According to the observations of one Italian astronomer, it appears that Comet ISON will not be the “Comet of the Century,” as hoped.
This fits with other recent reports, all of which suggested that the comet is not brightening as it should.
A supernova has exploded in the galaxy M74, only 30 million light years away.
This is one of the closest supernovae in recent years. Though it is still brightening and has reached 12th magnitude, it is not expected to brighten to naked eye visibility (about 6th magnitude). Astronomers however have spotted the progenitor star in archival Hubble images, which they have identified as a M-type red supergiant that was also particularly bright in the infrared.
Scientists have finalized their flyby plans of Pluto when New Horizons arrives there in 2015.
The effort to bring Kepler back to life does not look good.
Call Al Gore! Observations of Comet ISON have detected strong carbon dioxide emissions escaping from the comet.
Images captured June 13 with Spitzer’s Infrared Array Camera indicate carbon dioxide is slowly and steadily “fizzing” away from the so-called “soda-pop comet,” along with dust, in a tail about 186,400 miles (300,000 kilometers) long. “We estimate ISON is emitting about 2.2 million pounds (1 million kilograms) of what is most likely carbon dioxide gas and about 120 million pounds (54.4 million kilograms) of dust every day,” said Carey Lisse, leader of NASA’s Comet ISON Observation Campaign and a senior research scientist at the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory in Laurel, Md. “Previous observations made by NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope and the Swift Gamma-Ray Burst Mission and Deep Impact spacecraft gave us only upper limits for any gas emission from ISON. Thanks to Spitzer, we now know for sure the comet’s distant activity has been powered by gas.”
The continuing technical troubles of the James Webb Space Telescope.
Though it appears they are keeping within their latest budget and scheduling margins (which is almost nine times the original budget and almost a decade behind the original schedule), the number of issues described in this article is quite worrisome.
“‘Comet of the Century’? We’ll soon find out.”
This article, as well as a bunch of others published this week about Comet ISON, suggest to me that the comet is going to be a dud. These articles all are suggesting that we won’t know if the comet will be as bright as hoped until after it flies around the sun. This is absolutely wrong. As the comet drops down towards the sun it should heat up and begin brightening, producing a tail. This is what all comets do. If it doesn’t brighten on its journey in, then it won’t be bright on its journey out.
That the authors of these articles don’t know that, or are hiding it, is simply bad journalism. Moreover, this effort to spin the comet’s dimness now suggests that the comet is now far dimmer than hoped, which strongly suggests it will remain that way.
Astronomers have found evidence which suggests that most of the universe’s gold was created during the collision and merger of two neutron stars.
A binary of two neutron stars will eventually spiral into each other. When they do, scientists believe that their violent merger produces short gamma ray bursts (GRB). Observations of a short GRB burst in June found a lot of spectroscopic evidence of gold.
[T]he explosion had been responsible for the creation of a whole menagerie of heavy elements. They estimated that an equivalent of 1% of the sun’s matter was being flung out from the collision in a tail, and about 10 parts per million of that tail was made of gold.
Part of a gas cloud, being ripped apart by the super massive black hole at the center of the Milky Way, has already swung past the black hole.
“The ionised gas at the head of the cloud is now stretched over more than 150 light-hours (about 160 billion kilometres) at the pericentre of the orbit around the black hole, with the closest approach being about 25 light-hours (or a bit more than 25 billion kilometres)”, explains Stefan Gillessen from MPE, who led the observing team. “The pericentre approach however is not a singular event but rather a process that will be stretching over a period of at least one year.”
The black hole, dubbed Sagittarius A* (pronounced A-star), is more than 4 billion times the mass of our Sun, but emits very little energy for its size. (Most super massive black holes emit energy as they swallow the mass around them.) Astronomers are hoping that they will see some action when it eats this cloud sometime next year.
Astronomers using the Hubble Space Telescope have discovered another moon orbiting Neptune.
A blue exoplanet the size of Jupiter where glass rains sideways.
Engineers will attempt one more try this month to revive one of Kepler’s reaction wheels so that the telescope can resume observations.
They admit that the odds are not good that the attempt will work, but they are going to give it chance anyway.
