Terry's Astronomy Thread.

[Bluearrowll]

Re: Terry's Astronomy Thread.

Daily Suspicious0bserver's Weather Post:
April 26, 2014

What's in the sky tonight?
April 26, 2014

-An X-class solar flare on April 25th irradiated Earth's upper atmosphere with extreme ultraviolet radiation. Waves of ionization rippled around the dayside of the planet, causing a widespread blackout of shortwave radio transmissions. Radio astronomer Dick Flagg recorded the event at his observatory at the Windward Community College on Oahu. "This is a dynamic spectrum," explains Flagg. "The vertical axis is frequency (MHz) and the horizontal axis is time (UTC)." All of the horizontal lines corresponding to terrestrial radio stations vanished in the aftermath of the flare.

The active region responsible for the flare rotated off the solar disk yesterday, so even if it flares again, another radio blackout is unlikely this weekend. NOAA forecasters estimate the odds of an X-flare on April 26th to be a scant 1%.

-Brilliant Mars, shining in the southeast after dusk, has been drawing closer to Gamma Virginis (Porrima), magnitude 2.7. Look for the little star about 2° to Mars's upper right. They'll appear closest (1.4° apart) on May 4th and 5th. Gamma Vir is a fine, tight telescopic double with a current separation of 2.1 arcseconds. Take a look at it with your scope at high power after you're done with Mars!

News Posted Today:
April 24, 2014
Jupiter’s Not-So-Great Red Spot


Astro Picture of the Day:
April 26, 2014

Source:
It's eclipse season, and on April 29 around 06:00 UT the shadow of the new Moon will reach out and touch planet Earth, though only just. Still, if you're standing on the continent of Antarctica within a few hundred kilometers of 79 degrees 38.7 minutes South latitude and 131 degrees 15.6 minutes East longitude you could see an annular solar eclipse with the Sun just above the horizon. Because the Moon will be approaching apogee, the most distant point in the elliptical lunar orbit, its apparent size will be too small to completely cover the solar disk. A rare, off-center eclipse, the annular phase will last at most 49 seconds. At its maximum it could look something like this "ring of fire" image from last May's annular solar eclipse, captured by a webcast team operating near Coen, Australia. Otherwise, a partial eclipse with the Moon covering at least some part of the Sun will be seen across a much broader region in the southern hemipshere, including Australia in the afternoon.

[Bluearrowll]

Re: Terry's Astronomy Thread.

Daily Suspicious0bserver's Weather Post:
April 27, 2014

What's in the sky tonight?
April 27, 2014

-To the left of Mars after dusk, by about three fists at arm's length, shines Arcturus in the east. High to Arcturus's upper left, you'll encounter the handle of the Big Dipper.

-Solar activity is low. Only a few sunspots are facing Earth, and none has the kind of complex magnetic field that harbors energy for strong explosions. NOAA forecasters estimate a waning 10% chance of M-class flares and only a 1% chance of X-flares on April 27th.

-Mars has two small moons: Phobos and Deimos. One of them is doomed. Phobos orbits so close to Mars - about 5,800 kilometers above the surface compared to 400,000 kilometers for our own Moon - that gravitational tidal forces are dragging it down. In 100 million years or so Phobos will likely be shattered by tidal shear, the debris forming a decaying ring around Mars.

With the countdown clock clicking, astrophotographer Peter Rosén was determined to photograph the diminutive moon, and on April 24th he succeeded. "My previous attempt at photographing Phobos and Deimos resulted in Deimos alone, so I tried again last night, slightly changing my setup," says Rosén. "This time I managed to get the even more elusive Phobos at mag. 11.8 , separated only by 11 arcseconds from the blindingly bright Mars at mag. -1.28."

"I inserted the orbital path of both moons to show how much closer Phobos is to the planet compared to Deimos and also that Phobos is on track."

