Cool astronomy photos

Witness · Post by **Witness** » Thu Jul 02, 2020 2:05 am

Spoiler:

Witness · Post by **Witness** » Thu Jul 02, 2020 9:18 pm

Ingenuity: A man's decades-long quest to fly a helicopter on Mars

NASA is about to fly a rotorcraft on another planet for the first time. And for the engineers who built the Mars Ingenuity helicopter, it's a Wright brothers moment.

When America first dreamed of sending astronauts to another world, German-American rocket engineer Wernher von Braun didn’t want to go to the Moon. He wanted to send dozens of people to Mars. He envisioned a winged craft soaring through the Red Planet’s atmosphere, landing gently on the rust-colored surface. And though earthlings quickly learned that traveling to another planet isn’t so easy, the fantasy of flying on Mars never died.

And now, that dream is on the verge of being fulfilled. On July 22, NASA plans to launch its Mars Perseverance rover. But there's also a robotic hitchhiker onboard. This small, solar-powered helicopter, named Ingenuity, is on mission totally independent from the rover. While Perseverance searches for signs of alien life, Ingenuity will prove it's possible to fly in Mars' thin atmosphere. The data it gathers will help engineers build even larger helicopter drones for the Red Planet. And if it works, the long-term impact could be a game-changer for Mars exploration.

https://astronomy.com/news/2020/07/the- ... er-on-mars

Rob Lister · Post by **Rob Lister** » Thu Jul 02, 2020 10:12 pm

That's one cool trick. Google tells me the density of air on Mars is 1% of what it is here. That's like flying a helo to the peak of Mount Everest. Or something. I may have just made that up out of recycled cloth.

Wouldn't a or hydrogen balloon be more technologically economical?

sparks · Post by **sparks** » Fri Jul 03, 2020 2:38 am

Interesting question. I suggest someone has already done the maths and it didn't work out due to the mass of the cylinder required to store the pressurized gas.

Besides, a balloon goes where the prevailing wind takes it, whereas a helicopter goes where the pilot tells it to unless the prevailing wind is lots faster than the 'copter.

Anaxagoras · Post by **Anaxagoras** » Fri Jul 03, 2020 4:10 am

On the other hand, the gravity is weaker on Mars.
3.711 m/s² as compared to 9.807 m/s² on Earth.
It wouldn't work on the moon, but Mars may have just enough of an atmosphere to make it possible.

Bruce · Post by **Bruce** » Fri Jul 03, 2020 5:20 am

Anaxagoras wrote: ↑Fri Jul 03, 2020 4:10 am On the other hand, the gravity is weaker on Mars.
3.711 m/s² as compared to 9.807 m/s² on Earth.
It wouldn't work on the moon, but Mars may have just enough of an atmosphere to make it possible.

Mars is also very dry and dusty. Seems like kicking up a cloud of dust would create conditions for lightning.

Rob Lister · Post by **Rob Lister** » Fri Jul 03, 2020 9:53 am

I'm sticking with the hydrogen-filled balloon. Sparks raises two issues:

1. [M]ass of the cylinder required to store the pressurized gas.
If he refers to the added mass to the rover itself, I think the science outweighs the cost. If he refers to the added mass to the cargo of the balloon, there is no reason to take the expended canister with it; just fill and release.

2. [A] balloon goes where the prevailing wind takes it.
True, but prevailing winds are a science in and of itself. You could bring more than one.

I'll go ahead and shoot a memo to Jim Bridenstine at NASA and have him work out the cost details.

@Pyrrho, I think you're off on the 4th, right? Why don't you go ahead and make up a slide deck for presentation to the NASA board on Monday. Two days should be fine, right? Nothing fancy, just fifty or slides. Use your gut for the technical stuff. Make sure you run it through HR; we don't want to inadvertently imply anything untoward therein. Best they give it a pass.

ed · Post by ed » Fri Jul 03, 2020 10:46 am

10 Years of the Sun. We are in the future, aren't we?

robinson · Post by **robinson** » Fri Jul 03, 2020 5:32 pm

Witness · Post by **Witness** » Sat Jul 04, 2020 2:23 am

Taken with a smartphone. Technical details: https://old.reddit.com/r/Astronomy/comm ... tphone_oc/.

