Notices by Corey S Powell (coreyspowell@mastodon.social), page 3

One of my favorite deep-space images: a panorama of the center of our galaxy seen in radio waves.

Supernova explosions blew out the bubbles. A massive black hole powers the central glow. And those long, vertical filaments? Nobody really understands them.

https://www.sarao.ac.za/media-releases/new-meerkat-radio-image-reveals-complex-heart-of-the-milky-way/ #science #space #astronomy #nature

OMG.
A triangle of glowing plasma.
Bigger than the Earth.
Hovering over the surface of the Sun last week.

https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/astropix.html #space #science #astronomy #sky

Happening now over your head: NASA’s Advanced Composite Solar Sail System has spread its wings.

The satellite, launched in April, just unfurled an 80-square-meter sail that will use sunlight to adjust its orbit. For now we just have an illustration; onboard photos are coming on Sept 4.

https://blogs.nasa.gov/smallsatellites/tag/advanced-composite-solar-sail-system-acs3/
#space #science #nasa #tech

All across our galaxy, the European Space Agency's Gaia space telescope is finding stars like the Sun orbiting neutron stars, the remains of supernova explosions.

How did those suns survive the devastation? Did entire worlds get sterilized in the process?

https://www.caltech.edu/about/news/sun-like-stars-found-orbiting-hidden-companions #science #space #astronomy #life #ESA

An Indonesian cave drawing, showing three people interacting with a pig, is now the oldest known example of narrative art. It's been dated to at least 51,000 years ago.

I'd love to know how people thought and spoke back then.

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-024-07541-7 #science #history #art #anthropology

Working in tandem, NASA's Parker Solar Probe and ESA's Solar Orbiter are making big discoveries about how the Sun works.
One particularly intriguing observation: a strange plasma "snake" slithering all the way across the solar surface.
https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-023-03301-1 #astronomy #astrodon #science

NASA's Parker Solar Probe has set a new record as the fastest object ever built, hitting a velocity of 394,736 mph (635,266 kph) relative to the Sun.

That's about 300 times as fast as a speeding bullet. Damn!
https://parkersolarprobe.jhuapl.edu/News-Center/Show-Article.php?articleID=193 #NASA #space #science

For a dose of perspective: Even at the peak speed of the Parker Solar Probe (~180 km/sec), it would take more than 7,000 years to reach Alpha Centauri, the nearest star system.

Interstellar distances are HUGE.
#space #science #travel

The Voyager space probes, now about 1 light day from Earth, will carry Ed Stone's legacy for a long time.

One study estimated that the Golden Record on Voyager 2 could still be readable in 5 billion years.

https://voyager.jpl.nasa.gov/mission/status/ #nasa #space #science #tech #eternity

Another memorable Ed Stone moment: I asked him to explain what happened as the Voyager probes passed into interstellar space.

He ran to a sink and turned on the water. "Notice how a ring forms here?" he said. "That's just like the termination shock when you hit the interstellar stream."

Ed Stone was 80 when I interviewed him, still working actively at NASA's Jet Propulsion Lab.

At one point I asked him about his hobbies. He smiled at me indulgently for asking such a ridiculous question and said, "Hobbies? Why would I need hobbies?

https://www.discovermagazine.com/the-sciences/voyager-the-man-behind-the-mission #nasa #space #exploration #astronomy #astrodon

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