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| Center of Milky Way Galaxy Taken Underway on Azamara Quest |
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| This artist's concept shows planet KELT-9b orbiting its host star, KELT-9. It is the hottest gas giant planet discovered so far. Credit NASA JPL |
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| NASA TV
This is a BIG step forward on returning astronauts to space using US built hardware launched from US soil.
I'll have much more tomorrow.
Sky Guy in VA
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| A picture taken by the camera of the Beresheet spacecraft 23,363 miles from Earth. Photograph: AFP/Getty via UK THE GUARDIAN SKY GUY IN VA |
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| NASA |
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| CREDIT: SpaceX |
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| Mercury and Mars in the western sky 30 minutes after sunset Credit: Sky Safari Pro 6 |
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| CREDIT: SKY AND TELESCOPE.COM |
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| CREDIT: SKY AND TELESCOPE.COM |
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| Waning Crescent Earthshine Moon Greg Redfern |
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| Artist Rendition of Beresheet on the Moon CREDIT: SPACEIL |
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This illustration shows the structure of a new synthetic DNA molecule, dubbed hachimoji DNA, which uses the four informational ingredients of regular DNA (green, red, blue, yellow) in addition to four new ones (cyan, pink, purple, orange).
Credits: Indiana University School of Medicine
Reading like something out of a science fiction novel, scientists have created a new synthetic DNA molecule. The discovery forces astrobiologists to consider what might constitute life beyond what we know it to be here on Earth.
The research shows that there are other means to create a "double-helix structure that can store and transfer information".
This is just another example of how "life always finds a way"......my personal belief that life is probably teeming in our solar system and on other exoplanets. There are just too many exoplanets and stars and galaxies out there for us to be the only life form in it all. Until, and IF we discover an off Earth form of life we are it. All the more reason why our planet and ALL of its life forms are so precious.....
Sky Guy in VA
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| Not to scale depiction of Earth's atmosphere CREDIT: ESA |
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| The Earth and its hydrogen envelope, or geocorona, as seen from the Moon. This ultraviolet picture was taken in 1972 with a camera operated by Apollo 16 astronauts on the Moon. CREDIT: NASA |
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| Full Wolf Supermoon 2018 Greg Redfern |
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| The Road Well Travelled on Mars by Opportunity In this navigation camera raw image, NASA's Opportunity Rover looks back over its own tracks on Aug. 4, 2010 NASA/JPL |
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Scientists' understanding of Ultima Thule has changed as they review additional data. The "old view" in this illustration is based on images taken within a day of New Horizons' closest approach to the Kuiper Belt object on Jan. 1, 2019, suggesting that both of "Ultima" (the larger section, or lobe) and "Thule" (the smaller) were nearly perfect spheres just barely touching each other. But as more data were analyzed, including several highly evocative crescent images taken nearly 10 minutes after closest approach, a "new view" of the object's shape emerged. Ultima more closely resembles a "pancake," and Thule a "dented walnut." The bottom view is the team's current best shape model for Ultima Thule, but still carries some uncertainty as an entire region was essentially hidden from view, and not illuminated by the Sun, during the New Horizons flyby. The dashed blue lines span the uncertainty in that hemisphere, which shows that Ultima Thule could be either flatter than, or not as flat as, depicted in this figure. Credit: NASA/Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory/Southwest Research Institute |
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The Yutu 2 rover rolls away from the Chang'e 4 lander shortly after the mission's historic Jan. 3 touchdown on the moon's far side.
Credit: CNSA/CLEP VIA Space.com |
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| From EarthSky.org Here’s what astronomers see when they look in the direction of the galaxy’s center with NASA’s Chandra X-Ray Observatory. Sagittarius A* is in this image, but, so far, hot gas has obscured our view of the supermassive black hole’s event horizon. Ellipses indicate light echoes. Image via ESO. |
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| Jupiter (upper left) with the Moon and Venus |
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| Closeup of Earthshine Moon and Venus |
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| Antares (far upper left), Jupiter, Moon and Venus |
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| Jupiter, Moon, Venus and Ushuaia channel |
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| Ushuaia Morning |
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| Artist’s impression of the newly discovered object. |
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| Ultima Thule Credit: NASA/JHUAPL/SwRI |
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Cotton plants have been seen budding and growing, as shown by this close-up of the plants sprouting under a protective cover on the Chang’e 4 lunar lander .CLEP via Astronomy Magazine
Pretty Amazing!
Sky Guy in VA
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| Range-Doppler radar images of near-Earth asteroid 2016 AZ8 with range resolution (vertical axis) of 7.5 m/pixel and Doppler frequency resolution (horizontal axis) of 0.03 Hz where (left) is the sequence of images over the almost 40 min of data and (right) is the first frame, obtained over about 3 min. |
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| Release type: American Astronomical Society Meeting CREDIT: NASA, ESA |
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| Local Group Galaxy M-33 in a 10-inch Telescope and DSLR Credit: Greg Redfern |
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| Credit: https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/asia/china-moon-landing-dark-side-chinese-spacecraft-change4-a8708951.htm |
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| The first clear image of the object nicknamed Ultima Thule, beamed back after the New Horizons spacecraft's flyby on Jan. 1.JHUAPL/NAS |
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| The first color image of Ultima Thule, taken at a distance of 85,000 miles (137,000 kilometers) at 4:08 Universal Time on January 1, 2019, highlights its reddish surface. At left is an enhanced color image taken by the Multispectral Visible Imaging Camera (MVIC), produced by combining the near infrared, red and blue channels. The center image taken by the Long-Range Reconnaissance Imager (LORRI) has a higher spatial resolution than MVIC by approximately a factor of five. At right, the color has been overlaid onto the LORRI image to show the color uniformity of the Ultima and Thule lobes. Note the reduced red coloring at the neck of the object. Credit: NASA/Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory/Southwest Research Institute
The BEST is yet to come as these pics were taken BEFORE closest approach. There will be hundreds of pics and data that will take until 9/20 to download back to Earth.
The amazing thing to realize is that we are looking at a primitive solar system body that in all probability has not been changed since it took this form. This could be the way the solar system formed planets by ever larger bodies colliding to build ever larger bodies.
Ultima Thule is a contact binary where it appears that two smaller bodies joined together.
The color is also reminiscent of the color of Pluto's biggest moon Charon at its North Pole.
ULTIMA THULE rotates about once in 15 hours and its pole is almost directly pointed at Earth.
This is just amazing and will add so much to our knowledge of the solar system and planet formation.
Sky Guy in VA
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| This sequence of three images, received on Dec. 31, 2018, and taken by the LORRI camera onboard New Horizons at 70 and 85 minutes apart illustrates the rotation of Ultima Thule.
Credit: NASA/Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory/Southwest Research Institu
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