Notices by Kelly Lepo (kellylepo@astrodon.social), page 2

Day 2 of #AAS244
First plenary: Dark and Quiet Skies for the Future of Astronomy and of the Space Environment, Aparna Venkatesan and Teznie Pugh, AAS Committee to Protect Astronomy and the Space Environment (COMPASSE).

The committee is trying to reduce the impacts of artificial light, EM interference, and satellite constellations.

The news is depressing. I will impact more than just astronomers: cultural sky traditions, environmental degradation, astrotourism, amateur astronomers, and more.

NASA confirms that #Hubble will switch to one-gyroscope mode after the increasingly erratic behavior of gyro 3 caused the observatory to repeatedly go into safe mode.

Hubble will continue doing great science, but with somewhat reduced efficiency. It will need more time to slew and lock onto science targets. There is also a limit to the fraction of the sky it can observe at any one time (although it will have access to the full sky over the course of a year).

More: https://science.nasa.gov/missions/hubble/nasa-to-change-how-it-points-hubble-space-telescope/

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Baby stars are messy eaters. This diagram from a review article illustrates the complex interplay between protostars, magnetic fields, and the surrounding gas on large and small scales.

Stars form in cold, dusty clouds of mostly hydrogen gas. As they grow, stars pull in more mass from disks, permeated with magnetic fields. The fields twist around the star, channeling some gas into the star and some into jets above and below the disk.
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📷 Frank et al. 2014
https://ui.adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2014prpl.conf..451F/abstract

Millennial telescope tries to celebrate 34th birthday, but instead goes into safe mode because of gyroscope issues (relatable).

The same gyroscope that was causing issues back in November is acting up again, so Hubble has paused science operations while operators troubleshoot the issue. If needed, Hubble can operate with only one of its three remaining gyroscopes, with reduced observing efficiency.

https://science.nasa.gov/missions/hubble/nasas-hubble-pauses-science-due-to-gyro-issue/

... And it's back. #Hubble resumed science operations yesterday.

It's using all three gyroscopes, all of the instruments are online, and it's taking science observations. Huzzah!

https://science.nasa.gov/missions/hubble/nasas-hubble-pauses-science-due-to-gyro-issue/

If you want to celebrate Hubble's return to science operations, you can check out what it is observing right now:

https://spacetelescopelive.org/hubble

Important to note: The images are from ground-based surveys and are not live feeds from the telescope. They show the area of the current target, pulled from Hubble's observation scheduling database.

Happy Birthday #Hubble! It was launched #OTD April 24, 1990 on the Space Shuttle Discovery.

This year's anniversary image is of the Little Dumbbell Nebula, or M76.

M76 is a planetary nebula, a glowing cloud of gas ejected by a sun-like star at the end of its lifetime. The central bar structure is actually a ring seen edge-on. This was likely sculpted by a binary companion star. Two lobes extend from the bar to the left and right of the ring.

More: https://hubblesite.org/contents/news-releases/2024/news-2024-013

#Space #Astronomy

Good news from Voyager 1.

NASA teams were able to move code that was on a section of corrupted memory in one of the spacecraft's computers. Now it's sending back usable engineering data for the first time since November 2023.

https://blogs.nasa.gov/voyager/2024/04/22/nasas-voyager-1-resumes-sending-engineering-updates-to-earth/

The Daniel K. Inouye Solar Telescope (DKIST) was able to observe the April 8 partial solar eclipse from Maui.

https://nso.edu/blog/the-eclipse-as-seen-by-the-daniel-k-inouye-solar-telescope-in-maui/

#eclipse #eclipse2024

This interview with Benjamin Fernando about the follow up on claims by a certain Harvard astronomer of recovering an alien technology meteor is great.

https://www.nytimes.com/2024/03/11/science/meteor-avi-loeb.html?unlocked_article_code=1.b00.0QFN.Ne8pbHks9G3p&smid=url-share

PSA for folks in North America. There is a solar eclipse coming up on April 8. Get your eclipse glasses now, so you are not left scrambling.

https://eclipse.aas.org/eye-safety/viewers-filters

@cosmos4u I'm glad this suggestion was accepted!

