Any Astronomy Buffs Here?

[DevilHorse]

A factual comparison.

Attachment 14790

Does Dark Matter?

Larry
DevilHorse

[OldPhiKap]

Does Dark Matter?

Larry
DevilHorse

Are you getting quarky on us?

[DevilHorse]

Are you getting quarky on us?

Not particleurly. But I'm glad you lept on the subject.

Larry
DevilHorse

[OldPhiKap]

Not particleurly. But I'm glad you lept on the subject.

Larry
DevilHorse

Ion it.

[CameronBornAndBred]

As always, stellar replies.

[Phredd3]

As always, stellar replies.

Well, relatively stellar.

[DevilHorse]

Well, relatively stellar.

There will be nu-clear winner in this.

Larry
DevilHorse

[DevilHorse]

We all know that time was spent to commission the 4 main telescopes on the JWST. The data that was taken while the telescopes were being initialized and scaled, etc.., has been made available. The pictures have not been colorized into the beauties we saw earlier this week, but it is interesting nonetheless:

Here is an article that discusses some of the data taken when looking at Jupiter. We know a lot about Jupiter so we have some idea what we SHOULD be seeing, so configuring the scopes on extremely well known objects is a natural.
https://blogs.nasa.gov/webb/2022/07/...ssioning-data/

We all know about Saturn's Rings, but to a (much) lesser extent the other gas giants, Neptune, Uranus, and Jupiter also have rings. It is neat to see Jupiter's rings in it's cameo with the JWST (about the middle of the above article). The article above talks about much more interesting data that can be extracted from the moons as time goes on.

Here is a link to data graphed that indicates the presence of the exoplanet WASP-39b:
https://twitter.com/TheChedgehog/sta...139776/photo/1
What is marvelous is the amount of data that is collected that makes such a clear graph of the star's luminosity loss by the planet passing. Great stuff!

Larry
DevilHorse

[DevilHorse]

I found this website that allows you to compare the Hubble picture to the new, more detailed, JWST picture:
https://www.webbcompare.com/
Just slide the double arrows left/right to reveal more or less of the Hubble vs. JWST. Interesting.
I hope they continue to update, at least some of the, additional pictures as they come out.

Here's a webpage that you can look at if you want to geek out about the individual telescopes, and get a better understanding of what they do:
https://webb.nasa.gov/content/observ...ts/nircam.html
Note the visible light spectrum, for comparison, to the lower left of the first chart.
Being able to take spectra of many celestial objects at once is a fascinating technology. I presume that much of this is digital which makes it very ripe for deep scientific analysis. With the number of objects that present themselves in any one picture, it is going to take computers analyzing the results to sift through the mundane stuff to find the interesting objects. Observational telescopy has its' limits.

For those of you looking to print out an image of Stephan's Quintet, here is a high resolution picture (in this article):
https://webb.nasa.gov/content/observ...ts/nircam.html
It claims 150 million pixels!

Larry
DevilHorse

[DevilHorse]

Anybody catch an explanation for the latest picture of the week from Perseverance on Mars:
https://mars.nasa.gov/mars2020/multi...Z02008_10_095J
There's no caption.

That's either space junk or something very exotic.

Larry
DevilHorse

[camion]

Anybody catch an explanation for the latest picture of the week from Perseverance on Mars:
https://mars.nasa.gov/mars2020/multi...Z02008_10_095J
There's no caption.

That's either space junk or something very exotic.

Larry
DevilHorse

I found the same thing under my sofa last week.


Martians in my living room!!

[CameronBornAndBred]

Anybody catch an explanation for the latest picture of the week from Perseverance on Mars:
https://mars.nasa.gov/mars2020/multi...Z02008_10_095J
There's no caption.

That's either space junk or something very exotic.

Larry
DevilHorse

It hasn't taken humans long to start trashing Mars.

[bundabergdevil]

It hasn't taken humans long to start trashing Mars.

Well, he is kind of an a**hole. Always starting fights.

[bundabergdevil]

Anybody catch an explanation for the latest picture of the week from Perseverance on Mars:
https://mars.nasa.gov/mars2020/multi...Z02008_10_095J
There's no caption.

That's either space junk or something very exotic.

Larry
DevilHorse

That’s a Xenomorph facehugger exoskeleton.

[DevilHorse]

I found this interesting explanation of the 6 (actually 8 when you include the 2 small spikes from the struts) pointed stars on the JWST images.
https://twitter.com/JWSTscope/status...981760/photo/1

A more detailed explanation here:
https://stsci-opo.org/STScI-01G6933B...1MGT1TCPJ9.png

Larry
DevilHorse

[DevilHorse]

Some new JWST images and discussion:
https://www.quantamagazine.org/two-w...nomy-20220725/

Larry
DevilHorse

[DevilHorse]

Space Debris seen over Malaysia on 7/31/2022:
https://twitter.com/i/status/1554871594014613504

Malaysia is over the east end of the Indian Ocean, so I presume this is that Chinese Long March-5B Rocket that made an uncontrolled fall to earth at the same time, depending on what side of the international date line you were on.

Larry
DevilHorse

[DevilHorse]

Space Debris seen over Malaysia on 7/31/2022:
https://twitter.com/i/status/1554871594014613504

Malaysia is over the east end of the Indian Ocean, so I presume this is that Chinese Long March-5B Rocket that made an uncontrolled fall to earth at the same time, depending on what side of the international date line you were on.

Larry
DevilHorse

In a totally different case:
https://twitter.com/latestinspace/st...27882514890753

Space X debris visits down under.

These stories will become more common with the increase of objects orbiting the earth.

Larry
DevilHorse

[DevilHorse]

As many of you know, the Perseids peeked yesterday evening, although a full moon did not help viewing.

Just hitting the internet, a meteor streaked through Utah/Idaho. It was visible and made a large bang.

In related news, Governor Cox of Utah apologizes for not being specific when praying for showers.

Did you think that door bell (and other stationary) cameras would be the new frontier in astronomical observations? Too much money on the JWST? There are several views of the meteor, apparently from door bell cameras:

https://twitter.com/i/status/1558525646636081152

https://twitter.com/i/status/1558479381307146241

hear the boom at 33 seconds:
https://twitter.com/i/status/1558488789676277760

Here's a twitter thread on the meteor:
https://twitter.com/NWSSaltLakeCity/...79429617102848

Larry
DevilHorse

Larry
DevilHorse

[DevilHorse]

Interesting article on Rouge Planets:
https://bigthink.com/starts-with-a-b...s-are-orphans/

Some mental chewing gum for when you have the time.

Larry
DevilHorse