Astro Picture of the Day:
April 27, 2014

Source:
A spacesuit floated away from the International Space Station eight years ago, but no investigation was conducted. Everyone knew that it pushed by the space station crew. Dubbed Suitsat-1, the unneeded Russian Orlan spacesuit filled mostly with old clothes was fitted with a faint radio transmitter and released to orbit the Earth. The suit circled the Earth twice before its radio signal became unexpectedly weak. Suitsat-1 continued to orbit every 90 minutes until it burned up in the Earth's atmosphere after a few weeks. Pictured above, the lifeless spacesuit was photographed in 2006 just as it drifted away from space station.

[Bluearrowll]

Re: Terry's Astronomy Thread.

Daily Suspicious0bserver's Weather Post:
April 28, 2014

What's in the sky tonight?
April 28, 2014

-Solar activity remains low. Only a few sunspots are facing Earth, and none has the kind of complex magnetic field that harbors energy for strong explosions. NOAA forecasters estimate a 10% chance of M-class flares and only a 1% chance of X-flares on April 28th.

-Many of us have witnessed sun pillars--columns of light that lance upwards from the horizon just as the sun is rising or setting. They are caused by plate-shaped ice crystals in clouds that bend the rays of the low-hanging sun. While sun pillars are frequently seen, in all seasons and at all latitudes, elusive companions of sun pillars may have been frequently overlooked. They are called sun pillar "echos". Atmospheric optics expert Les Cowley explains: "13 years ago in Finland, three halo experts saw peculiar 'echoes' straddling an otherwise ordinary sun pillar. They could not be explained and there the matter rested for want of confirmation by another observation. Then, last week, Jon Inghram sent me several sun pillar images. He too had noticed faint 'echoes' on each side of his pillar – the mysterious ice halo was at last confirmed!"
"More details and pictures may be found in an article here: http://www.atoptics.co.uk/fz1004.htm But we still cannot explain them. The Finland observers, Jon and I have each tried simulations using the flattened pyramid crystals invoked to account for elliptical halos. They do not work at all well. We need many more observations! Take plenty of pictures of each pillar. The echoes are easily overlooked or mistaken for cloud patches and have probably been seen many times. Observations under different conditions could help unravel their mystery." Image credit: Jon Inghram.

Astro Picture of the Day:
April 28, 2014

Source:
Why would a bright full Moon suddenly become dark? Because it entered the shadow of the Earth. Almost two weeks ago this exact event happened as the Moon underwent a total lunar eclipse. That eclipse, visible from the half of the Earth then facing the Moon, was captured in numerous spectacular photographs and is depicted in the above time lapse video covering about an hour. The above video, recorded from Mt. Lemmon Sky Center in Arizona, USA, keeps the Earth shadow centered and shows the Moon moving through it from west to east. The temporarily good alignment between Earth, Moon, and Sun will show itself again tomorrow -- precisely half a moon-th (month) later -- when part of the Earth will pass through part of the new Moon's shadow.

[Bluearrowll]

Re: Terry's Astronomy Thread.

Daily Suspicious0bserver's Weather Post:
April 29, 2014

What's in the sky tonight?
April 29, 2014

-New Moon (exact at 2:14 a.m. on this date EDT). A partial eclipse of the Sun occurs for Australia, and the eclipse is annular on the horizon for a bit of Antarctica. - http://eclipse.gsfc.nasa.gov/OH/OH20...l#SE2014Apr29A

-Sky watchers around the Arctic Circle have a problem: too much daylight. As spring unfolds, twilight is spreading into the night, washing out all but the brightest auroras. Thomas Kast of Haukipudas, Finland, photographed the competition on April 25th. "We aurora chasers, hunters and worshippers fight a battle against the magic midnight sun which cannot be won," says Kast. "Every night it gets brighter and the chances for auroras fade. As you can see from this photo - taken at 1.30am - the aurora is barely visible against the twilight. There are still a few nights with the sun more than 10 degrees below the horizon, but we will need a strong impact to see some nice auroras overhead."

The next impact might not be strong enough. NOAA forecasters expect a relatively weak stream of solar wind to brush past Earth's magnetic field on April 29th and 30th, sparking minor geomagnetic activity. Arctic sky watchers should be alert for auroras, but don't be surprised if all you see is twilight.

