What's Up? The Space Place

 Hey, Space Placers! Few Sights In the Sky Are Prettier Than An Earthshine Moon Greg Redfern Yesterday it was facts about the stars. Today our Moon helps educate us as to the workings of our double planet system. Read this informative article and learn about the Moon and Earth. Sky Guy in VA

Hey, Space Placers! Great information and here is the story  from EarthSky.org. Sky Guy in VA

 Hey, Space Placers!      This artist’s concept of Blue Ghost Mission 4 shows Firefly’s Blue Ghost lunar lander and NASA payloads in the lunar South Pole Region, through NASA’s CLPS (Commercial Lunar Payload Services) initiative. Credit: Firefly Aerospace Some GOOD news on the Moon front! Sky Guy in VA

 Hey, Space Placers! Credit: The Atlantic This article is from the most excellent "The Atlantic".     This is not being shared with you as a politically aligned blog entry. Quite to the contrary, I believe it to be fair and accurate reporting as to what has happened to NASA. Close followers of NASA like myself, scientists, NASA employees and former NASA Administrators are very concerned, as all Americans should be about the current state of NASA. An acting Administrator, severe budget cuts, the future of Artemis (NASA's program to send humans to the moon and Mars), and the expected brain drain which will have an adverse impact on America's place in space. My hope is that Congress will respond to right the NASA ship. Sky Guy In VA

 Hey, Space Placers! An artist's impression of the Thirty Meter Telescope.   (Image credit: Thirty Meter Telescope) "Spain wants and can be the home of the future of astronomy and astrophysics." The troubled Thirty Meter Telescope (TMT) has been through the wringer in trying to get built. Issues in Hawaii have delayed construction and the current administration is signaling cancellation of TMT. As the story explains, Spain has offered significant money to bring TMT to La Palma, in the Canary Islands. We will have to see how this story unfolds. And in a related story to proposed science budget cuts, to include NASA" (Image credit: Space.com / Josh Dinner) It is no secret that US science funding is facing significant budget reductions from the current administration.  From the story: "Protesters, including the ad hoc organizing group called NASA Needs Help, gathered to sound the alarm over what they view as broad, preemptive overcompliance with President Donald Tr...

 Hey, Space Placers! At LIGO Hanford, WA Greg Redfern I was privileged to interview Nobel Prize Winner Dr. Rainer Weiss Greg Redfern It has been 10 years since it was announced that gravitational waves (GW), predicted by Albert Einstein in 1915, were discovered. Since then 100's of GW events have been discovered. The recent announcement  that the most massive binary Black Hole merger to date had been discovered made big news in the GW-Astrophysics community.  An infographic detailing the new GW231123 black hole merger. Credit: Simona J. Miller / Caltech Why?  As explained in the article, " "This is the most massive black hole binary we've observed through gravitational waves, and it presents a real challenge to our understanding of black hole formation," says Mark Hannam of Cardiff University and a member of the LVK Collaboration. "Black holes this massive are forbidden through standard stellar evolution models. One possibility is that the two black holes in...