hayden Planetarium director Neil deGrasse Tyson, his comic co-hosts, guest celebrities \u0026 scientists discuss astronomy, physics, and everything else about life in the universe. Keep Looking Up! #StarTalk #neildegrassetyson 00:00 - Black holes don’t suck 02:40 - Line of stars discovery 09:57 - How does a black hole get shot out of a galaxy? 14:23 - Extraordinary explanations Is A Runaway Black Hole Creating A Trail of Stars? | Neil deGrasse Tyson Explains...

Is a runaway black hole creating a trail of stars?
https://youtu.be/UYVUPd3_Fus

And also generating some original content with this William Optics setup when clear skies permit ;) But yes this account is indeed work in progress figuring out how to get more of the community involved so reposting is one way.

This release features a composite image of 30 Doradus, otherwise known as the Tarantula Nebula, a region of active star formation in a neighboring galaxy. In the image, royal blue and purple gas clouds interact with red and orange gas clouds. Specks of light and large gleaming stars peek through the colourful clouds. The patches of royal blue and purple gas clouds represent X-ray data collected by the Chandra Observatory. The brightest and most prominent blue cloud appears at the center of the image, roughly shaped like an upward pointing triangle. Darker X-ray clouds can be found near the right and left edges of the image. The red and orange gas clouds represent infrared data from the James Webb Space Telescope. These patches resemble clouds of roiling fire. The brightest and most prominent infrared cloud appears at our upper left, roughly shaped like a downward pointing triangle. Wispy white clouds outline the upward pointing bright blue triangle in the center of the image.

[tentative serious skeet]
How about this stunning Tarantula Nebula composite image, produced by JWST and the Chandra X-ray Observatory. About 170,000 light-years away in the Large Magellanic Cloud.

X-ray: NASA/CXC/Penn State Univ./L. Townsley et al.
IR: NASA/ESA/CSA/STScI/JWST ERO Production Team

via NASA: Ferocious stellar winds, likely from the bright blue star at the top of the image, are blowing through a curtain of dust. The fine dust scatters the starlight at blue wavelengths. Farther down, another bright, super-hot star shines through filaments of obscuring dust, looking like the Sun shining through scattered clouds. A diagonal string of fainter accompanying stars looks reddish because dust is filtering starlight, allowing more of the red light to get through. The bottom of the picture presents a keyhole peek deep into the dark nebula. Hubble captures the reddish glow of ionized hydrogen. It looks like a fireworks finale, with several overlapping events. This is caused by pencil-thin jets shooting out from newly forming stars outside the frame of view. These stars are surrounded by circumstellar disks, which may eventually produce planetary systems, and powerful magnetic fields that direct two parallel beams of hot gas deep into space.

The Hubble Space Telescope turned 33 years old last week – it launched April 24, 1990.

The 2023 Hubble anniversary image is the nebula NGC 1333, a star forming region about 970 light years away in the constellation Perseus.

Image credit: NASA, ESA, STScI

👋🏼 Hello there! Tony DiBernardo here.
🚀 I teach people about space online.
👩🏽‍🚀 Just filmed an analog documentary

Looking for other space enthusiasts and professionals to follow!

Please do!!! The community needs them.

30°N a bit more to the East in Austin TX here. What's the next target you would like to take a photo of?

Roger that, I'll try PixInsight next time when I process my photos, I just need to find some time to learn it. Are you in the Northern Hemisphere?

You are very welcome, that's a cool photo! There is plenty of space for space here ;)

Hello from planet Earth!

Good night friends!

gm ☕️

Neat! Big fan of William Optics as well.

Nice! I'm mainly using Photoshop to process mine. What telescope did you use to take this photo?

Two tile black and shit image showing a small fuzzy dot that is circled and annotated with the pulsar name. In the background is a large, chunky, edge on spiral galaxy

Another system in my remit is PSR J0614-3329, which is also a binary system.

I really like this pic of the white dwarf companion (pulsar is too small to resolve at ~20km diameter) … but look at the size of that edge on spiral galaxy in the background!

📸 Bassa et al. 2016 & Testa et al. 2015

Pulsar profile showing flux vs time. The profile is a narrow sharp peak.

Pulsar profile in intensity vs time. It shows a bright yellow line in the centre vs a background of orange static.

Am looking at a few millisecond pulsars for my PhD. This is my fav - PSR J1713+0747. The problem child.

It threw a tantrum in 2021 and I’m going to figure out why this 8.9 billion year old thing did so.

OR maybe it’s thrown its toys out of the pram in the past but we’ve not been here to see it!

What application do you use to post process the photos?

Some photons I caught in the photon trap on my driveway back in Winter

(California Nebula in narrowband filter color combination.)

#astrophotography

Some space photons I caught on my driveway recently.

Flaming Star nebula in Auriga #astrophotography

Image-filling space nebula with complex shapes, in a purple color palette.

Some photons I caught on my driveway last year!

The Lagoon Nebula in Sagittarius. #astrophotography

The photo of the Moon processed for color to show different minerals.

127 frames + 5 dark frames. Lightroom + PIPP + AutoStakkert! + RegiStax + Photoshop.

There are approximately 200 billion trillion stars in the universe. Or, to put it another way, 200 sextillion.

That’s 200,000,000,000,000,000,000,000!

The number is so big, it’s hard to imagine. But try this: It’s about 10 times the number of cups of water in all the oceans of Earth.

When will we create a livable habitat in space? Neil deGrasse Tyson and comedian Matt Kirshen explore the possibilities of tessellated space structures, artificial gravity, and other challenges of space living with Founder of MIT Space Exploration Initiative and Aurelia Institute CEO, Ariel Ekblaw. We discuss Gerard O’Neill’s visions of space and the L5 Society. Learn about the Aurelia Institute’s work in creating modular smart space structures and the challenges of creating a space habitat. How do we make sure that space travelers aren’t microwaved like a hot pocket? Have there been any advancements in artificial gravity? Will it be possible for someone who’s 33 years old today to visit space in their lifetime? What’s the most important breakthrough we need to bring down the cost of space travel? How are we going to stop people from getting sick on the way to space? Discover how the human body changes in space and what “space face” is. We also explore an approach to artificial gravity seen in Andy Weir’s Project Hail Mary. How would you create food in a space colony? How would you safeguard a habitat from space debris? What's the role of AI in space travel? Finally, once we get there, what jobs would people have in space? Thanks to our Patrons Rafael Pérez Pastor, Jay Patel, Justin Sharkey, Nick Wood, Debbie Karimullah, and Patrick for supporting us this week. NOTE: StarTalk+ Patrons can watch or listen to this entire episode commercial-free. About the prints that flank Neil in this video: \ The Research Powering Humanity’s First Space Civilization with Ariel Ekblaw

Fun show on building space habitats with Ariel Ekblaw:

https://youtu.be/RQFrUHoDaV0