Astro Picture of the Day:
April 29, 2014

Source:
Sometimes it is hard to believe what you see in the sky. While leading his annual aurora tour last month near Fairbanks in central Alaska, astrophotographer John Chumack and his company saw a most unusual aurora. This bright aurora appeared to change into the shape of a jumping dog, complete with a curly tail. He was able to capture the fleeting natural apparition in the above image with a 15-second exposure through a wide-angle lens. By coincidence, he also captured a background sky filled with familiar highlights. Planets visible include bright Jupiter through the dog's front legs and reddish Mars below the dog's hind legs. Stars visible include the Big Dipper stars above the dog's midsection and reddish Betelgeuse shining on the far right. This dog would not be following him home, however, and within a few minutes morphed into other shapes before the geomagnetic storm particles that created it shifted to strike the Earth elsewhere.

[Snowcrafta]

Re: Terry's Astronomy Thread.

I keep finding myself in this thread simply because of the beautiful pictures you post

[Bluearrowll]

Re: Terry's Astronomy Thread.

Daily Suspicious0bserver's Weather Post:
April 30, 2014

What's in the sky tonight?
April 30, 2014

-Can you see the hairline Moon yet in the west in twilight? It's about a fist-width to the lower right of Aldebaran for North American skywatchers. Binoculars will help. How about the departing Pleiades?

-When the sun set over Australia on April 29th, sky watchers noticed something odd. A piece of the sun was missing. The new Moon passed in front of the sun producing a partial eclipse as deep as 70%. This was the view from Adelaide, South Australia.

"Here the eclipse peaked at 51% and was still in progress as the sun was setting," says photographer Martin Lewicki. "We could see it clearly through the clouds."

Visibility of this eclipse was restricted to Australia and the coast of Antarctica. While Australians witnessed a partial eclipse, in Antarctica the Moon passed directly in front of the sun, producing a "ring of fire" annular eclipse. Photographs of that phase, however, might not be forthcoming because of the remote location.

Astro Picture of the Day:
April 30, 2014

Source:
If you look closely, you will see something quite unusual about this setting Sun. There are birds flying to the Sun's left, but that's not so unusual. A dark sea covers the Sun's bottom, and dark clouds cover parts of the middle, but they are also not very unusual. More unusual is the occulted piece at the top right. And that's no occulting cloud -- that's the Moon. Yesterday the Moon moved in front of part of the Sun as visible from Australia, and although many locations reported annoying clouds, a partially eclipsed Sun would occasionally peak through as it set. The above image was captured yesterday on the western horizon of Adelaide, South Australia. The maximum eclipse was visible only from a small part of Antarctica where the entire Moon could be seen covering the entire center of the Sun in what is known as an annular eclipse, leaving only a ring of fire from the Sun peaking out around the edges. The next solar eclipse will be another partial eclipse, will occur on 2014 October 23, and will be visible from most of North America near sunset.

[A2P]

Re: Terry's Astronomy Thread.

Why was this unstickied? This is probably the best thread on the board right now, simply because of the sheer dedication blue commits to it. These reads are always interesting too.

[Bluearrowll]

Re: Terry's Astronomy Thread.

I believe it was unstickied because it wasn't deemed an important thread, but i'll leave it to an admin or whatnot to give the explanation - the unstickied thread is certainly harder to find than the stickied one though particularly when Chit Chat is active lol. It makes its way to page 2 sometimes.

Daily Suspicious0bserver's Weather Post:
May 1, 2014

What's in the sky tonight?
May 1, 2014

-Brilliant Mars, shining in the southeast after dusk, has been drawing closer to Gamma Virginis (Porrima), magnitude 2.7. Look for the little star about 2° to Mars's upper right. They'll appear closest (1.4° apart) on May 4th and 5th. Gamma Vir is a fine, tight telescopic double with a current separation of 2.1 arcseconds. Take a look at it with your scope at high power after you're done with Mars!

