What's Up? The Space Place

Hey Space Placers! Can you guess what my 'Top Space Story for 2017' is? Hint: it was golden! Enjoy the read . Sky Guy in VA

Hey Space Placers! This is a truly amazing find .....the most distant black hole yet discovered is 800 million times the mass of our Sun AND it formed only 690 million years after the Big Bang. This artist's concept shows the most distant supermassive black hole ever discovered. It is part of a quasar from just 690 million years after the Big Bang. Credit: Robin Dienel/Carnegie Institution for Science Astronomers are really scratching their heads to come up with how such a whopper black hole could grow so large in such a short time (cosmically speaking). This find also seems to be the only one of its kind which will be very valuable to astronomers trying to determine the conditions in the Universe when it was only 5% of its age. Sky Guy in VA

Hey Space Placers! I hope everyone had a GREAT Holiday get together. Mighty (and bright) Jupiter is visible in the hours before dawn in the eastern sky. NASA's Juno spacecraft continues to explore the 'King of the Planets' and the data continue to be received and analyzed. The Great Red Spot (GRS) of Jupiter  has been visible in telescopes , including backyard 'scopes for centuries. The GRS has been slowly shrinking and the color has faded. It has been the longest lasting storm in the solar system. I hope to get a pic of the GRS to share when the weather clears. But in the meantime enjoy flying into the Jovian maelstrom: Sky Guy in VA

Hey Space Placers! The Center of the Milky Way Galaxy Taken by Greg Redfern in the Coral Sea Did you know the Roman Catholic Church employs a staff of professional priest-astronomers who conduct a wide variety of astronomical research and observations? That Pope Francis believes in the Big Bang  - the leading theory as to how our Universe came into being? With Christmas upon us this is a GREAT article to read about science and faith (at least in the Catholic Church). I have encountered people who say that their particular pastor says "the Universe is only 40,000 years old according to the Bible" or similar type exultations. My standard response is that "everyone is entitled to their beliefs" - I don't even try to change their minds because they are making their statement(s) AFTER hearing one of my astronomy presentations. For those who debunk the "Big Bang" because it isn't faith based, I simply tell them about the Vatican Observatory ...

Hey Space Placers! If you like the annual December Geminid Meteor Shower you will want to read this article about how 3200 Phaethon was imaged when it passed by Earth recently. Even better is the fact that the Arecibo Radio Telescope that was damaged recently in the Puerto Rico hurricane has been repaired and was able to take these amazing images. Sky Guy in VA

Hey Space Placers! The EXACT moment of the Winter Solstice  is today, December 21, 2017 at 11:28 a.m. EST. The Sun will be at its lowest point in your sky for the year and the night will be the longest. We start gaining more daylight each day after. I hope to post a pic of the Sun at the moment of the Solstice later. Winter Solstice 2017 Sun Winter Solstice 2017 Sun Greg Redfern Enjoy the holiday season and especially the winter stars...... Sky Guy in VA

Hey Space Placers! This portrayal of 'Oumuamua (1I/2017 U1) suggests a less elongated shape. Some asteroid specialists have questioned how extreme this body's length-to-width ratio might be. ESO / M. Kornmesser Here are the latest findings on  Oumuamua which I blogged about previously . Results are still pending from the radio observations that were made of the object. Sky Guy in VA

Hey Space Placers! NASA will be announcing a new solar system mission in a love teleconference this Wed., 12/20/17 at 2 p.m. EST. Here are the missions in the running: Comet Surface Sample Return Lunar South Pole-Aitken Basin Sample Return Ocean Worlds (Titan and/or Enceladus) Saturn Probe Trojan Tour and Rendezvous Venus In Situ Explorer OH MAN HOW I WOULD 😍😍😍😍😍😍😍😍😍😍😍😍😍😍  a Lunar South Pole-Aitken Basin Sample Return Mission!!!!!!!!!!!!!! My $$ is on "Ocean Worlds (Titan and/or Enceladus)" selection. I say that because we just finished 10+ years at Saturn, have had several missions active, with more to come in the asteroid belt, Venus is Venus (not a top planetary priority as there have been previous missions to Venus) and  there have been recent comet missions. NASA is excited about Enceladus due to its subsurface liquid ocean so that is why I think it is the front runner. The Lunar mission would be very exciting as we would be returni...

