This incredible video was just released by the National Space Society as the New Horizons team is primed to receive the first wave of data from the distant Pluto system. It feels more like a movie trailer, except that it is 100% true. I was left speechless by this amazing video and you will be too. The mission comes to a head on July 14th with the close flyby of Pluto and its five moons, though it’s possible there will be more moons discovered during the flyby. If you want the latest mission updates and to follow along, go to http://seeplutonow.com/. I...
What is the brightest object in the sky? Why the Sun of course. Second brightest? The Moon. Most people are able to answer this question quite easily, but what is the third brightest? The fourth? Many people will confidently say Sirius, the brightest star in the sky, or Polaris the north star. The answer is that the planet Venus is third and the planet Jupiter is fourth. It shouldn’t be that surprising that planets hold these positions. They are much closer than the distant background of stars, and the human species has been observing them since the dawn of recorded...
Since it’s landing made international headlines back in November as it landed on Comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko, the Philae lander has been in hibernation mode, not able to generate enough power to operate due to a lack of direct sunlight on its solar panels. But after 7 months, as the comet has come closer to the Sun, the increasing solar intensity has given it the boost it needed to wake up! “Philae is doing very well: It has an operating temperature of -35ºC and has 24 Watts available,” explains DLR Philae Project Manager Dr. Stephan Ulamec. “The lander is ready for operations.” The...
The Rosetta orbiter, currently studying comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko as it orbits the Sun, has been watching how the comet has changed as it moves toward its perihelion (point of closest approach to the Sun) in August of 2015. As the comet heats up from the increasing intensity of the Sun’s rays, it releases surface gases and dust into what eventually becomes the atmosphere-like coma surrounding the comet. As the comet moves the material produces the visible tail that we usually associate with a comet. With 67P specifically, Rosetta has recently made a surprising discovery: That the water and carbon dioxide streaming...
As we are approaching the New Horizons bypass of Pluto just over a month from now, there is a lot of focus on the Plutonian system, from its strange Moons to its enigmatic surface. As we wait for the first ever high resolution images of the surface of Pluto, we can look to Hubble data to give us our fix. The best image of Pluto taken up to today, by Hubble, is blurry and at best can lead us to speculation about what we are seeing. But Hubble, as always, produces valuable science, and has given new insights into the...
A long time ago in a galaxy far, far away…. Not just the star wars intro, but a true statement if you’re an astronomer. You see, once we start to look deep in space at the more distant objects in the universe, we are actually looking deep in time as well. It all begins with a light year. A light year is not a measure of time, it’s a measure of distance. When you turn on the light in a dark room, the light appears to fill the room instantly. But it actually takes a small amount of time, as light has...
I was out on a sunny day a few weeks ago waiting for a bus, and as per usual I have my head up in space (I would say up in the clouds but that is too low for me). I noticed the Moon up in the sky, just past first quarter, and I was thinking about the angle of the illuminated side and how it related to some of the positions of the Earth and Sun in space. I wondered what information we could gather from the way it looked. It led me to this ‘illuminating’ post. I realized...
Every year, as the Earth revolves around the Sun, we pass an imaginary line directly from the Sun to Saturn. The Sun is on one side of us and Saturn is on the other. When two bodies are on opposite sides of the Earth like this we call it opposition. Saturn’s opposition for the year was on May 23rd, and even though it has been a few days, you can still see Saturn up pretty much all night. Along with opposition, we can clearly see the rings, but Saturn does wobble on a 29.5 year cycle, meaning there are times...
Auroras on Earth are caused by the ionization of atoms high in the atmosphere near the north and south magnetic poles. The solar wind flies toward the Earth and this harmful radiation is blocked and funnelled by our magnetic field, creating harmless, beautiful glows that remind us how close we came to total destruction, but were saved by our planet. Do other planets have auroras? Certainly! Jupiter and Saturn do, and even moons like Ganymede can have auroral activity. It really depends on the magnetic field. So how does a planet like Mars, with no magnetic field, have auroras? This...
Of the approximately 100 Million galaxies in the visible universe, we see incredible variation. We always try to classify them based on their shape, size, and peak radiation, but even then we still find others that stray from the usual patterns. In recent years, a new class of galaxies named Extremely Luminous Infrared Galaxies (ELIRGs) has been found with data from the Wide Field Infrared Survey (WISE). Now the king of the ELIRGs has been found, the most luminous galaxy in the universe. The galaxy, designated WISE J224607.57-052635.0, has a luminosity equal to 300 Trillion suns, and may owe its brightness...
