Sinkholes in a Comet

Looks like earth is not the only place to develop sink holes.  Check out this article on the sinkholes on comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko.   SkyandTelescope

Comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko

Comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko

Pluto, we're almost there.

In just shy of two weeks the New Horizons spacecraft will arrive at the dwarf planet Pluto on July 14, 2015.  A mission that spanned nearly a decade; a spacecraft traveling 3 billion miles; will climax in a single day as New Horizons will speed past Pluto at 32,500 MPH.

If all goes well we will see Pluto in detail never before possible.  This is the event of 2015!  And, you might not know, but New Horizons is controlled from right here in Maryland at the Applied Physics Lab.

Lots of details and up-to-the-minute coverage of this historic event can be found at New Horizons.

Bright Spots on Ceres ... and now a Pyramid.

As each new image of Ceres arrives at earth the more perplexing the dwarf planet grows. NASA’s Dawn spacecraft has now identified several more bright spots as well as a pyramid-like peak miles high. More details can be found here.

Bad news from the SpaceX folks

SpaceX's Falcon 9 rocket broke up in a fiery blast on Sunday just minutes after its launch with a robotic Dragon cargo capsule headed for the International Space Station.

Details at NBC News

Faces of Pluto

As the New Horizons spacecraft gets closer to its encounter with the dwarf planet Pluto, some fantastic images are starting to stream in from its current location almost 3 billion miles from Earth.
At that distance it takes about 4hrs and 20min for the signal to get to us from the spacecraft.

New Horizons is a little over 18 million miles from Pluto, moving at 8.6 miles per second, or about 31,000 MPH!

These images, taken by New Horizons' Long Range Reconnaissance Imager (LORRI), show four different "faces" of Pluto as it rotates about its axis with a period of 6.4 days. All the images have been rotated to align Pluto's rotational axis with the vertical direction (up-down) on the figure, as depicted schematically in the upper left.

New Horizons is just over 25 days and 12 hours to its historic rendezvous with Pluto.
 
For lots of up-to-the-minute information on the mission, check out New Horizons.

Philae wakes up

In a post back in November I wrote about the ESA spacecraft Rosetta and the small spacecraft, Philae, that was to land on a comet. And although it did, there were problems ... it didn't land where it was supposed to and ended up in a ravine with lots of shadows. Soon after, the batteries went dead due to lack of sunlight on the solar panels and contact with Philae was lost.

It was hoped that as the comet got closer to the sun it would recharge and phone home. That occurred at 22:28 CEST (Central European Summer Time) on 13 June!!

Welcome back, Philae !!!!

Details can be found on rosetta blog.

Quantum Weirdness Confirmed!

Experiment confirms quantum theory weirdness

The bizarre nature of reality as laid out by quantum theory has survived another test, with scientists performing a famous experiment and proving that reality does not exist until it is measured.

This is really weird stuff, things that I researched when I was in undergraduate studies in Physics back in the '70s.  To see the experiment today showing the 'weirdness' is incredibly exciting.

For the complete article see Science Daily.

M20 - The Trifid Nebula

Here is M20, a gaseous nebula found in the constellation Sagittarius. This is my first attempt at imaging an object that is low in the southern sky where I am fighting the worst of the light pollution.

M20 - EdgeHD-11 with Hyperstar
50x20sec+40x30sec (36 min)  ISO800
May 23, 2015

 

This image is essentially a 'test image', not the final. It was taken with my new Canon 70D attached to my 11" SCT telescope with a Hyperstar (wide field, fast optics) lens. It is composed of 90 individual photographs (50, 20sec and 40 30sec images at ISO 800). There was no post processing to reduce noise. Once the skies clear again (and who knows when that will be!) I'll add another 120-150 images, apply the appropriate noise reduction and post the updated final photo.

'Bright Spot' on Ceres Has Dimmer Companion

Dwarf planet Ceres continues to puzzle scientists as NASA's Dawn spacecraft gets closer to being captured into orbit around the object. The latest images from Dawn, taken nearly 29,000 miles (46,000 kilometers) from Ceres, reveal that a bright spot that stands out in previous images lies close to yet another bright area.

Maybe an alien base?  Or a real 'death star'?  Probably not, but just what it is is anyone's guess right now. Check out NASA for more about this interesting anomaly.

New Horizons sends back video of Pluto and Charon, it's largest moon

Just 11 weeks left to go until the closest flyby of New Horizons by Pluto. Images, released on April 29, 2015, show Pluto and its largest moon Charon, which is as large as Texas, revolving about their common center of mass.

For the animated video of Pluto and Charon go to Cosmic Pursuits.

Dawn Views Ceres' North Pole

 

After spending more than a month in orbit on the dark side of dwarf planet Ceres, NASA's Dawn spacecraft has captured several views of the sunlit north pole of this intriguing world. These images were taken on April 10 from a distance of 21,000 miles (33,000 kilometers), and they represent the highest-resolution views of Ceres to date.

See NASA for details.