Hey Space Placers! Read all about the "X-Files" unit in the Pentagon that was dedicated to investigating U.S. military UFO sightings. I personally think this is a good thing as ANYTHING IS POSSIBLE in the Universe. Are these alien spacecraft? other countries' advanced prototypes? Who knows. The fact that we do not know more than justifies inquiring about them as best we can. The Truth Is Out There...... Sky Guy in VA

Hey Space Placers! I hope you have signed up to see the International Space Station. It is ALWAYS amazing to see 1 million pounds of space hardware the size of a football field traveling at 17,500 mph with humans on board. This was my view last night: ISS Rises in the NW Amidst Clouds & the Milky Way Sky Guy in VA

Hey Space Placers! A Bright Meteor Greg Redfern Here comes the Geminid Meteor Shower! Bundle up and get outside to see what I think will be the BEST meteor shower of the year!!!! Sky Guy in VA

Hey Space Placers! Remember this????? Today NASA shared results of science from several of the experiments and observations made during the 8/21/17 . Sky Guy in VA

Hey Space Placers! It's that time of the year again to shop for your favorite stargazer (maybe even yourself ;-) ). Sky Guy BACK in VA

Hey Space Placers! Interesting read . Only time will tell as to the origin of these microbes. As the late, great Carl Sagan said, "Extraordinary claims require extraordinary proof". We have been down this road before with possible life forms found in an Antartica meteorite from Mars. Let's see what the worldwide scientific community comes up with in their analysis. Sky Guy 2 days Out of Miami.

Hey Space Placers! Hello  from the middle of the Atlantic Ocean aboard Regent Seven Seas EXPLORER. It has been a typical trans-Atlantic crossing in November - read cloudy and stormy - BUT it appears to be clearing just in time for Supermoon Sunday  http://earthsky.org/moon-phases/full-moon?mc_cid=bd4238a2b4&mc_eid=9aeb2a4318  !   I am hoping to photograph the Full Cold Supermoon as it rises above the sea horizon - that should be something to see.  On Sunday at sunset you will see a glorious Full Cold https://www.nationalgeographic.com/science/space/solar-system/full-moon/   Supermoon rising in the East after sunset that may appear brighter and a bit larger than other Full Moons of 2017. The Moon will be at Full phase (directly opposite the Sun) at 10:47 a.m. EST  on Sunday and at perigee (closest to the Earth for the month) on December 4th  at 3:42 a.m. EST - less than 24 hours apart hence the Supermoon. This is the only Supermoon ...

Hey Space Placers! Read this incredible story about far flung Voyager 1   using its back up thruster 37 years AFTER they were last used. Boy, can NASA build 'em! Voyager 1 Artistic Rendition  NASA/JPL-Caltech Sky Guy In The Atlantic Ocean

Hey Space Placers! Read all about Mars 2020 , NASA's next rover to the Red Planet. Sky Guy in the Azores

Hey Space Placers! Check out this story  about new stars forming incredibly close to the 4.4 million mass black hole at the center of our Milky Way Galaxy. An ALMA image of the center of the Milky Way galaxy showing the location of 11 young protostars within about 3 light-years of our galaxy's supermassive black hole. The lines indicate the direction of the bipolar lobes created by high-velocity jets from the protostars. The illustrated star in the middle of the image indicates the location of Sagittarius A*, the 4 million solar mass supermassive black hole at the center of our galaxy. The next image is a zoom-in to one of the protostars.  Credit: ALMA (ESO/NAOJ/NRAO), Yusef-Zadeh et al.; B. Saxton (NRAO/AUI/NSF) Sky Guy At Sea