Witness · Post by **Witness** » Sat Jul 04, 2020 11:30 pm

Crescent nebula. Technical details: https://old.reddit.com/r/Astronomy/comm ... nt_nebula/.

Anaxagoras · Post by **Anaxagoras** » Tue Jul 07, 2020 3:12 pm

Taken in the Adirondacks.

robinson · Post by **robinson** » Tue Jul 07, 2020 9:54 pm

Witness · Post by **Witness** » Thu Jul 09, 2020 12:20 am

A new comet will be visible for early risers as it races closer to Earth

TORONTO -- Early risers in the northern hemisphere will be treated to a view of a recently identified comet, which has suddenly become visible to the unaided eye, as it hurtles towards Earth.

Comet NEOWISE – technically called C/2020 F3 (NEOWISE) – was first discovered on March 27 by the Near Earth Object Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer (NEOWISE) space telescope launched by NASA in 2009.

At the time, astronomers were unsure if the comet would meet a similar fate to other comets before it, such as Comet ATLAS and Comet SWAN, and break apart as it travelled close to the sun and warmed up.

However, it appears Comet NEOWISE survived its closest approach to the sun late last week and is now making its way closer to Earth before it is expected to return to the outer solar system, according to NASA.

The space agency said the comet has become one of the few “naked-eye comets” of the 21st century after it “suddenly” became visible to the unaided eye this week.

“Word spread quickly, and the comet has already been photographed behind many famous sites and cities around the globe,” NASA said in the caption of a photo of Comet NEOWISE passing over Lebanon on Sunday, which they shared as their “Astronomy Photo of the Day” on Tuesday.

https://www.ctvnews.ca/mobile/sci-tech/ ... -1.5014178

And here seen from Austria:

Expected to get brighter…

robinson · Post by **robinson** » Thu Jul 09, 2020 2:51 am

Sweet

robinson · Post by **robinson** » Thu Jul 09, 2020 2:51 am

Now if I could get some clear morning skies

Witness · Post by **Witness** » Sun Jul 12, 2020 3:18 am

Anaxagoras · Post by **Anaxagoras** » Sun Jul 12, 2020 4:30 am

With Mt. Shasta in California

Witness · Post by **Witness** » Wed Jul 15, 2020 12:33 am

Milky Way core. Technical details: https://old.reddit.com/r/Astronomy/comm ... _backyard/

Witness · Post by **Witness** » Thu Jul 16, 2020 12:22 am

A Giant 'Wall' of Galaxies Has Been Found Stretching Across The Universe

The Universe isn't just a random scattering of galaxies sprinkled throughout an expanding void. The closer we look, the more we see that there are structures - some of which are incomprehensibly vast groupings and clusters of galaxies that are gravitationally bound together.

Such a structure has just been discovered arcing across the southern edge of the sky, and it's a colossus, spanning an immense 1.37 billion light-years from end to end. Its discoverers have named it the South Pole Wall.

Although the size is remarkable - it's one of the largest structures in space we've ever seen - we know exactly what the South Pole Wall is. It's a galaxy filament, a huge formation of galaxies that forms a border between the empty spaces of cosmic voids that together form the cosmic web. Hence, we call it a wall.

Other, larger such walls are known. The largest is the Hercules-Corona Borealis Great Wall, which spans 9.7 billion light-years. But the South Pole Wall is special, because it's insanely close to the Milky Way galaxy, lying just 500 million light-years away. In other words, it is the most massive structure we've ever seen this close.

https://www.sciencealert.com/a-giant-wa ... e-universe for the rest.

Anaxagoras · Post by **Anaxagoras** » Fri Jul 17, 2020 9:51 am

NASA Announces New James Webb Space Telescope Target Launch Date

NASA now is targeting Oct. 31, 2021, for the launch of the agency’s James Webb Space Telescope from French Guiana, due to impacts from the ongoing coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic, as well as technical challenges.

This decision is based on a recently completed schedule risk assessment of the remaining integration and test activities prior to launch. Previously, Webb was targeted to launch in March 2021.

“The perseverance and innovation of the entire Webb Telescope team has enabled us to work through challenging situations we could not have foreseen on our path to launch this unprecedented mission,” said Thomas Zurbuchen, associate administrator for NASA’s Science Mission Directorate at the agency’s headquarters in Washington. “Webb is the world’s most complex space observatory, and our top science priority, and we’ve worked hard to keep progress moving during the pandemic. The team continues to be focused on reaching milestones and arriving at the technical solutions that will see us through to this new launch date next year.”

