Notices by Corey S Powell (coreyspowell@mastodon.social), page 2

I'm sad to report the death of Ed Stone, the NASA scientist who was the heart & soul of the Voyager program. Spending time with him for my Discover magazine profile was a highlight of my career.

I did my best to capture the experience:
https://www.discovermagazine.com/the-sciences/voyager-the-man-behind-the-mission #science #space #nasa #astronomy

Exciting space-discovery alert!

Gliese 12 b is an Earth-size planet orbiting in the temperate zone around a nearby, stable red dwarf star. It's a Rosetta Stone world that will tell us a lot about how many superficially earthlike planets actually have the right conditions for life.

Are we rare? Are we common? Let's find out.

https://www.birmingham.ac.uk/news/2024/nasas-tess-finds-a-world-sized-between-earth-and-venus #space #science #astronomy #astrodon #life #aliens

The birth of a new, sunlike star is beautiful and spooky in this new image from Hubble. (34 years old and going strong!)

The ominous "mask" is a cloud of cool dust. The baby star HP Tau, top of the trio, is flickering madly due to inspiraling gas, jets, and huge starspots.
https://science.nasa.gov/missions/hubble/hubble-views-the-dawn-of-a-sun-like-star/ #science #space #astronomy #astrodon #nature

After years of searching, astronomers have finally detected an atmosphere on a rocky planet around another star.

But what a strange planet it is! 55 Cancri e seems to be blanketed in carbon dioxide gas bubbling out of a global ocean of lava. Like an image out of Dante's Inferno.

https://webbtelescope.org/contents/news-releases/2024/news-2024-102 #space #science #nasa #astronomy

Aurora colors come from atoms that are trying to shed some of their energy.

In very thin air, oxygen survives in a delicate, high-energy state that emits green light. In denser air, atomic collisions knock oxygen to a lower-energy state that emits red. Nitrogen is a robust emitter that glows bright in even lower, denser layers of the atmosphere.

Beautiful science.

https://www.swpc.noaa.gov/content/aurora-tutorial #aurora #science #space #nature

Only three humans have ever witnessed an eclipse of the Sun by the *Earth*. It happened while the Apollo 12 crew was returning home from the Moon, on November 21, 1969.

Fortunately, the astronauts filmed the moment so you can share in the experience.

https://archive.org/details/Apollo1216mmOnboardFilm [at the 4:50 mark] #space #science #nasa #eclipse

Scientists have to reset their superlatives. A quasar known as J0529-4351 is the most luminous single object in the known universe, emitting as much energy as 500 trillion suns.

It's powered by a supermassive black hole that swallows 300,000 Earth masses of gas *every day*.

https://www.eso.org/public/news/eso2402/ #science #nature #astronomy #space

Saturn seen in ultraviolet light -- a very different look for the ringed planet.

In this Hubble image, the bright middle zone shows that Saturn's rings are heating up the planet's atmosphere.

How does that work? Scientists haven't figured it out yet...

https://hubblesite.org/contents/news-releases/2023/news-2023-009 #space #astronomy #science #art

Here's a fun disaster scenario (ie, not happening anytime soon). Over the next billion years there a 1% chance one of them could pass close enough to disrupt our solar system.

Then things could go crazy: Earth collides with Venus, for instance, plunges into the Sun, or gets tossed into the Oort Cloud.
https://arxiv.org/abs/2311.12171
#science #space #life #future

Astronomer Sean Raymond and team threw 12,000 stars toward a simulation of our solar system to see what would happen. Mainly out of pure curiosity.

Good news: Most of the time Earth survives.
Surprise: The planet most likely to get destroyed is Mercury. #astronomy #astrodon #science

https://planetplanet.net/2023/11/21/could-a-stellar-flyby-save-earth-from-impending-doom/

The 300-square-mile Telescope Array experiment in Utah detected a cosmic ray with an energy of 240 quintillion electron volts. That's as much energy as a thrown brick, jammed into a single subatomic particle.

Nobody knows how it formed.

https://attheu.utah.edu/facultystaff/cosmic-ray-2023/
#science #physics #nature

It amazes me how quickly people get bored with even the most remarkable achievements. Without novelty, it's hard to hold onto wonder.

In 1972, after the Apollo 17 landing, the New York Times declared that seeing astronauts exploring the Moon had become "ordinary and even tedious."
https://www.quora.com/Why-did-NASA-stop-going-to-the-Moon-after-Apollo-17/answer/Corey-S-Powell #science #history #NASA

The winners of this year's "Small World" micro-photo competition are out. I'm especially intrigued by this astonishing shot: a struck match, caught at the exact moment of ignition.
(It ended up in second place, go figure.) #science #photography
https://www.nikonsmallworld.com/galleries/2023-photomicrography-competition

For decades, astronomers have dreamed of setting up an observatory on the far side of the Moon. I read about it as a kid. Now it's happening!

The LuSEE-Night radio telescope is under construction, and is scheduled to land on the lunar farside in 2025. It's a pathfinder for a much bigger radio telescope that would follow. https://newscenter.lbl.gov/2023/09/26/listening-to-the-radio-on-the-far-side-of-the-moon/ #space #nasa #science

Shocking story about mRNA pioneer/Nobel winner Katalin Karikó, whose early advisor at Temple tried to have her deported & derailed her career because she dared to look for a better-paying job.

Later, UPenn demoted her, then forced her out, because her research wasn't bringing in enough funding. #NobelPrize #science [HT Paul Novosad]

New observations boost the case that alien world K2-18b is a "Hycean exoplanet," a warm water world with a thick atmosphere. And there *might* be a hint of something even more exciting--a chemical sign of life.
#science #JWST #life
https://webbtelescope.org/contents/news-releases/2023/news-2023-139

24 hours of Earth's rotation, with the camera locked to the sky instead of the ground. We're all hanging out on this spinning rock.
Brilliant video by Bartosz Wojczyński. https://artuniverse.eu/gallery/190705-rotation24h #nature #wonder #earth

Just follow the link, download the full-size JWST image, and off you go into intergalactic space. It's an amazing feeling. https://webbtelescope.org/contents/news-releases/2023/news-2023-127 #astronomy #astrodon #NASA

Take the plunge across 13.2 billion years of cosmic history.
This JWST image, just 1/5th as wide as the full Moon, shows 45,000 galaxies, including 100s from the mysterious era when the universe was just 5% its present age. https://webbtelescope.org/contents/media/images/2023/127/01H1Q1CGJD51CDJTK2NHJWD06M #space #nature #JWST

This is a really important point: From a business perspective, the goal of a Google AI is to make sure you never view primary sources on other web pages, only the chopped-and-processed information on Google's own site.
#AI #Google

https://twitter.com/jjvincent/status/1656369628711383057