Hey Space Placers! At sea giving 9 lectures while transiting from Lisbon to Miami. Will Post again soon! Sky Guy at Sea

Hey Space Placers! Look at this picture: The Four RS-25 Engines That Will Power The 1st Stage of Exploration Mission-1 NASA These are four upgraded Space Shuttle Main Engines powered 21 different Space Shuttle missions.   Now designated RS-25, these are the engines that will power the first stage of the very first Space Launch System (SLS) to be launched.   Called Exploration Flight-1, the SLS will put an unmanned Orion spacecraft into orbit around the Earth. Upon checkout of all systems the SLS upper stage will conduct a translunar orbital insertion (TLI) burn that will put Orion on course for its 25-day mission. Just writing this makes me excited...NASA launching its new rocket and manned spacecraft to the Moon. Wow....... I am hoping to get to see these 4 engines light on the test stand and on the launch pad. If I do, you will see it too ;-) Sky Guy in VA

Hey Space Placers! If you recall we recently had a visitor to the solar system that came from interstellar space. NASA and others released yesterday information on the SHAPE of the asteroid and to put it mildly, it is out of this world! For the first time ever astronomers have studied an asteroid that has entered the Solar System from interstellar space. Observations from ESO’s Very Large Telescope in Chile and other observatories around the world show that this unique object was traveling through space for millions of years before its chance encounter with our star system. It appears to be a dark, reddish, highly-elongated rocky or high-metal-content object. The new results appear in the journal Nature on 20 November 2017. Here's NASA's take on the strangely shaped interstellar visitor. For those of us who are sci-fi fans this is manna from heaven because the physical shape of  Oumuamua conjures up the Monolith from '2001' and '2010', ...

Hey Space Placers! Check out this short interview with Apollo 17's Jack Schmitt. Be sure to go out and look at the Moon in the Western sky after sunset tonight. Lunar Reconnaissance  Orbiter is humanity's ONLY active lunar mission. Hopefully this will change in the future...... Sky Guy in VA

Hey Space Placers! Here is info on the Leonid Meteor Shower  which should peak the next two mornings. Viewers from a dark sky site might see 10-15 an hour. Best viewing will be in the hours before dawn. All the best, Sky Guy in VA

Hey Space Placers! This artist’s impression shows the temperate planet Ross 128 b, with its red dwarf parent star in the background. (M. Kornmesser/ESO) Read all about the newest exoplanet neighbor to Earth - just 11 light years away Sky Guy in VA

Hey Space Placers! No joy on this morning's Jupiter-Venus injunction due to 100% cloud cover :-( JWST at NASA Goddard in 2016 Greg Redfern Here are details on the first observation proposals with James Webb Space Telescope (JWST). Here is the full list of the proposals . Sky Guy in VA

Hey Space Placers! Pre-dawn observers will spot a pretty neat sight in the East starting on Friday, 11/10/17.   Venus and Jupiter are very close to one another  and will be less than a degree apart - or in conjunction - 45 minutes before dawn on 11/13. Venus is the brighter of the two planets. To see the planetary pair observers will need a very clear horizon to the East as the planets will only be a scant 5 degrees - 3 fingers held together at arm's distance - above the horizon. Binoculars will help in the view and it may even be possible to see the 4 main moons of Jupiter with 7x50 binoculars. The view in a telescope with a low power eyepiece will show both planets and Jupiter's moons easily. Observers can watch the two get closer together and then separate which is always neat to do. The slim Crescent Moon will be joining them on the 16th and 17th.  The day to day movement in the sky of these celestial objects is due to their own orbits around the Sun, i...

Hey Space Placers! Well, here is one for the astro-history books......a star that goes Supernova (explodes) and then is discovered to have gone Supernova before!!!! This is the first discovery of such an event. Get the details here . What a Universe!

