Tag: astronomy
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We need to do more about light pollution
Paul M. Sutter for Universe Today: For years we’ve assumed that streetlights are the main culprit behind light pollution, but a recent study has shown that streetlights contribute no more than 20% of all the pollution, and if we want to solve this vexing astronomical problem, we have to think harder. Tuscon, Arizona did a…
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A new badge for Lackawanna Astronomical Society
This post is in a series I call The Grand Brand Design Challenge where I’m trying to flex my muscles in brand design. The Lackawanna Astronomical Society is a club membership for astronomical enthusiasts in the county that I live in. I frequent one of the observatories that they use for their events. When I…
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Capturing Starman from Earth
Rogelio Bernal Andreo: Astrophotography can be applied in many different ways. I utilize technology that allows me to capture ancient photons so that I can later process and create my own interpretation of the data captured, effectively blending art and science like not many other disciplines do, but I don’t usually track “small pixels in…
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Shooting a car at Mars
Space X (watch this video): The first test flight of Falcon Heavy is targeted for Tuesday, Feb. 6th at 1:30 PM ET from Launch Complex 39A at Kennedy Space Center in Florida. When Falcon Heavy lifts off, it will be the most powerful operational rocket in the world by a factor of two. With the…
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1I/2017 U1 `Oumuamua
ESO: For the first time ever astronomers have studied an asteroid that has entered the Solar System from interstellar space. !!!!!! This created a unique problem for the naming of this object. The IAU also created a new class of objects for interstellar asteroids, with this object being the first to receive this designation. When…
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August’s kilonova in NGC 4993
Robert Naeye for Astronomy magazine, on the instrumentation that detected a 130M year-old kilonova: The LIGO and Virgo instruments detected a crescendo of waves for a whopping 100 seconds — much longer than previous detections. The duration, amplitude, and frequency of the waves had all the characteristics that theorists have expected for a binary system…
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ESO observes kilonovae
European Southern Observatory: ESO’s fleet of telescopes in Chile have detected the first visible counterpart to a gravitational wave source. These historic observations suggest that this unique object is the result of the merger of two neutron stars. The cataclysmic aftermaths of this kind of merger — long-predicted events called kilonovae — disperse heavy elements…
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Kip Thorne wins the Nobel
Nobel Media AB: On 14 September 2015, the universe’s gravitational waves were observed for the very first time. The waves, which were predicted by Albert Einstein a hundred years ago, came from a collision between two black holes. It took 1.3 billion years for the waves to arrive at the LIGO detector in the USA.…
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Clark Telescope, Keystone Observatory – September 2017
Clark Telescope, Keystone Observatory – September 2017
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Cassini dies tomorrow
Lee Billings for Scientific American: All good things must come to an end. For NASA’s Cassini orbiter—its fuel dwindling after 13 years exploring Saturn, along with the planet’s sprawling rings and dozens of icy moons—the end will come Friday at 7:55 A.M. Eastern time. That’s when mission planners project radio communications will be lost with…
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Repost: Emily Lakdawalla on Voyager’s 40th Anniversary
👉 Emily Lakdawalla on The Planetary Society blog: The fact that both Voyager spacecraft are still functioning and doing science, 40 years after their launches, is reason for optimism. We can build robust, adaptable machines capable of surviving unpredicted storms and responding to new discoveries. We can build them, launch them, and stably operate them for…
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Florence’s two moons
Center for NEO Studies PR on Astronomy Now: Radar images of asteroid 3122 Florence obtained at the 70-metre antenna at NASA’s Goldstone Deep Space Communications Complex between August 29 and September 1 have revealed that the asteroid has two small moons, and also confirmed that main asteroid Florence is about 4.5 km (2.8 miles) in…
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Capturing the ISS’s transit of the Sun during the eclipse
This is quite a feat. Photographer Trevor Mahlmann figured out where you’d need to be within the path of totality in order to capture the International Space Station transiting the sun during the eclipse. That alone is pretty awesome. But there was a hitch. The land area that you’d need to be on in order…
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TRAPPIST-1
The following two sentences encapsulate an incredible feat in the advancement of human discovery: TRAPPIST-1 is a planetary system, located 12 parsecs away from the Solar system (39 light years), near the ecliptic, within the constellation of Aquarius. Around a star which is 12 times less massive than the Sun and only slightly larger than Jupiter,…
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The crescent of Venus
Harold Jenkins: From February through March 2017 Venus will put on quite a show in the west after sunset. Unmistakably bright, its crescent will be getting thinner while the disc of the planet itself is increasing in size – meaning the planet will maintain its brightness, even though its appearance through binoculars, telescopes, and high-zoom…