* The Official Astronomy & Universe Thread *

Cosimo · 3 Sep 2016 at 04:09

The Solar Dynamics Observatory catches both Earth and the moon passing in front of the sun:

Cosimo · 3 Sep 2016 at 06:27

Prepare to be amazed...

Closing in on Jupiter's North Pole

As NASA's Juno spacecraft closed in on Jupiter for its Aug. 27, 2016 pass, its view grew sharper and fine details in the north polar region became increasingly visible.

The JunoCam instrument obtained this view on August 27, about two hours before closest approach, when the spacecraft was 120,000 miles (195,000 kilometers) away from the giant planet (i.e., for Jupiter's center).

Unlike the equatorial region's familiar structure of belts and zones, the poles are mottled with rotating storms of various sizes, similar to giant versions of terrestrial hurricanes. Jupiter's poles have not been seen from this perspective since the Pioneer 11 spacecraft flew by the planet in 1974.

NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, California, manages the Juno mission for the principal investigator, Scott Bolton, of Southwest Research Institute in San Antonio. The Juno mission is part of the New Frontiers Program managed at NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama. Lockheed Martin Space Systems, Denver, built the spacecraft. JPL is a division of Caltech in Pasadena.

More information about Juno is online at http://www.nasa.gov/juno and http://missionjuno.swri.edu.

Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/SwRI/MSSS

Thirteen hours of radio emissions from Jupiter's intense auroras are presented here, both visually and in sound. The data was collected when the spacecraft made its first orbital pass of the gas giant on Aug 27, 2016, with all spacecraft instruments turned on. The frequency range of these signals is from 7 to 140 kilohertz. Radio astronomers call these "kilometric emissions" because their wavelengths are about a kilometer long.

More:

https://www.nasa.gov/feature/jpl/jupiter-s-north-pole-unlike-anything-encountered-in-solar-system

Cosimo · 3 Sep 2016 at 06:29

Closing in on Jupiter's North Pole

As NASA's Juno spacecraft closed in on Jupiter for its Aug. 27, 2016 pass, its view grew sharper and fine details in the north polar region became increasingly visible.

The JunoCam instrument obtained this view on August 27, about two hours before closest approach, when the spacecraft was 120,000 miles (195,000 kilometers) away from the giant planet (i.e., for Jupiter's center).

Unlike the equatorial region's familiar structure of belts and zones, the poles are mottled with rotating storms of various sizes, similar to giant versions of terrestrial hurricanes. Jupiter's poles have not been seen from this perspective since the Pioneer 11 spacecraft flew by the planet in 1974.

NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, California, manages the Juno mission for the principal investigator, Scott Bolton, of Southwest Research Institute in San Antonio. The Juno mission is part of the New Frontiers Program managed at NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama. Lockheed Martin Space Systems, Denver, built the spacecraft. JPL is a division of Caltech in Pasadena.

More information about Juno is online at http://www.nasa.gov/juno and http://missionjuno.swri.edu.

Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/SwRI/MSSS

Cosimo · 12 Sep 2016 at 06:32

A team of Caltech astronomers created what could be the most accurate computer simulation of our galaxy's birth. According to computations for older simulations, our galaxy should be surrounded by thousands of dwarf galaxies. In reality there are only around 30 dwarf galaxies nearby:

More:

http://www.caltech.edu/news/recreating-our-galaxy-supercomputer-51995

Cosimo · 13 Sep 2016 at 07:09

Spectacular Curiosity Mars rover pictures from Martian mountains:

Farewell to Murray Buttes (Image 4)

Curiosity got close to this outcrop on Sept. 9, 2016, which displays finely layered rocks.

This view from the Mast Camera (Mastcam) on NASA's Curiosity Mars rover shows an outcrop with finely layered rocks within the "Murray Buttes" region on lower Mount Sharp.

The buttes and mesas rising above the surface in this area are eroded remnants of ancient sandstone that originated when winds deposited sand after lower Mount Sharp had formed. Curiosity closely examined that layer -- called the "Stimson formation" -- during the first half of 2016, while crossing a feature called "Naukluft Plateau" between two exposures of the Murray formation. The layering within the sandstone is called "cross-bedding" and indicates that the sandstone was deposited by wind as migrating sand dunes.

The image was taken on Sept. 8, 2016, during the 1454th Martian day, or sol, of Curiosity's work on Mars.

Malin Space Science Systems, San Diego, built and operates the rover's Mastcam. NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, a division of Caltech in Pasadena, manages the Mars Science Laboratory Project for NASA's Science Mission Directorate, Washington. JPL designed and built the project's Curiosity rover.

For more information about the Mars Science Laboratory mission and the mission's Curiosity rover, visit http://www.nasa.gov/msl and http://mars.nasa.gov/msl/.

Image Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS

More and the other pictures:

http://mars.nasa.gov/msl/news/whatsnew/index.cfm?FuseAction=ShowNews&NewsID=1932

Cosimo · 13 Sep 2016 at 07:48

Better late than never...

Cosimo · 14 Sep 2016 at 07:19

Astronomers observe star reborn in a flash:

An international team of astronomers using Hubble have been able to study stellar evolution in real time. Over a period of 30 years dramatic increases in the temperature of the star SAO 244567 have been observed. Now the star is cooling again, having been reborn into an earlier phase of stellar evolution. This makes it the first reborn star to have been observed during both the heating and cooling stages of rebirth.

This animation shows the fast evolution of SAO 244567. The animation starts 10 300 BC, with the star having a radius 152 times the size of the Sun and a surface temperature of about 3500 degree Celsius, giving it its orange colour. At this point of its life the star had already lost half of its initial mass.

