A Once In A Lifetime Event Visible Every 75-76 Years, Halleys Comet Returned In 1986. Halley Is The Only

http://player.vimeo.com/video/62255585

Comet Panstarrs captured in gorgeous time-lapse above the skies of Boulder, CO by Patrick Cullis. Lovely stuff.

Comets are mysterious frozen chunks of stellar and planetary debris, these dirty snowballs that wander in darkness until their tails are blown bright and wide by solar winds. Some follow paths so random and eccentric that they may pass a star only once, or perhaps not at all, instead floating through interstellar space, never to be known. But for those fleeting moments, like Panstarrs’ current passage, they are like icy candles lit for our enjoyment by the breath of the sun.

A song of ice and fire, indeed.

Had this been 2002, this moment would have been mind blowing!

Mostly because I would be posting a photo on a website that wasn’t around, from a phone technology that didn’t exist yet! I wish I had means of seeing what was on their VHS tapes…

“The images we see can only be “beautiful” or “real-looking” because they have been heavily processed, either by neural machinery or by code (in which case, both), operating below our threshold of consciousness. In the case of the software, this processing relies on norms and aesthetic judgments on the part of software engineers, so they are also unacknowledged collaborators in the image-making. There’s no such thing as a natural image; perhaps, too, there’s nothing especially artificial about the camera.” art in the age of machine intelligence — Artists and Machine Intelligence — Medium https://medium.com/artists-and-machine-intelligence/what-is-ami-ccd936394a83

(via mikerugnetta)

 An image of the North polar region of Jupiter. 

Taken by NASA’s spacecraft Juno.

Nasa discover new solar system with ‘best chance yet of alien life’ yet - LIVE

Life may have evolved on at least three planets in a newly discovered solar system just 39 light years from Earth, NASA has announced.

⚠️️ BREAKTHROUGH  ⚠️️ 

Nasa is currently livestreaming a conference about the discovery of a new solar system !

“Astronomers have detected no less than seven Earth-sized worlds orbiting a cool dwarf star known as TRAPPIST-1.The six inner planets lie in a temperate zone where surface temperatures range from zero to 100C.

Of these, at least three are thought to be capable of having oceans, increasing the likelihood of life.

No other star system known contains such a large number of Earth-sized and probably rocky planets.”

I AM SO EXCITED

Jupiter’s Great Red Spot as Viewed by Voyager 1 in February, 1979. The Great Red Spot is an anticyclone, three and a half times the size of Earth located in Jupiter’s southern hemisphere. [1920 × 1080]

Sorry, Tumblr, but Seth found his new favorite social network to reach fans: Ham radio.

Goodbye to M42 for this year.  But I’ll see you again in November.  Meanwhile I can look at this picture I took in January of this year.

www.astrotidbits.com

NASA’s Cassini spacecraft is set to make its first dive through the narrow gap between Saturn and its rings on April 26, 2017. Because that gap is a region no spacecraft has ever explored, Cassini will use its dish-shaped high-gain antenna (13 feet or 4 meters across) as a protective shield while passing through the ring plane. No particles larger than smoke particles are expected, but the precautionary measure is being taken on the first dive. The Cassini team will use data collected by one of the spacecraft’s science instruments (the Radio and Plasma Wave Subsystem, or RPWS) to ascertain the size and density of ring particles in the gap in advance of future dives. As a result of its antenna-forward orientation, the spacecraft will be out of contact with Earth during the dive.

Below is a list of milestones expected to occur during the event, if all goes as planned:

– 5 p.m. PDT (8 p.m. EDT) on April 25: Cassini is approaching Saturn over the planet’s northern hemisphere in advance of its first of 22 planned dives through the gap between the planet and its rings.

– 1:34 a.m. PDT (4:34 a.m. EDT) on April 26: As it passes from north to south over Saturn, Cassini begins a 14-minute turn to point its high-gain antenna into the direction of oncoming ring particles. In this orientation, the antenna acts as a protective shield for Cassini’s instruments and engineering systems.

– 2 a.m. PDT (5 a.m. EDT) on April 26: Cassini crosses the ring plane during its dive between the rings and Saturn. The spacecraft’s science instruments are collecting data, but Cassini is not in contact with Earth at this time.

– No earlier than around midnight PDT on April 26 (3 a.m. EDT on April 27): Earth has its first opportunity to regain contact with Cassini as the giant, 230-foot (70-meter) Deep Space Network antenna at Goldstone, California, listens for the spacecraft’s radio signal.