astronomy

From the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA): Credit: ALMA (ESO/NAOJ/NRAO) The related ESO (European Southern Observatory) news. What is apparently unexpected and amazes astrophysicists in this image is that HL Tauri (which is still in the process of becoming a...

Brilliant Jupiter has now returned to our evening sky with help from the ending of daylight savings time. From Chicagoland it will be seen to rise tonight (November 2) at 23:35 CST. It will rise about four minutes earlier each evening until it reaches opposition from the Sun on 2015 FEB 06 when...

Image courtesy NASA/JPL-Caltech/ASI/Cornell

I received this "shared" post on Facebook: How should I respond, if at all? "No, we won't." "If it will look like that to us, we're all going to die." "The last lifeforms that saw something like that all died." "LOL. I love that joke." "Check Snopes before posting." (Long scientific...

So I always see these false colour images of the inside of planets and get disappointed when I realise it is just fake imagery and that is not want it looks like. So if I had a really good HD camera, what would it look like in some of the more notable planets in the solar system? I have...

http://time.com/101810/jupiters-trademark-great-red-spot-is-shrinking/?hpt=hp_t2 Does anyone else hear John Lithgow shouting???

It occurred to me as I was listening to the latest episode of StarStuff that I don't recall anyone ever mentioning this exceptional podcast on any JREF threads. http://www.abc.net.au/science/starstuff/ This is an Australian Broadcasting production that I have been enjoying for many years...

I tried to search for threads mentioning something like this, but failed miserably... Anyway, I was just galaxy-zooing (www.galaxyzoo.org) to pass the time and I realized I want to know more about stars, galaxies, the universe and everything :D. What would be the best places to start and good...

Saturn and its rings are approaching opposition from the Sun on May 10th when the fairly bright planet will be out all night. Greatest brilliance is expected a little earlier around May 5th. My detailed article and graphics related to this year’s apparition can be found at...

I have an astronomy question I hope someone here can answer. I’ve been reading news about comet 209P/LINEAR and the possibility of a new significant meteor shower in May, but I don’t quite get why it has never occurred before. I think I might be realizing something I had not realized before...

Announcement from NASA about an hour ago: http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/m/news/news.php?release=2014-119#.U1BtrVXa46Z :thumbsup:

Press conference later today from the European Southern Observatory. (Tip-off from a friend who used to work at NASA.) What have they found? Another planet? Bigfoot's spaceship?

This is a picture taken by a photographer which is being shared everywhere on social media. He swears it's not 'shopped or retouched in any way. If he's telling the truth (and from his FB posts and the title he's given it, he's a little bit of a woo apparently) then it's clearly some sort of...

I have a couple questions re. Comet ISON a) The green ion tail is apparently due to cyanogen and diatomic carbon; what does this mean? Does this give any indication of where it's come from in the solar system? b) At it's perihelion it will be around 1 degree from the sun (from the observer's...

What triggered me to start this thread is this post, by icebear, in the Why is there so much crackpot physics? thread. Here's an extract (bold added): I could, of course, have chosen any of dozens of other posts from this part of the JREF forum, over the past year or so. In the example above...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=tazaW9C2O44 Any ideas?

I wasn't sure where to put this,, but I figure its at least science related. I've always enjoyed astronomy, and a few years ago I picked up a decent telescope and started using it when I could. I did use it to take the occasional picture of the moon, but that was it. To do good deep space...

Did the Earth give birth to the Moon in a nuclear event as hypothesised here? For the mentally challenged, in words of one syllable, what is an 'isotope'?

There is currently a comet almost visible in the sky near the sun; currently after sunset, near the set sun. Towards the end of March it should be visible in the morning sky near the horizon: Comet C/2011 L4 (PANSTARRS) It's smaller and less bright than I had hoped for, so yesterday I couldn't...

So I was watching a show on Science or National Geographic the other day, about the history of the solar system, and they said that scientists now believe that Earth most likely originally had TWO moons after the impact with Theia, and those two eventually combined into our current moon. Does...

An interesting article on our current understanding of Galileo from the New Yorker: http://www.newyorker.com/arts/critics/atlarge/2013/02/11/130211crat_atlarge_gopnik?currentPage=all Well worth a read.

So a multigalactic structure 4 billion light years across. Rather mind blowing. http://www.ras.org.uk/news-and-press/224-news-2013/2212-astronomers-discover-the-largest-structure-in-the-universe "While it is difficult to fathom the scale of this LQG, we can say quite definitely it is the...

yaX4iGw-b_Y Also in Hi-def on Youtube And here's another interesting one: Cosmic Journeys : The Largest Black Holes in the Universe Astronomy is just mind-boggling. :boggled: According to some theories, the whole universe is like 1024 times larger than the observable universe. IOW, the...

http://www.disclose.tv/action/viewvideo/118868/Just_what_ISN039T_NASA_telling_us_17th_Dec_2012_Perth_Australia_Solar_Phenomenon_or/ :jaw-dropp

New Type of Cosmic Ray Discovered After 100 Years (Don't blame me for the innacurate article title, I prefer the one I used for the thread.) Nothing particularly earth shattering about this announcement or discovery, but in the article, they said (emphasis mine): You see, someone was able...

It appears that Jupiter has been hit by another asteroid. http://cosmiclog.nbcnews.com/_news/2010/06/03/4459598-something-hit-jupiter-again?lite Video here... http://www.flickr.com/photos/19299984@N08/7976507568 Steve S

So I'm watching a few shows last night, one on Supermassive Black holes, and another on Cassini / Huygens, and I found both to be fascinating. I think super-massive black holes to be the birth of a galaxy, sort of like a mini big-bang for every galaxy we know of. I also wonder who specifically...

It seems reasonable to me to assume that it is typical. Not necessarily that life is typical, but that stars similar to our sun also have planetary systems that are similar to ours. I was thinking that if a transit of Venus is so rare even though we are basically in the same plane as Venus...

So I am getting ready for my second transit of Venus and since the last one my participation in solar astronomy has waned a bit. Get it? Waned? Anyway I just got my Orion built adaptor to attach my iPhone 4s to an eyepiece. Product details here And as I used to work for Coronado instruments...

A very interesting article into the research being undertaken to understand the creation and current form of our home galaxy. The shape of our galaxy was recently redrawn again with the realization a long stream of matter is rotating into the main body of the galaxy giving the effect of creating...