After 10 000 years the star slowly shrinks to only 40 times the size of the Sun; at the same time its temperature rises to 6800 degree Celsius, causing its colour to change to white-yellow. As the star heats up to about 20 000 degree Celsius Helium fusion inside the star suddenly gets re-ignited — the late thermal pulse.

After the flash the star heats quickly and becomes a blue-white star with a temperature of 21 000 degree Celsius, only 4 times larger than the Sun. SAO 244567 shrinks further till it only a third the size of the Sun and a temperature of 60 000 degree Celsius; this status was reached in the year 2002. Now new observations show that the star is still blue and hot — with about 50 000 degree Celsius — but started to expand again: its size is about two third of our Sun.

Within the next few hundreds of years SAO 244567 will expand back to its giant dimensions and also change its colour to orange — as shown at the end of the animation.

More:

https://www.spacetelescope.org/news/heic1618/

Cosimo · 15 Sep 2016 at 07:26

The first batch of data from ESA's Gaia mission has been released, containing, among other things, three-dimensional positions and two dimensional motions of a subset of two million stars.

The full map of one billion stars is to be released towards the end of 2017.

More:

http://www.esa.int/Our_Activities/Space_Science/Gaia

Cosimo · 17 Sep 2016 at 09:02

Cassini's April Saturn movie:

Cosimo · 22 Sep 2016 at 07:03

The study of magnetic reconnection:

sityeuropa · 23 Sep 2016 at 01:09

Looking forward to the Europa news on Monday from Nasa.

Hopefully will kick start a probe mission there.

Cosimo · 23 Sep 2016 at 07:38

An inspection of ESA’s deep-space tracking station at Cebreros, near Madrid:

Cosimo · 24 Sep 2016 at 07:21

A gem:

This award-winning short film transforms images and data from NASA's Hubble Space Telescope into a voyage that sweeps viewers across the universe and back into cosmic history.

The film opens with looming images of two mature galaxies that are relatively nearby Earth, and then pans through the vibrant and diverse panorama of thousands of galaxies in an image from the Great Observatories Origins Deep Survey. The ensuing 3-D journey through these galaxies provides more than just a new perspective in space; it also takes the audience back in time. Because light takes time to journey across space, the galaxies farther away from Earth are seen further back in cosmic history. The virtual voyage reveals galaxies as they appeared billions of years ago, when they were still in the process of forming.

Originally released as an IMAX film, "Hubble: Galaxies Across Space and Time" was named "Best Short Film" of 2004 by the Large Format Cinema Association.

A production of the Office of Public Outreach at the Space Telescope Science Institute (STScI)
Producer: John Stoke
Director: Frank Summers
Writers: John Stoke and Frank Summers
Visualization Leads: Greg Bacon and Frank Summers
Narrator: Barbara Feldon
Music: Jon Serrie

Cosimo · 26 Sep 2016 at 07:26

A look at how five layers of Kapton will enable the James Webb Space Telescope to deflect heat:

sityeuropa · 26 Sep 2016 at 11:38

Hopefully news of an ocean on Europa today.

NeilF · 26 Sep 2016 at 11:42

sityeuropa said:
Hopefully news of an ocean on Europa today.

Really? What have I missed?

sityeuropa · 26 Sep 2016 at 11:45

From Nasa

Monday, we’ll announce new findings from Jupiter’s moon Europa. Spoiler alert: NOT aliens: http://go.nasa.gov/2d1aVG7

Cosimo · 27 Sep 2016 at 07:27

Hubble Spots Possible Water Plumes Erupting on Jupiter's Moon Europa:

Astronomers using NASA's Hubble Space Telescope have imaged what may be water vapor plumes erupting off the surface of Jupiter's moon Europa. This finding bolsters other Hubble observations suggesting the icy moon erupts with high altitude water vapor plumes.

The observation increases the possibility that missions to Europa may be able to sample Europa’s ocean without having to drill through miles of ice.

“Europa’s ocean is considered to be one of the most promising places that could potentially harbor life in the solar system,” said Geoff Yoder, acting associate administrator for NASA’s Science Mission Directorate in Washington. “These plumes, if they do indeed exist, may provide another way to sample Europa’s subsurface.”

The plumes are estimated to rise about 125 miles (200 kilometers) before, presumably, raining material back down onto Europa's surface. Europa has a huge global ocean containing twice as much water as Earth’s oceans, but it is protected by a layer of extremely cold and hard ice of unknown thickness. The plumes provide a tantalizing opportunity to gather samples originating from under the surface without having to land or drill through the ice.

The team, led by William Sparks of the Space Telescope Science Institute (STScI) in Baltimore observed these finger-like projections while viewing Europa's limb as the moon passed in front of Jupiter.

The original goal of the team's observing proposal was to determine whether Europa has a thin, extended atmosphere, or exosphere. Using the same observing method that detects atmospheres around planets orbiting other stars, the team realized if there was water vapor venting from Europa’s surface, this observation would be an excellent way to see it.

"The atmosphere of an extrasolar planet blocks some of the starlight that is behind it," Sparks explained. "If there is a thin atmosphere around Europa, it has the potential to block some of the light of Jupiter, and we could see it as a silhouette. And so we were looking for absorption features around the limb of Europa as it transited the smooth face of Jupiter."

In 10 separate occurrences spanning 15 months, the team observed Europa passing in front of Jupiter. They saw what could be plumes erupting on three of these occasions.

More:

http://www.nasa.gov/press-release/n...water-plumes-erupting-on-jupiters-moon-europa

Cosimo · 28 Sep 2016 at 07:30

Viewing time:

Cosimo · 29 Sep 2016 at 07:04

Great lecture:

Revealing Saturn: Cassini Science Highlights and the Grand Finale

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