One of my first books on Astronomy was about the planets. It had a collection of pictures from the first missions to each of the worlds in our solar system. Seeing those photos, the planets felt so alien, so different, and the perspective was like something out a 1950s science fiction comic. But now, with modern advancements in imaging technology and rocketry, we can send heavier instruments to distant worlds, and see them in high definition. It changes the perspective and makes the world seem more familiar than alien, more livable and real. Take a look at the first picture...
Jupiter has aurora. It’s not surprising since it has a very powerful magnetic field. It’s only natural that the two largest structures in the solar system, the Sun’s solar wind influence (called the heliosphere) and Jupiter’s magnetosphere, should be constantly battling. But don’t expect to see Jupiter’s aurora through a backyard telescope. The result of this battle is far more energetic, producing an aurora invisible to the human eye, one made of X-rays. The Sun constantly blasts charged particles off into space in all directions, assaulting the planets, moons, and other solar system bodies. It is this blast of solar wind that gives...
Since diving into astrophotography last year, I’ve discovered that I love the concept of time-lapse, and not just with respect to astronomy. It’s amazing to see the changes that can occur over long periods of time, and time-lapse photography is a way to record the changes and see how they unfold. In astronomy the best time-lapses give you a sense of the Earth’s motion through space, show satellites zipping overhead, and show aurora dance along with weather patterns. Large amounts of time with slow incremental changes produce incredible results when it comes to time lapses. Science communication is about how to...
I saw this pop up on Reddit yesterday, where user /u/bubbleweed posted a video to r/astronomy showing Jupiter with a clear sign of an impactor. It was independently observed in Austria at the exact same time. Notice that both videos show the exact same thing. In the reddit thread, users encourage the original poster to report it to the Planetary Virtual Observatory and Laboratory in hopes of getting follow up from the Hubble telescope. It is strikingly similar to a 2010 confirmed impact event. The ‘explosion’ of the potential impactor might make you think it’s fake, that it couldn’t explode because...
One of the most surprising and intriguing finds during the decade-long Cassini mission has been the discovery of geysers on the Moon Enceladus. Originally spotted in 2005, scientists have spent the last decade trying to understand how they work. And now they finally have a working model. How does an eruption on a frigid Moon last so long? Eruptions on Earth are not long-lived, and if they are, they are very spread out. For Enceladus to have a ton of localized geysers in the South polar region, you need some pretty specific scenarios. Aside from the fact that a constant stream of material could clog...
It’s always funny explaining astronomical time to a non-scientist. I often get the craziest looks when I mention a million years as being a ‘blip on the radar.’ Perhaps there is some immortal alien race out there who would understand how nothing much happens on the scale of the universe in a million years. To humanity and our ever-accelerating advancement, a million years is thrice the age of our entire species. But I guess Einstein was right when he said that ‘it’s all relative.’ This brings us to Saturn, a planet as ancient as the solar system. Moderately old in...
NASA has been zeroing in on certain features of dwarf planet Ceres and looked at them in more detail. Here are the most surprising as well as what we know so far. There are a few other great videos in this playlist, but the first one gives a great summary of what has been seen so far. The most surprising and interesting feature of Ceres in my opinion has been the Occator crater. With the enigmatic bright spots that have been observed since the Dawn spacecraft approached Ceres, we are seeing them in finer detail than ever before, and we...
I just released a post about the Kepler Space Telescope and its observation of the shock breakout of an exploding star, the exact moment when it’s considered a supernova. Further to this I wanted to show some of the great visualizations of the event, and to show you just how energetic and luminous a supernova really is, compared to our Sun. The video shows the shock breakout, the bright flash lasting an hour, before the star rapidly increases in brightness to it’s maximum. Not shown is the gradual fading of the supernova, which can take days or even weeks....
The most violent single event in the universe is the death of a massive star, a supernova. We have seen several different types, though the common element is a massive explosion, taking a star hiding amongst the background into an eruption that outshines it’s entire host galaxy. We have seen the brightness grow and fade over the duration of a supernova event, but we have never seen one just as it’s starting. Until now. Would you ever have thought that the Kepler space telescope, a planet hunter that continuously observes stars, could see supernovae? The key is in the words ‘continuously observed.’ By keeping...
It’s been nine months since NASA’s New Horizons spacecraft flew past Pluto. Time sure does fly. And even though the spacecraft is moving further from Pluto and Earth, it’s still sending back the massive amounts of data it gathered during closest approach. As this data is received, the huge team of scientists that are part of the mission use it to characterize Pluto so humanity can begin to understand just how strange the distant dwarf Planet is. Five new papers characterize some of the latest science done on the enigmatic world. Here’s a quick summary of each: The first paper from...