-Last night, April 30th, the interplanetary magnetic field (IMF) near Earth tipped south, opening a crack in our planet's magnetosphere. Solar wind poured in and ignited a display of auroras bright enough to pierce the Spring twilight around the Arctic Circle. Nancy Dean sends this picture from Sterling, Alaska. "Bright and beautiful auroras danced all night across our Alaskan sky," says Dean. "The colors of sunset made the display even better."

Meanwhile in the southern hemisphere, autumn is unfolding, and the night sky is growing darker. The display was even more dramatic there. Photographer Brendan Davey says "the glow from Tasmania was very bright."

The crack in Earth's magnetosphere has mostly closed, but the IMF could open it again. NOAA forecasters estimate a 50% chance of polar geomagnetic storms on May 1st.

Astro Picture of the Day:
May 1, 2014

Source:
In skies over Brisbane at the southeastern corner of Queensland, Australia, Planet Earth, the Sun and New Moon set together on April 29. There the celestial line-up, the first solar eclipse of 2014, was seen as a partial solar eclipse. This dramatic composite is a digital stack of images taken about 5 minutes apart with telephoto lens and solar filter. It follows the eclipse in progress, approaching a western horizon where crepuscular rays from cloud banks in silhouette joined the silhouetted Moon. From Brisbane, the maximum eclipse phase with the Moon covering about 25% of the Sun occurred just after sunset. Only from a remote spot on the continent of Antarctica was it even possible to see the eclipse in its brief annular phase, the entire dark lunar disk surrounded by a thin, bright ring of fire.

[Bluearrowll]

Re: Terry's Astronomy Thread.

Daily Suspicious0bserver's Weather Post:
May 2a, 2014

What's in the sky tonight?
May 2, 2014

-How soon after sunset can you see the first stars and planets coming out? The brightest is Jupiter. Look for it high in the west, almost two fist-widths at arm's length above or upper left of the Moon. The second brightest is Sirius, sinking in the southwest.

-NOAA forecasters have boosted the odds of an M-class flare today to 35%. There are two possible blast sites: Earth-facing sunspots AR2047 and AR2049 both have 'beta-gamma' magnetic fields that harbor energy for strong eruptions.

-Researchers pondering the possibilities of life on Mars have long focused their attention on halobacteria--a type of terrestrial extremophile that uses salt to shield itself from harsh radiation. On April 20th, the students of Earth to Sky Calculus flew a colony of halobacteria onboard a suborbital helium balloon to the Edge of Space. The microbes didn't merely survive, they are now thriving in the students' biology classroom back on Earth. During the ascent to 102,400 feet, these bacteria experienced temperatures as low as -60 C, air pressures only 1% that at sea-level, and radiation levels more than 25-times Earth-normal. All of these conditions are akin to those on Mars. ( See a 74 MB movie of the bacteria floating in the stratosphere.)

Instead of chlorophyll, halobacteria use the photosynthetic molecule bacteriorhodopsin, which produces chemical energy from sunlight without producing oxygen. This photosynthetic pigment colors the halobacteria colony pinkish-red--the same hue visible in the incubated petri dish.

The students are planning to repeat the experiment with another flight possibly as early as this weekend.

Astro Picture of the Day:
May 2, 2014

Source:
Captured one night last May this eight frame mosaic starts on the left, down Northside Drive through Yosemite National Park. It ends thousands of light-years away though, as the arc of the Milky Way tracks toward the center of our galaxy on the right, far beyond the park's rugged skyline. That night was still moonless when the storm clouds retreated, so the rocky faces of the surrounding mountains are lit by campfires and artifical lights. Yosemite Falls is at the left. The granite face of Half Dome juts above the far horizon, near the center of the view. The remarkable flash above it is a bright meteor. Part of the annual Eta Aquarid meteor shower the colorful streak is moving up, its trail pointing directly back to the shower's radiant, low in Aquarius. This year's Eta Aquarids should peak in the moonless early morning hours of May 6 as the Earth sweeps through dust from the tail of Comet Halley.