Testing of the observatory continues to go well at Northrop Grumman, the mission’s main industry partner, in Redondo Beach, California, despite the challenges of the coronavirus pandemic. Prior to the pandemic’s associated delays, the team made significant progress in achieving important milestones to prepare for launch in 2021.

As schedule margins grew tighter last fall, the agency planned to assess the progress of the project in April. This assessment was postponed due to the pandemic and was completed this week. The factors contributing to the decision to move the launch date include the impacts of augmented safety precautions, reduced on-site personnel, disruption to shift work, and other technical challenges. Webb will use existing program funding to stay within its $8.8 billion development cost cap.

Who thinks it will launch in 2021 at long last?

Rob Lister · Post by **Rob Lister** » Fri Jul 17, 2020 11:06 am

At some point they're going to have to shit or get off the pot.
I get the whole covid delay but (as I said before) if not that, then something else.

I feel like they could have built and launched three imperfect versions for less cost in the hopes one worked.

ETA: I said three but wiki sez
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Web ... _Telescope
the conception in 2003 was 2.5 billion and here we are at almost 10 billion. So, four of them

I hope they do launch, even if it fails. Sometimes KISS is a valuable lesson in itself.

ETA2: On further perusal of wiki, I find:

The [JW] telescope's delays and cost increases can be compared to the Hubble Space Telescope.[53] When Hubble formally started in 1972, it had an estimated development cost of US$300 million (or about US$1 billion in 2006 constant dollars),[53] but by the time it was sent into orbit in 1990, the cost was about four times that.[53] In addition, new instruments and servicing missions increased the cost to at least US$9 billion by 2006.[53]

Okay. I admit Hubble was worth it. But I'm reminded that Hubble would have been a catastrophic failure but for the possibility of a repair mission. No such repair is possible for Mr. Webb.

Anaxagoras · Post by **Anaxagoras** » Fri Jul 17, 2020 12:41 pm

Witness · Post by **Witness** » Fri Jul 17, 2020 3:18 pm

For those interested, here's a map for July:

In other astro news: Five Planets Will Be Visible This Sunday Along with a Crescent Moon: How To See Them Without a Telescope.

Witness · Post by **Witness** » Sun Jul 19, 2020 3:54 am

This is the most comprehensive X-ray map of the sky ever made

Scientists used data from the first full scan of the sky made by the eROSITA X-ray telescope

A new map of the entire sky, as seen in X-rays, looks deeper into space than any other of its kind.

The map, released June 19, is based on data from the first full scan of the sky made by the eROSITA X-ray telescope onboard the Russian-German SRG spacecraft, which launched in July 2019. The six-month, all-sky survey, which began in December and wrapped up in June, is only the first of eight total sky surveys that eROSITA will perform over the next few years. But this sweep alone cataloged some 1.1 million X-ray sources across the cosmos — just about doubling the number of known X-ray emitters in the universe.

These hot and energetic objects include Milky Way stars and supermassive black holes at the centers of other galaxies, some of which are billions of light-years away and date back to when the universe was just one-tenth of its current age.

eROSITA’s new map reveals objects about four times as faint as could be seen in the last survey of the whole X-ray sky, conducted by the ROSAT space telescope in the 1990s (SN: 6/29/91). The new images “are just spectacular to look at,” says Harvey Tananbaum, an astrophysicist at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics in Cambridge, Mass., not involved in the mission. “You have this tremendous capability of looking at the near and the far … and then, of course, delving in detail to the parts of the images that you’re most interested in.”

https://www.sciencenews.org/article/xra ... -milky-way for technical details & more pics.

Fid · Post by **Fid** » Sun Jul 19, 2020 2:15 pm

What that image does not show however is the super secret stuff. Stuff like the brain implants the x-rays control which allows the government to use the helium neon argon lasers to give at least one guy that hangs around the grocery store unwanted erections. Also they make his feet stink.

