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Celestial nomad takes centre stage

In this new ESO image, nightfall raises the curtain on a theatrical display taking place in the cloudless skies over La Silla.

In a scene humming with activity, the major players captured here are Comet Lovejoy, glowing green in the centre of the image; the Pleiades above and to the right; and the California Nebula, providing some contrast in the form of a red arc of gas directly to the right of Lovejoy.

A meteor adds its own streak of light to the scene, seeming to plunge into the hazy pool of green light collecting along the horizon.

The telescopes of La Silla provide an audience for this celestial performance, and a thin shroud of low altitude cloud clings to the plain below the observatory streaked by the Panamericana Highway.

Comet Lovejoy’s long tail is being pushed away from the comet by the solar wind. Carbon compounds that have been excited by ultraviolet radiation from the Sun give it its striking green hue.

This is the first time the comet has passed through the inner Solar System and ignited so spectacularly in over 11 000 years. Its highly elliptical orbit about the Sun — adjusted slightly due to meddling planets — means that it will not grace our skies for another 8000 years once it has rounded the Sun and begun its lonely voyage back into the cold outer regions of the Solar System.

Image credit: P. Horálek/ESO

Sunken for 2000 years Egyptian statue from the city THONIS-HERACLEION.

Read the story

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CYGNSS rockets into orbit atop Pegasus

The first Cygnus launch from Cape Canaveral in nearly 10 years successfully placed NASA’s eight CYGNSS satellite into orbits Thursday, December 15. Pegasus, attached to the belly of Orbital ATK’s L-1011 Stargazer aircraft, lifted off from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station’s Skid Strip runway at 7:38am EDT.  After reaching an altitude of 39,000 feet and within the 10 by 40 mile launch box, Pegasus was commanded for release, falling away from the mothership at 8:37am. Less than five seconds later, the first stage ignited, beginning a 14-minute climb to orbit for Pegasus and the eight CYGNSS satellites. 

CYGNSS, short for Cyclone Global Navigation Satellite System, will use high-fidelity GPS signals to help forecasters better measure and predict hurricanes. In honor of the storm recently affecting the space coast, the Pegasus rocket launching CYGNSS was named Matthew. This was the 43rd launch of the Pegasus rocket, which made history in 1990 as the world’s first successfully-launched commercially-developed rocket vehicle. It remains the only air-launched rocket system in operation. CYGNSS was originally scheduled for launch Monday, but a faulty hydraulic pump in the rocket’s release mechanism promoted a delay into today. P/C: NASA.

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Holiday Lights from the Universe

Although there are no seasons in space, some cosmic vistas invoke thoughts of a frosty winter landscape. Here are a few stellar images of holiday wonderlands from across the galaxy…

Located in our galaxy about 5,500 light years from Earth, this region is actually a “cluster of clusters,” containing at least three clusters of young stars, including many hot, massive, luminous stars.

The outstretched “wings” of this nebula looks like a soaring, celestial snow angel. Twin lobes of super-hot gas, glowing blue in this image, stretch outward from the central star. This hot gas creates the “wings” of our angel. A ring of dust and gas orbiting the star acts like a belt, clinching the expanding nebula into an “hourglass” shape.

At this time of year, holiday parties often include festive lights. When galaxies get together, they also may be surrounded by a spectacular light show. This pair of spiral galaxies has been caught in a grazing encounter. This region has hosted three supernova explosions in the past 15 years and has produced one of the most bountiful collections of super-bright X-ray lights known.

What do the following things have in common: a cone, the fur of a fox and a Christmas tree? Answer: they all occur in the constellation of the unicorn (Monoceros). Pictured as a star forming region, the complex jumble of cosmic gas and dust is about 2,700 light-years away.

Resembling festive lights on a holiday wreath, this Hubble Space Telescope image of a nearby spiral galaxy is an iconic reminder of the impending season. Bright knots of glowing gas light up the spiral arms, indicating a rich environment of star formation.

The Hubble Space Telescope captured two festive-looking nebulas, situated so as to appear as one. Intense radiation from the brilliant central stars is heating hydrogen in each of the nebulas, causing them to glow red…like a holiday light.

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Ancient Buddha statue emerges in E. China reservoir

Archaeologists have started an underwater detection project after villagers in eastern China’s Jiangxi Province found the head of a Buddha statue emerging from the surface of a local reservoir.

The head was spotted at Hongmen Reservoir, Nancheng County in the city of Fuzhou, at the end of last year when a hydropower gate renovation project lowered water levels in the reservoir by more than 10 meters.

Judging from the head design, the statue was carved during the Ming Dynasty (1368-1644), said Xu Changqing, head of the provincial research institute of archaeology.

He said that the researchers had also found rectangular holes carved on the cliff, obvious marks of architecture, which meant that a temple could have existed there. Read more.

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A giant predatory lizard swam in Antarctic seas near the end of the dinosaur age http://www.geologypage.com/2016/11/giant-predatory-lizard-swam-antarctic-seas-near-end-dinosaur-age.html

Egypto-Phoenician Silver Swivel Ring, C. 1000 BC

The thick solid silver shank tapering at the terminal and holding a solid silver scarab engraved with the falcon Horus in the center with the “Ames Scepter” and a protective Uraeus on either side, all standing on the Neb (Lord) sign.

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November 14, 1969 – Thirty-six-and-a-half seconds after the launch of Apollo 12, the space vehicle triggered a lightning discharge through itself and down to the earth through the Saturn’s ionized plume. Protective circuits on the fuel cells in the Service Module falsely detected overloads and took all the fuel cells offline, as well as much of the Command/Service Module instrumentation. At 52 seconds after liftoff, a second strike knocked out the “8-ball” attitude indicator. The telemetry stream at Mission Control was garble, but Apollo 12 continued to fly correctly. The strikes had not affected the Saturn V rocket’s Instrument Unit.

000:09:02 Conrad (onboard): I think we got hit by lightning.

000:09:04 Gordon Bean (onboard): I do, too.

000:09:06 Gordon (onboard): Something took care of those panels, I’ll say that for it.

Pete Conrad from the 1969 technical debrief: “Because I could see outside, I made the comment to them several times. I told the ground that I thought we had been hit by lightning. I was the only one that had any outside indications. Dick didn’t note anything over his little hole in his center window. I was the only one who noticed anything and that was only the first time. I was aware that something external to the spacecraft had happened. I had the decided impression that I not only saw it, but felt it and heard it.”

Alan Bean from the 1969 technical debrief: “I knew we had power, so I didn’t want to make any changes. I figured we could fly into orbit just like that and that’s exactly what we did. The ground came up a little later and said to put the fuel cells back on the line. I was a little hesitant about doing that, because I didn’t understand that we had been hit by lightning. I gave it a go and, sure enough, things started working very well after that.”

(NASA/Wikipedia/NASA)