[Bluearrowll]

Re: Terry's Astronomy Thread.

Daily Suspicious0bserver's Weather Post:
May 3, 2014

What's in the sky tonight?
May 3, 2014

-The waxing crescent Moon shines below Jupiter in the west at dusk. Above Jupiter are Pollux and Castor.

-New sunspot AR2051 is growing rapidly and has developed a 'delta-class' magnetic field that harbors energy for X-class solar flares. Any explosions this weekend would likely be geoeffective as the sunspot is approximately facing Earth.

-On May 24th, Earth will pass through a cloud of debris from periodic comet 209P/LINEAR. The result could be a new meteor shower. Forecasters expect meteor rates as high as 200 per hour when Earth crosses the debris zone. There has even been talk of a possible meteor storm. These are lofty predictions for a comet that looks so puny. "This image was taken on April 30th (4:35 UTC) using our 20-inch telescope located in New Mexico," says Bill Cooke of NASA's Meteoroid Environment Office. "A 3 minute exposure, it shows 14th magnitude Comet 209P/LINEAR shining faintly among the stars of Ursa Major. At the time of this image, 209P was just over 40 million km from Earth, heading for a relatively close approach (8.3 million km) with us on May 29th."

The comet is faint because it is a poor producer of dust. How, then, could it create a debris cloud capable of triggering a fine meteor shower? The answer is in the timing. The debris we are about to hit was shed by the comet not in 2014 but rather in the 1800s, when forecasters think the comet was probably more active.

The best place to see the display is North America where it will be nighttime during the shower's peak. Meteors will emerge from a radiant point high in the sky, in the constellation Camelopardalis not far from the North Star. Peak rates are expected between 6:00 and 08:00 UT or 2 and 4 o'clock in the morning EDT on May 24th. No one can say for sure how strong this new shower will be; possibilities range from "storm" to "dud." Stay tuned for updates as the debris zone approaches.

Astro Picture of the Day:
May 3, 2014

Source:
The yellowish star near center in this dusty telescopic skyview is T Tauri, prototype of the class of T Tauri variable stars. Just next door is the yellow cosmic cloud historically known as Hind's Variable Nebula (NGC 1555). Over 400 light-years away, at the edge of an otherwise invisible molecular cloud, both star and nebula are seen to vary significantly in brightness but not necessarily at the same time, adding to the mystery of the intriguing region. T Tauri stars are now generally recognized as young (less than a few million years old), sun-like stars still in the early stages of formation. To further complicate the picture, infrared observations indicate that T Tauri itself is part of a multiple system and suggest that the associated Hind's Nebula may also contain a very young stellar object. The naturally colored image spans about 7 light-years at the estimated distance of T Tauri.

[Bluearrowll]

Re: Terry's Astronomy Thread.

Daily Suspicious0bserver's Weather Post:
May 4, 2014

What's in the sky tonight?
May 4, 2014

-Earth is entering a stream of debris from Halley's Comet, source of the annual eta Aquarid meteor shower. Forecasters expect the shower to peak on the night of May 5-6 with as many as 60 meteors per hour in the southern hemisphere and half that number in the north. No matter where you live, the best time to look is during the dark hours before local sunrise on May 6th.

-On May. 3, 2014, the network reported 6 fireballs. (5 sporadics, 1 eta Aquariid)

Astro Picture of the Day:
May 4, 2014

Source:
If Scorpius looked this good to the unaided eye, humans might remember it better. Scorpius more typically appears as a few bright stars in a well-known but rarely pointed out zodiacal constellation. To get a spectacular image like this, though, one needs a good camera, color filters, and a digital image processor. To bring out detail, the above image not only involved long duration exposures taken in several colors, but one exposure in a very specific red color emitted by hydrogen. The resulting image shows many breathtaking features. Vertically across the image left is part of the plane of our Milky Way Galaxy. Visible there are vast clouds of bright stars and long filaments of dark dust. Jutting out diagonally from the Milky Way in the image center are dark dust bands known as the Dark River. This river connects to several bright stars on the right that are part of Scorpius' head and claws, and include the bright star Antares. Above and right of Antares is an even brighter planet Jupiter. Numerous red emission nebulas and blue reflection nebulas are visible throughout the image. Scorpius appears prominently in southern skies after sunset during the middle of the year.