Witness · Post by **Witness** » Thu Jul 23, 2020 1:40 am

First image of a multi-planet system around a sun-like star

The European Southern Observatory's Very Large Telescope (ESO's VLT) has taken the first ever image of a young, sun-like star accompanied by two giant exoplanets. Images of systems with multiple exoplanets are extremely rare, and—until now—astronomers had never directly observed more than one planet orbiting a star similar to the sun. The observations can help astronomers understand how planets formed and evolved around our own sun.

Just a few weeks ago, ESO revealed a planetary system being born in a new, stunning VLT image (www.eso.org/public/news/eso2008). Now, the same telescope, using the same instrument (www.eso.org/public/teles-instr … vlt/vlt-instr/sphere), has taken the first direct image of a planetary system around a star like our sun, located about 300 light-years away and known as TYC 8998-760-1.

"This discovery is a snapshot of an environment that is very similar to our solar system, but at a much earlier stage of its evolution," says Alexander Bohn, a Ph.D. student at Leiden University in the Netherlands, who led the new research published today in the Astrophysical Journal Letters.

"Even though astronomers have indirectly detected thousands of planets in our galaxy, only a tiny fraction of these exoplanets have been directly imaged," says co-author Matthew Kenworthy, Associate Professor at Leiden University, adding that "direct observations are important in the search for environments that can support life." The direct imaging of two or more exoplanets around the same star is even more rare; only two such systems have been directly observed so far, both around stars markedly different from our sun. The new ESO's VLT (www.eso.org/public/teles-instr … anal-observatory/vlt) image is the first direct image of more than one exoplanet around a sun-like star. ESO's VLT was also the first telescope to directly image an exoplanet, back in 2004, when it captured a speck of light around a brown dwarf, a type of 'failed' star.

https://phys.org/news/2020-07-image-mul ... -star.html

See also: https://www.eso.org/public/news/eso2008/

shemp · Post by **shemp** » Thu Jul 23, 2020 3:05 am

How come we can get pictures like that, but Bigfoot is always blurry?

Witness · Post by **Witness** » Thu Jul 23, 2020 3:11 am

shemp wrote: ↑Thu Jul 23, 2020 3:05 am How come we can get pictures like that, but Bigfoot is always blurry?

Because you're always drunk when you hang out with him, duh.

Anaxagoras · Post by **Anaxagoras** » Thu Jul 23, 2020 3:12 am

Bigfoot is a forest ninja.

Witness · Post by **Witness** » Thu Jul 23, 2020 9:57 pm

Comet Neowise from the Brecon Beacons (Wales).

Anaxagoras · Post by **Anaxagoras** » Fri Jul 24, 2020 5:33 pm

Link: https://twitter.com/UniverCurious/status/1286522150199984128

Bruce · Post by **Bruce** » Fri Jul 24, 2020 8:33 pm

Literally took all day.

Witness · Post by **Witness** » Fri Jul 24, 2020 8:59 pm

↑ Great video!

There's something flying by between 15 and 16 s. Screenshot:

Anaxagoras · Post by **Anaxagoras** » Fri Jul 24, 2020 11:39 pm

Another satellite perhaps? Or an airplane?

robinson · Post by **robinson** » Fri Jul 24, 2020 11:43 pm

Bruce wrote: ↑Fri Jul 24, 2020 8:33 pm Literally took all day.

A day for the ISS is less than two hours

robinson · Post by **robinson** » Fri Jul 24, 2020 11:43 pm

But it was a good joke

Rob Lister · Post by **Rob Lister** » Sat Jul 25, 2020 10:14 am

Anaxagoras wrote: ↑Fri Jul 24, 2020 11:39 pm Another satellite perhaps? Or an airplane?

It appears way too large to be an airplane flying a couple of hundred km below it. It's velocity is pretty close to that of the ISS (or we'd never see it) so if it is in orbit , it's a fairly near orbit. The video is speed up 4 times but I suppose it's possible to use the frame rate to work out the exact velocity and therefore the exact orbit and therefore the exact distance and therefore the exact size.

Anaxagoras · Post by **Anaxagoras** » Sat Jul 25, 2020 10:37 am

A UFO then. More proof!

Bruce · Post by **Bruce** » Sat Jul 25, 2020 12:56 pm

Anaxagoras wrote: ↑Sat Jul 25, 2020 10:37 am A UFO then. More proof!

No comment from Lord Kilik?