Hey Space Placers! Get creative and pick a name for 2014 MU69, New Horizons' next flyby target. Artist's concept of NASA’s New Horizons spacecraft flying by a possible binary 2014 MU69 on Jan. 1, 2019. Early observations of MU69 hint at the Kuiper Belt object being either a binary orbiting pair or a contact (stuck together) pair of nearly like-sized bodies with diameters near 20 and 18 kilometers (12 and 11 miles). Credit: NASA/Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory/Southwest Research Institute/Carlos Hernandez Get details here. Good luck! Sky Guy in VA

Hey Space Placers! Sunday  night the almost Full Moon will cover, or occult, the bright orangish star Aldebaran. The Moon will cover the star at 7:58 pm EST for Washington, D.C. The star will reappear at 8:52 pm EST for D.C. See the link below to look up your viewing site for times - this will be visible in North America and parts of Europe (on the 6th. To see this event really requires a telescope for the disappearance due to the brilliant Moon but the reappearance can be seen with binoculars. It will be quite a sight. Full details are here. If the wx cooperates (clouds are predicted) I will have my 'scope set up to photograph. Sky Guy in VA

Hey Space Placers! It is the Full Hunter Moon tonight - Nov 3-4. Here is everything you need to know about this beautiful Fall sight. Oh, and here is NASA's take on the Hunter Moon . Here was last night's view of the Moon. Last Sunset Before the Full Hunter Moon Greg Redfern Sky Guy in VA

Hey Space Placers! Here's something you don't see every day (or night ;-) ) HST taking a deep (long exposure) photograph of a huge and distant galactic cluster only to get Photobombed by chunks of solar system debris we call asteroids! Enjoy looking at the incredible photos of the Cluster and the space rocks. This reminded me of fireflies photobombing sky pics in the summer months..... Sky Guy in VA

Hey Space Placers! Mount Wilson 's 100" telescope saw First Light - the moment the mirror and telescope receive light from the Universe - 100 years ago today.   What a great read! Mount Wilson Observatory was the place of MANY discoveries in astronomy due to the 100" telescope and its esteemed staff. Sky Guy in VA

Hey Space Placers! Happy Halloween! A very appropriate topic for today is "What is Dark Matter" .  The hunt still goes on to solve this key mystery of the Universe. Today's APOD combines Halloween and "Dark Matter Day .  Dark Matter in a Simulated Universe  Illustration Credit & Copyright  Tom Abel  &  Ralf Kaehler  ( KIPAC ,  SLAC ),  AMNH Perhaps we will know more about Dark Matter next Halloween! Sky Guy in VA

Hey Space Placers! Hope you got to see the Moon on InMON night Saturday - it was cloudy for me. Here is a very good article on the interior of Neutron Stars - the amazing dead cores of massive stars that went supernova. Sky Guy in VA

Hey Space Placers! Tonight is “International Observe the Moon Night”   https://www.lpi.usra.edu/observe_the_moon_night/       or InOMN for short. Observers and lovers of the Moon (like me) around the world will be observing the Moon and sponsoring Moon watching events. As stated on the InOMN webpage, “International Observe the Moon Night (InOMN) is an annual worldwide public event that encourages observation, appreciation, and understanding of our Moon and its connection to NASA planetary science and exploration, as well as the cultural and personal connections we all have with Earth's nearest neighbor. Everyone on Earth is invited to join the celebration by hosting or attending an InOMN event — and uniting on one day each year to look at and learn about the Moon together.” InOMN is sponsored by NASA's Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO)  https://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/LRO/main/index.html       with support from NASA's Solar Sy...

Hey Space Placers! Here's a great article on the James Webb Space Telescope  . JWST at NASA Goddard Greg Redfern JWST's launch has been pushed back to 2019 . I hope to get out to the West Coast to report on the integration of the telescope to the spacecraft. Be sure to check tomorrow about International Observe the Moon Night on October 28th. Sky Guy in VA

Hey Space Placers! Read this great article posted by my friends at Earth Sky today abut how Gold and other heavy elements are created in Neutron Star mergers. After that, browse the nice photo spread in Time Magazine . Enjoy! Sky Guy in VA