[Bluearrowll]

Re: Terry's Astronomy Thread.

Daily Suspicious0bserver's Weather Post:
May 5, 2014

What's in the sky tonight?
May 5, 2014

-Saturn (magnitude +0.1, in Libra) reaches opposition this week. It now rises in twilight and stands highest in the south around 1 or 2 a.m. By then it's far left of Mars, and half as far to the upper right of Antares.

-Venus (magnitude –4.2) is the bright "Morning Star" low in the east during dawn. How late into the growing daylight can you follow it?

Astro Picture of the Day:
May 5, 2014

Source:
How do you calibrate a huge gravitational lens? In this case the lens is the galaxy cluster Abell 383, a massive conglomeration of galaxies, hot gas, and dark matter that lies about 2.5 billion light years away (redshift z=0.187). What needs calibrating is the mass of the cluster, in particular the amount and distribution of dark matter. A new calibration technique has been tested recently that consists of waiting for supernovas of a very specific type to occur behind a galaxy cluster, and then figuring out how much the cluster must have magnified these supernovas through gravitational lensing. This technique complements other measures including computing the dark matter needed to contain internal galaxy motions, to confine cluster hot gas, and to create the gravitational lens image distortions. Pictured above from the Hubble Space Telescope, galaxy cluster A383 shows its gravitational lens capabilities on the right by highly distorting background galaxies behind the cluster center. On the left is a distant galaxy shown both before and after a recent revealing supernova. To date, calibration-quality supernovas of Type Ia have been found behind two other galaxy clusters by the Cluster Lensing And Supernova survey with Hubble (CLASH) project.

[Bluearrowll]

Re: Terry's Astronomy Thread.

Daily Suspicious0bserver's Weather Post:
May 6, 2014

What's in the sky tonight?
May 6, 2014

-First-quarter Moon (exactly so at 11:15 p.m. Eastern Daylight Time). The Moon shines in Cancer above the dim head of Hydra. Well to the Moon's upper left is Regulus, forming the bottom of the Sickle of Leo.

-Earth is passing through a stream of debris from Halley's Comet, source of the annual eta Aquarid meteor shower. Forecasters expect the shower to peak on the night of May 5-6 with as many as 60 meteors per hour in the southern hemisphere and half that number in the north. No matter where you live, the best time to look is during the dark hours before local sunrise on May 6th. [photo gallery] [meteor radar]

Alan Dyer caught this speck of "Halley dust" disintegrating over Portal, Arizona, on May 5th.

"Portal, Arizona, has some of the finest skies on the continent," says Dyer. "Last night I saw several Eta Aquarids in just casual glances skyward as I was busy shooting images of the Milky Way in the pre-dawn hours. This frame nicely caught the entire meteor showing a change of colour in the ionization trail as it descended deeper into our atmosphere, typical of bright meteors."

Astro Picture of the Day:
May 6, 2014

Source:
Our Sun has become quite a busy place. Taken only two weeks ago, the Sun was captured sporting numerous tumultuous regions including active sunspot regions AR 2036 near the image top and AR 2036 near the center. Only four years ago the Sun was emerging from an unusually quiet Solar Minimum that had lasted for years. The above image was recorded in a single color of light called Hydrogen Alpha, inverted, and false colored. Spicules cover much of the Sun's face like a carpet. The gradual brightening towards the Sun's edges is caused by increased absorption of relatively cool solar gas and called limb darkening. Just over the Sun's edges, several filamentary prominences protrude, while prominences on the Sun's face are seen as light streaks. Possibly the most visually interesting of all are the magnetically tangled active regions containing relatively cool sunspots, seen as white dots. Currently at Solar Maximum -- the most active phase in its 11-year magnetic cycle, the Sun's twisted magnetic field is creating numerous solar "sparks" which include eruptive solar prominences, coronal mass ejections, and flares which emit clouds of particles that may impact the Earth and cause auroras. One flare two years ago released such a torrent of charged particles into the Solar System that it might have disrupted satellites and compromised power grids had it struck planet Earth.

