What's Up? The Space Place

Hey Space Placers! Here's my write up on WTOP   on now dead comet 2015 TB145. These are the pics I took EARLY this am Tune in to Slooh.com at 12:30 pm EDT today for a live view. Sky Guy in VA

Hey Space Placers! My last blog gave you the scoop on Cassini's deepest flyby through the plumes of Enceladus. Here is the unprocessed pic of the plumes and the other unprocessed pics. These will get better as they are processed and there will be more as well as data in the coming weeks. This unprocessed view of Saturn's moon Enceladus was acquired by NASA's Cassini spacecraft during a close flyby of the icy moon on Oct. 28, 2015. Credits: NASA/JPL-Caltech/Space Science Institute This unprocessed view of Saturn's moon Enceladus was acquired by NASA's Cassini spacecraft during a close flyby of the icy moon on Oct. 28, 2015. Credits: NASA/JPL-Caltech/Space Science Institute This unprocessed view of Saturn's moon Enceladus was acquired by NASA's Cassini spacecraft during a close flyby of the icy moon on Oct. 28, 2015. Credits: NASA/JPL-Caltech/Space Science Institute This unprocessed view of Saturn's moon ...

Hey Space Placers! Ever seen “Old Faithful” or other smaller geysers erupt at beautiful Yellowstone National Park   http://www.nps.gov/yell/planyourvisit/exploreoldfaithful.htm     ? It is quite the sight. Located on a small, ice covered moon around the ringed planet Saturn there is a continuous eruption of huge Yellowstone-like geysers that an intrepid spacecraft will fly through at very close range to further discern their secrets. On Wednesday morning the Cassini spacecraft http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/cassini/main/index.html     that has been exploring the Saturn system for over 11 years will perform its 21st flyby  http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news.php?release=2015-328     of Enceladus, the amazing ice covered moon with a global sub-surface ocean. This daring flyby will be only 30 miles above the South Pole of Enceladus   https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BZ1KowQXc3Y     and it will be the deepest penetration ever ...

Hey Space Placers! The answer is here ! Sky Guy in VA

Hey Space Placers! Predawn on 10/26 Venus and Jupiter are going to be very close - a little over two Moon-widths. Go outside an hour or more before dawn to see Venus (brightest) near Jupiter with Mars just below both. If you have a clear view of the horizon Mercury might be visible just before it gets light. Sky Guy in Cloudy VA

Hey Space Placers! NASA's New Horizons spacecraft that completed its historic flyby of Pluto last July, is on its way to a billion mile voyage to a new mission - to explore for the first time ever a Kuiper Belt Object (KBO). Artist's Concept of a KBO & New Horizons Flyby Credit: NASA/Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory/Southwest Research Institute/Steve Gribben From the 10/22/15 news release: NASA’s New Horizons spacecraft has carried out the first in a series of four initial targeting maneuvers designed to send it toward 2014 MU69 -- a small Kuiper Belt object about a billion miles beyond Pluto, which the spacecraft historically explored in July. The maneuver, which started at approximately 1:50 p.m. EDT on Oct. 22, used two of the spacecraft’s small hydrazine-fueled thrusters, lasted approximately 16 minutes and changed the spacecraft’s trajectory by about 10 meters per second. Spacecraft operators at the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics ...

Hey Space Placers! Tonight is the predicted peak of the Orionid Meteor Shower . The best time to look for these bits of Comet Halley debris hitting our atmosphere is after midnight, especially in the hours before dawn. The Orionids are expected to produce about 20 meteors and hour. Viewing tips are here and NASA will be live to follow the Orionids at 10 pm EDT. Here's to clear skies! Sky Guy in VA

Hey Space Placers! NASA has a new web site that will have daily pics of our Earth taken from a point 1 million miles distant. NASA Here's NASA's press release: NASA launched a new website Monday so the world can see images of the full, sunlit side of the Earth every day. The images are taken by a NASA camera one million miles away on the Deep Space Climate Observatory (DSCOVR), a partnership between NASA, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) and the U.S. Air Force. Once a day NASA will post at least a dozen new color images of Earth acquired from 12 to 36 hours earlier by NASA’s Earth Polychromatic Imaging Camera (EPIC). Each daily sequence of images will show the Earth as it rotates, thus revealing the whole globe over the course of a day. The new website also features an archive of EPIC images searchable by date and continent. The primary objective of NOAA’s DSCOVR mission is to maintain the nation’s real-time solar wind monitoring cap...

