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Bad Astronomy
2 Oct 2019, 13:00 UTC
Not how far we are from the center, which we know pretty well now (about 26,700 light years), but how far we are from the midplane of the galaxy. Our Milky Way galaxy is a flat disk 100,000 light years or so across, but it's also about 1,000 light years thick. The actual thickness is hard to define, since the stars kinda fade away as you go up (or down) from the disk, like the Earth's atmosphere thins out as you increase altitude. Also, how thick it is depends on what you measure!
Where is the Sun located in the Milky Way?
2 Oct 2019, 13:00 UTC
Not how far we are from the center, which we know pretty well now (about 26,700 light years), but how far we are from the midplane of the galaxy. Our Milky Way galaxy is a flat disk 100,000 light years or so across, but it's also about 1,000 light years thick. The actual thickness is hard to define, since the stars kinda fade away as you go up (or down) from the disk, like the Earth's atmosphere thins out as you increase altitude. Also, how thick it is depends on what you measure!
SciTech Daily
2 Oct 2019, 07:54 UTC
Gregory Laughlin and Malena Rice weren’t exactly surprised a few weeks ago when they learned that a second interstellar object had made its way into our solar system. The Yale University astronomers had just put the finishing touches on a new study suggesting that these strange, icy visitors from other planets are going to keep right on coming. We can expect a few large objects showing up every year, they say; smaller objects entering the solar system could reach into the hundreds each year.
More Interstellar Objects – Strange, Icy Visitors From Other Planets – Are Coming
2 Oct 2019, 07:54 UTC
Gregory Laughlin and Malena Rice weren’t exactly surprised a few weeks ago when they learned that a second interstellar object had made its way into our solar system. The Yale University astronomers had just put the finishing touches on a new study suggesting that these strange, icy visitors from other planets are going to keep right on coming. We can expect a few large objects showing up every year, they say; smaller objects entering the solar system could reach into the hundreds each year.
SciTech Daily
2 Oct 2019, 03:30 UTC
Last night, NASA’s Juno mission to Jupiter successfully executed a 10.5-hour propulsive maneuver — extraordinarily long by mission standards. The goal of the burn, as it’s known, will keep the solar-powered spacecraft out of what would have been a mission-ending shadow cast by Jupiter on the spacecraft during its next close flyby of the planet on November 3, 2019.
To Avoid Freezing to Death, NASA’s Juno Prepares to Jump Jupiter’s Shadow
2 Oct 2019, 03:30 UTC
Last night, NASA’s Juno mission to Jupiter successfully executed a 10.5-hour propulsive maneuver — extraordinarily long by mission standards. The goal of the burn, as it’s known, will keep the solar-powered spacecraft out of what would have been a mission-ending shadow cast by Jupiter on the spacecraft during its next close flyby of the planet on November 3, 2019.
Spaceflight Now
1 Oct 2019, 16:58 UTC
Boeing engineers in New Mexico are readying a Starliner spacecraft for a critical pad abort test this fall to demonstrate the capsule’s ability to escape an emergency on the launch pad before green-lighting the capsule to carry astronauts.
Boeing closing in on Starliner pad abort test
1 Oct 2019, 16:58 UTC
Boeing engineers in New Mexico are readying a Starliner spacecraft for a critical pad abort test this fall to demonstrate the capsule’s ability to escape an emergency on the launch pad before green-lighting the capsule to carry astronauts.
Nanowerk Space Exploration News
1 Oct 2019, 13:19 UTC
An international team of astronomers with participation by researchers from DAWN, Niels Bohr Institute, University of Copenhagen has discovered a protocluster of galaxies 13.0 billion light years away using the Subaru, Keck, and Gemini Telescopes in Hawaii. A protocluster is a structure of galaxies still in the process of forming a cluster.
Record breaking observations find most remote protocluster of galaxies
1 Oct 2019, 13:19 UTC
An international team of astronomers with participation by researchers from DAWN, Niels Bohr Institute, University of Copenhagen has discovered a protocluster of galaxies 13.0 billion light years away using the Subaru, Keck, and Gemini Telescopes in Hawaii. A protocluster is a structure of galaxies still in the process of forming a cluster.
SciTech Daily
1 Oct 2019, 09:06 UTC
This infrared image from NASA’s Spitzer Space Telescope shows a cloud of gas and dust full of bubbles, which are inflated by wind and radiation from young, massive stars. Each bubble is filled with hundreds to thousands of stars, which form from dense clouds of gas and dust.
Starry Region Bursting With Bubbles and Bow Shocks Spotted by Spitzer
1 Oct 2019, 09:06 UTC
This infrared image from NASA’s Spitzer Space Telescope shows a cloud of gas and dust full of bubbles, which are inflated by wind and radiation from young, massive stars. Each bubble is filled with hundreds to thousands of stars, which form from dense clouds of gas and dust.
The Planetary Society Blog
30 Sep 2019, 18:51 UTC
For 5 nights in July 2019, shortly after dusk, an American landmark disappeared from the Washington, D.C. skyline. The spotlights on the Washington Monument dimmed to reveal a monumental tribute to the Space Age: a life-sized projection of the Saturn V rocket, the tallest, heaviest, most powerful launch vehicle ever built. Expelling digital puffs of water vapor as it towered over the National Mall, the dynamic projection breathed new life into NASA's 50-year-old Apollo moon landing program.
Tourism: Apollo's Forgotten Legacy
30 Sep 2019, 18:51 UTC
For 5 nights in July 2019, shortly after dusk, an American landmark disappeared from the Washington, D.C. skyline. The spotlights on the Washington Monument dimmed to reveal a monumental tribute to the Space Age: a life-sized projection of the Saturn V rocket, the tallest, heaviest, most powerful launch vehicle ever built. Expelling digital puffs of water vapor as it towered over the National Mall, the dynamic projection breathed new life into NASA's 50-year-old Apollo moon landing program.
Astronomy Now
30 Sep 2019, 15:50 UTC
Galaxies plowing through the gas and dust permeating vast clusters can leave trails in their wakes made up of material torn away in a process known as ram-pressure stripping. A spiral galaxy known as ESO 137-001 is a well-known example of this spectacular phenomenon, taking on the appearance of a jellyfish trailing long tentacles through space. The Hubble Space Telescope sees hints of the stripped-away material while the Chandra X-ray Observatory reveals an enormous stream of hot gas streaming away into space. Now, the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array, or ALMA, radio telescope, working in concert with the European Southern Observatory’s Very Large Telescope, has allowed astronomers to map out cold molecular gas in the trailing clouds.