[Bluearrowll]

Re: Terry's Astronomy Thread.

Daily Suspicious0bserver's Weather Post:
May 7, 2014

What's in the sky tonight?
May 7, 2014

-Just above the Moon at nightfall are Regulus and the Sickle of Leo.

-The eta Aquarid meteor shower, caused by debris from Halley's Comet, is still active on May 7th. Incoming data from the Canadian Meteor Orbit Radar show a hot spot of meteor activity near the head of Aquarius. These meteors are best seen during the dark hours before sunrise. Set your alarm for dawn and take a look!

-The odds of a geoeffective solar flare are dropping as sunspot AR2051 rotates off the visible solar disk. NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory recorded this parting shot during the late hours of May 6th. This plume of plasma, propelled away from the sun's surface by an M-class explosion in the sunspot's magnetic canopy, is as tall as a dozen planet Earths. Much of the material escaped the sun in the form of a coronal mass ejection (CME), not Earth-directed: movie.

Stronger blasts are possible on May 7th. The sunspot has a 'delta-class' magnetic field that harbors energy for powerful X-flares. Any such eruptions, however, will almost surely miss our planet as AR2051 heads for the farside of the sun.

On May. 6, 2014, the network reported 28 fireballs. (21 sporadics, 7 eta Aquariids)

Astro Picture of the Day:
May 7, 2014

Source:
What has the Curiosity rover come across on Mars? Dubbed Mount Remarkable, the rolling robot has chanced upon this notable 5-meter tall mound during its continuing journey around and, eventually, up 5.5-kilometer high Mt. Sharp. Unsure of the density of the surrounding layered sandstone, the human team on Earth has instructed the car-sized rover on Mars to drill into a rock on the side of Mt. Remarkable to investigate. Quite possibly, water involved in creating the dense sandstone could have helped to support ancient life on the red planet. Mt. Sharp, the unusual central peak of Gale Crater, has a similar base-to-peak height as Earth's Mt. Everest.

[Bluearrowll]

Re: Terry's Astronomy Thread.

Daily Suspicious0bserver's Weather Post:
May 8, 2014

What's in the sky tonight?
May 8, 2014

-Sometime late this evening (roughly 10 p.m. depending on where you live), bright Capella declining in the northwest will be exactly as high as bright Vega climbing in the northeast. How accurately can you time their altitude balance? Each day it will come four minutes earlier.

-The sunspot number is increasing this week as a crowd of dark cores emerges over the sun's eastern limb. One of the spots in the crowd, AR2056, has a 'beta-gamma' magnetic field that harbors energy for M-class solar flares. The odds of a geoeffective eruption will increase in the days ahead as AR2056 turns toward Earth. NOAA forecasters estimate a 25% chance of M-flares on May 8th.

-On May. 7, 2014, the network reported 20 fireballs.(12 sporadics, 8 eta Aquariids)

Astro Picture of the Day:
May 8, 2014

Source:
Sharp telescopic views of NGC 3628 show a puffy galactic disk divided by dark dust lanes. Of course, this deep portrait of the magnificent, edge-on spiral galaxy puts some astronomers in mind of its popular moniker, the Hamburger Galaxy. It also reveals a small galaxy nearby, likely a satellite of NGC 3628, and a faint but extensive tidal tail. The tantalizing island universe itself is about 100,000 light-years across and 35 million light-years away in the northern springtime constellation Leo. Its drawn out tail stretches for about 300,000 light-years, even beyond the left edge of the wide frame. NGC 3628 shares its neighborhood in the local Universe with two other large spirals M65 and M66 in a grouping otherwise known as the Leo Triplet. Gravitational interactions with its cosmic neighbors are likely responsible for creating the tidal tail, as well as the extended flare and warp of this spiral's disk.