What's Up? The Space Place

 Hey, Space Placers! This is the week for the ringed planet, Saturn. It will be at its brightest this Sunday when directly opposite the Sun, known as opposition.  Saturn is easy to find in the southeastern sky as it gets dark. If you have just about any telescope it will reveal the glorious rings. This is a cropped image taken with my Unistellar Odyssey Pro 3.5-inch telescope. NASA is also studying Saturn using the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) and look this image June 25, 2023 - WOW! Hopefully you, a friend or a local astronomy club/facility has a telescope to see the ringed wonder that is Saturn. Sky Guy Greg

 Hey, Space Placers! LIGO HANFORD CREDIT: GREG REDFERN NOBEL PRIZE EMERITUS DR. RAINER WEISS    (WATCH THE VIEDEO)  AND I CREDIT: WTOP  I have been fortunate to report and experience the people and places involved in GWs.   Next year I plan on visiting   Louisiana ( LIGO Livingston ). Hard to believe that today it has been ten years since the first detection of gravitational waves (GW)    at 5:51 a.m. EDT .   Back then in 2015 it had been 100 years since Albert Einstein predicted GWs in his "Theory of General Relativity". Amazes me how he did so with just paper, pencil and his intellect. It took months to verify the detection and the world learned of it when the official announcement was made on February 11, 2016. How far we have come in those ten years. We now have the technology in the form of multiple GW detection facilities across the globe that GW discoveries are a regular occurrence. From   U.S. National Science Foundation La...

 Hey Space Placers! Artist’s concept of a black hole star. At center is a black hole with surrounding accretion disk. The larger envelope of turbulent gas makes it a black hole star. A new study said black hole stars could explain the little red dots we see in the early universe. Image via MPIA/ HdA/ T. Muller/ A. de Graaff. THE MAX PLANCK INSTITUTE FOR ASTRONOMY SEPTEMBER 12, 2025 A newly discovered distant object that astronomers have dubbed “The Cliff” could solve a riddle posed by some of the first observations of the distant universe with the James Webb Space Telescope, related to the discovery of a population of objects dubbed “little red dots.” Those objects were thought to be young galaxies, but with such considerable mass as would have been difficult to explain in current models of cosmic evolution. “The Cliff” has led to a proposal that could resolve this problem: Little red dots are not galaxies, but instead supermassive black holes that are embedded in a thick envelope ...

 Hey, Space Placers! Fall is the best time to see the Andromeda Galaxy, resplendent and pretty easy to find as you can see in this article.  It is visible now late at night and will be rising earlier each night through the months of Fall. Visible to our eyes, binoculars, telescopes and cameras/smartphones, it is a favorite. Andromeda Galaxy Telephoto pic by Greg Redfern; was published online by Space.com Andromeda Galaxy a fist-width above the sea horizon taken while underway on a cruise ship. Camera by Greg Redfern Andromeda Galaxy above the sea horizon taken while underway on a cruise ship. iPhone pic by Greg Redfern Andromeda Galaxy Unistellar Telescope pic by Greg Redfern Check it out for yourself. When you see it, consider that the light you are seeing took 2.5 MILLION years to travel to your optic nerves. When that light left Andromeda Galaxy, our ancestors were standing upright for the first time. Sky Guy in VA

 Hey, Space Placers! The Universe always has something new...... Check it out here. Sky Guy in VA

 Hey, Space Placers! This animation depicts water disappearing over time in the Martian river valley Neretva Vallis, where NASA’s Perseverance Mars takes the rock sample named “Sapphire Canyon” from a rock called “Cheyava Falls,” which was found in the “Bright Angel” formation.  Credit: NASA In a press conference held today, NASA discussed a new and potentially significant finding by the Mars Rover Perseverance: A sample collected by NASA’s Perseverance Mars rover from an ancient dry riverbed in Jezero Crater could preserve evidence of ancient microbial life. Taken from a rock named “Cheyava Falls” last year, the sample, called “Sapphire Canyon,” contains potential biosignatures, according to a paper published Wednesday in the journal Nature. A potential biosignature is a substance or structure that might have a biological origin but requires more data or further study before a conclusion can be reached about the absence or presence of life.   More details can be found h...