Hey Space Placers! Here's another topic for you to learn about in our solar system - the Zodiacal Light. If you live in dark skies try to spot the faint pyramidal glow in the East several hours before dawn. It is an amazing sight. 4 Planets and the Zodiacal Light (the faint pyramid of light in the middle) from Shenandoah National Park Greg Redfern Sky Guy in VA

Hey Space Placers! Here is an excellent article   about the Solar System's Kuiper Belt - a region of millions of icy bodies located billions of miles from Earth. The New Horizons spacecraft is enroute to flyby a denizen of the Kuiper Belt - 2014 MU69 - on 1/1/19. Sky Guy in VA

Hey Space Placers! I have written about the many citizen science projects (just do a search on my blog "Citizen Science"). There is a new one now that involves helping to identify features on Earth captured by photos taken from the International Space Station. If you have the time and inclination, participating in these projects is very gratifying and who knows..... you may make a discovery . Sky Guy in VA

Hey Space Placers! The Moon returns to the early evening sky this week. I was able to get my youngest Moon pic ever at 1.1 days old. 1.1 Day Old Waxing Crescent Moon 10/20/17 Greg Redfern Before the Moon gets bright in the evening sky try to look for the farthest planet you can see with your unaided eye - Uranus. Almost 2 billion miles away it takes light 157 minutes to get to your eye or camera. If you have dark skies you can find Uranus AND see it with your own eyes. I did on October 20, 2017. Try following the tips here and if you have binoculars use them to zero in on the 7th planet from the Sun and then try using just you eyes. Uranus on 10/20/17 Greg Redfern Good luck! Sky Guy in VA

Hey Space Placers! Orion the Hunter its visible rising in the East at around 11 pm local and remains visible all night. The mighty hunter prepares to roam the skies of winter with his trusty hunting dogs Canis Major and Canis Minor. Tonight into tomorrow morning before dawn be on the look out for shooting stars - meteors - from the Orionid Meteor Shower . The expected peak of the Orionids , which can produce up to 10  meteors an hour and peak at 25 an hour, is on Saturday-Sunday night. The best time to look is after midnight and before dawn as we will be facing the meteor stream. Star Chart For The Orionid Meteor Shower Credit: Sky & Telescope.com None other than Halley's Comet is the source for these dust particles which hit our atmosphere at a speed of 238,000 KM/SEC....that dear reader is SMOKING!!! If you want to try and capture pics of the shower here are some tips. Be sure to enjoy the bright star Sirius and the other stars of ...

Hey Space Placers! UPDATE: Today's   NASA Press Release   on this new finding. Here is research that shows that our Moon once had an atmosphere due to volcanic activity that took place billions of years ago. It is thought that this atmosphere would have lasted 70 million years before finally being lost to space. Artist's impression of the Moon, looking over Imbrium Basin, with lavas erupting, venting gases, and producing a visible atmosphere. Credit: NASA MSFC This lunar atmosphere would have been 1.5 times thicker than the  current atmosphere on Mars. Calculations show that a water volume twice that of Lake Tahoe could have been released into the lunar atmosphere. The water at the Moon's poles could have been deposited during this era.  For those who want to read more here is the link to the original paper. Sky Guy in VA

Hey Space Placers! Do you remember what you were doing at 8:41 a.m. EDT August 17, 2017?  At that moment two Gravitational Wave Observatories in the U.S. called LIGO   http://www.ligo.org/   were detecting a ripple in space time caused by gravitational waves. LIGO had already discovered several black hole mergers   https://wtop.com/science/2016/02/breakthrough-scientists-detect-einstein-predicted-ripples/slide/1/   but this signal was far different in that it lasted 100 seconds and indicated a merger of two less massive objects had occurred.  LIGO had just detected the merger of two neutron stars  https://www.nsf.gov/news/news_summ.jsp?cntn_id=243382&org=NSF&from=news     This animation captures phenomena observed over the course of nine days following the neutron star merger known as GW170817. They include gravitational waves (pale arcs); a near-light-speed jet that produced gamma rays (magenta); expanding debris...