Also worth checking out, the Radiolab podcast on Zoozve: https://radiolab.org/podcast/zoozve

Today @spacetelescope released 19 images of face-on spiral galaxies from #JWST and #Hubble. The new JWST images were taken as part of the PHANGS program, a survey of nearby galaxies taking high-resolution observations with ALMA, the VLT, Hubble and JWST.

https://webbtelescope.org/contents/news-releases/2024/news-2024-105

This is now a #PHANGS galaxy stan account. Over the next 19 days, I’ll post a short thread about each one of the galaxies featured in today’s release.
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This is completely on-brand.

The door plug from the #AlaskaAirlines #737max lands in physics teacher Bob Sauer's yard. He uses the opportunity to give a lesson on impulse and momentum to a reporter from the New York Times.

https://www.nytimes.com/2024/01/08/us/portland-alaska-airlines-plane-door.html?unlocked_article_code=1.MU0.2ywZ.C5PQ6Pj7dxMj&smid=url-share

I’m starstruck by this new #JWST image of one of my favorite astronomical objects 🤩

Herbig-Haro 46/47 is a pair of jets launched by young stars, embedded in a dark nebula.

The binary stars responsible for the jets shine brightly in the middle of the image, seen as one point of light with red diffraction spikes.

The two-sided orange lobes were created by earlier outflows. More recent ejections appear as a blue line in the center of the lobes.

More: https://webbtelescope.org/contents/news-releases/2023/news-2023-131
#Astronomy #Space

To celebrate #Hubble's 27th anniversary in 2017, @spacetelescope released this image of a pair of spiral galaxies, NGC 4302 and NGC 4298.

From our view on Earth, NGC 4302 (left) has an inclination of 90 degrees, which is exactly edge-on. NGC 4298 (right) is tilted at about 70 degrees.

While these galaxies may look different because we see them at different angles, their structure and contents are actually very similar.

Learn more: https://hubblesite.org/contents/news-releases/2017/news-2017-14.html

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#Astronomy #Galaxy

Another #Hubble favorite.

NGC 6302, the Butterfly Nebula, is a planetary nebula. Planetary nebulas have nothing to do with planets. Instead, they are created at the end of the lifetime of a Sun-like star, as it puffs off its outer layers.

The pinched waist, hourglass-shaped outflows, and symmetrical patterns of the Butterfly Nebula were likely created by interactions between a dying star and its binary star companion in the heart of the nebula.

More: https://hubblesite.org/contents/news-releases/2020/news-2020-31
#Astronomy #Nebula

Today's #Hubble favorite is M51. It's a pair of two interacting galaxies, NGC 5194, the Whirlpool Galaxy, and its companion galaxy NGC 5195. The image was taken to celebrate Hubble's 15th anniversary in 2005.

The Whirlpool Galaxy is a grand design spiral. Its arms may be so prominent because of a series of close encounters with NGC 5195, the small, yellowish galaxy behind the outermost tip of one of its arms.

More: https://hubblesite.org/contents/media/images/2005/12/1677-Image.html
#Astronomy #Galaxy #Space

The official NASA/ESA version of the Ring Nebula, as seen by #JWST.

The Ring is a planetary nebula. Planetary nebulas got their name because they look like fuzzy planets through small telescopes. They were believed to be simple, round objects with a single dying Sun-like star at their centers. However, modern observations like this show a variety of intricate and complex structures.

How does a spherical star create a non-spherical nebula?

More: https://webbtelescope.org/contents/early-highlights/webb-reveals-intricate-details-in-the-remains-of-a-dying-star
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#Astronomy #Nebula

Jupiter is actually quite difficult to observe with #JWST's large mirror. The planet is so bright that researchers had to use clever techniques to avoid saturating the telescope's detectors.

The result of those efforts is this NIRCam image of Jupiter. The white areas are very high-altitude cloud tops. The dark ribbons north of the equatorial region have little cloud cover. Auroras, extending to high altitudes above the planet's north and south poles, are seen in red.

https://webbtelescope.org/contents/news-releases/2023/news-2023-147