Hey Space Placers! NASA's Cassini spacecraft has spent 11 years studying the ringed planet and its moons. In the past week Cassini started its final series of flybys of Enceladus. The returned pics have been amazing as can be seen in this close up of the moon's North pole . NASA JPL The closest pics are to be taken on October 28th as the spacecraft will zoom to within a mere 30 miles above the frozen and contorted surface of Enceladus. This will be Cassini's deepest penetration of the icy spray plumes that erupt out of cracks in the moon's frozen surface. Enceladus has a global ocean underneath its icy surface and is a desire future mission for NASA. The exploration of this ocean would give us our first look at such a feature beyond our own planet and who knows what we would find. Sky Guy in VA

Hey Space Placers! I have been on the road with family and no computer for the past several days so no blog! Here is the  1st Scientific Paper on Pluto From New Horizons Team   that was just published yesterday, 10/16/15. It is a good read from the team that brought us the Pluto Flyby just 3 months ago. I'll have some interesting pics in the next few days of my trip to New Jersey..... Sky Guy in VA

Hey Space Placers! For the next few morning the crescent Moon will be sliding by Venus, Jupiter, Mars and Mercury in the East before sunrise. Sky & Telescope.com This is a nice morning sequence that is a warm up for the grouping of Mars, Jupiter and Venus later in the month. Clear skies and enjoy! Sky Guy in VA

Hey Space Placers! The skies finally cleared and I took my 1st pic for the Fall of M-31 , the Andromeda Galaxy. M-31 is the closest large galaxy to our own Milky Way Galaxy and contains about 1 TRILLION stars - our Galaxy has several hundred billion stars. It stretches out over 260,000 light years as opposed to the Milky Way Galaxy's 100,000-150,000 light years. A light year is how far light, traveling at 186,000 miles per second travels in one year - it is about 6 trillion miles. M-31 Greg Redfern The pic was taken with a 300mm f/4 telephoto which tells you something about the size and relative closeness of M-31. In the pic you can see spiral arms, dust lanes, star clouds and M-110 to the immediate left and M-32 to the immediate right which are two large dwarf galaxies to M-31. The Andromeda Galaxy is the farthest object you can see with your unaided eye. It is 2.5 million light years away which means the light I captured in this pic left M-31 2.5 million years ago! T...

Hey Space Placers! The OTHER dwarf planet, Ceres, was in the lime light for a bit recently when NASA released a new global map of the icy world showing compositional differences. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/UCLA/MPS/DLR/IDA Ceres is an intriguing world that we will learn more about while the Dawn spacecraft continues to make observations. Sky Guy in VA

Hey Space Placers! I saw Sir Ridley Scott's movie, 'The Martian'   today. In a word - OUTSTANDING. I say this NOT totally because I love all things space. I'm saying it because this is a very, very good movie. You can get the movie's basics from the IMDB link. Here's my review. While Matt Damon is the HUMAN star of the movie, make no mistake, Mars as it is depicted in the film is THE STAR of the movie with the impressive space hardware winning best supporting honors. Scott repeatedly gives us grand and visually stunning views of the Red Planet. I am sure he had access to the thousands of photographs of Mars from orbit and on the planet that NASA has acquired over the years. The huge scale of geological features and the endless sand contrast so vividly with the sky and weather. The night sky scenes took my breath away. The view of the Earth as a bright star, the transiting of the Martian moons, the famous dust devils, cirrus clouds and sunset are mesm...

Hey Space Placers! Enjoy this latest enhance color pic of Pluto's moon Charon. Besides the reddish color at the north pole of Charon the massive canyons/valleys and different terrain that goes at a diagonal across the whole moon is impressive. There are a lot of rilles (lines in the surface) that can be seen as well. Image Credit: NASA/JHUAPL/SwRI You can details on this pic here . There is much, much more to come in the next 13 months as data is returned to Earth by the New Horizons spacecraft. Sky Guy in VA