NASA Asks Twitter To Name The New Planets.

Heads up, this is tomorrow night! I hope it's clear where I am to see it but considering I'm in the Pacific Northwest, I don't have super high hopes. Get a look if you can, though! Rare to see a blue moon that's actually red :)

A Total Lunar Eclipse is Coming: 10 Things to Know

If you were captivated by August’s total solar eclipse, there’s another sky show to look forward to on Jan. 31: a total lunar eclipse!

Below are 10 things to know about this astronomical event, including where to see it, why it turns the Moon into a deep red color and more…

1. First things first. What’s the difference between solar and lunar eclipses? We’ve got the quick and easy explanation in this video:

2. Location, location, location. What you see will depend on where you are. The total lunar eclipse will favor the western U.S., Alaska, Hawaii, and British Columbia on Jan. 31. Australia and the Pacific Ocean are also well placed to see a major portion of the eclipse, if not all of it.

3. Color play. So, why does the Moon turn red during a lunar eclipse? Here’s your answer:

4. Scientists, stand by. What science can be done during a lunar eclipse? Find out HERE. 

5. Show and tell. What would Earth look like from the Moon during a lunar eclipse? See for yourself with this artist’s concept HERE. 

6. Ask me anything. Mark your calendars to learn more about the Moon during our our Reddit AMA happening Monday, Jan. 29, from 3-4 pm EST/12-1 pm PST.

7. Social cues. Make sure to follow @NASAMoon and @LRO_NASA for all of the latest Moon news leading up to the eclipse and beyond.

8. Watch year-round. Can’t get enough of observing the Moon? Make a DIY Moon Phases Calendar and Calculator that will keep all of the dates and times for the year’s moon phases right at your fingertips HERE.

Then, jot down notes and record your own illustrations of the Moon with a Moon observation journal, available to download and print from moon.nasa.gov.

9. Lesson learned. For educators, pique your students’ curiosities about the lunar eclipse with this Teachable Moment HERE.

10. Coming attraction. There will be one more lunar eclipse this year on July 27, 2018. But you might need your passport—it will only be visible from central Africa and central Asia. The next lunar eclipse that can be seen all over the U.S. will be on Jan. 21, 2019. It won’t be a blue moon, but it will be a supermoon.

Make sure to follow us on Tumblr for your regular dose of space: http://nasa.tumblr.com.  

Eagle Nebula

via reddit

A New Angle on Two Spiral Galaxies for Hubble’s 27th Birthday

In celebration of the 27th anniversary of the launch of NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope on April 24, 1990, astronomers used the legendary telescope to take a portrait of a stunning pair of spiral galaxies. This starry pair offers a glimpse of what our Milky Way galaxy would look like to an outside observer. The edge-on galaxy is called NGC 4302, and the tilted galaxy is NGC 4298. These galaxies look quite different because we see them angled at different positions on the sky. They are actually very similar in terms of their structure and contents. Image credit: NASA, ESA, and M. Mutchler (STScI) Read more NASA Media Usage Guidelines

HD and the Void by HD on Apple Podcasts

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Haaaaaay I’m on iTunes now! Slightly more convenient to download maybe!

New Horizons Flyover of Pluto

Using actual New Horizons data and digital elevation models of Pluto and its largest moon Charon, mission scientists have created flyover movies that offer spectacular new perspectives of the many unusual features that were discovered and which have reshaped our views of the Pluto system – from a vantage point even closer than the spacecraft itself. This dramatic Pluto flyover begins over the highlands to the southwest of the great expanse of nitrogen ice plain informally named Sputnik Planitia. The viewer first passes over the western margin of Sputnik, where it borders the dark, cratered terrain of Cthulhu Macula, with the blocky mountain ranges located within the plains seen on the right. The tour moves north past the rugged and fractured highlands of Voyager Terra and then turns southward over Pioneer Terra – which exhibits deep and wide pits – before concluding over the bladed terrain of Tartarus Dorsa in the far east of the encounter hemisphere. Digital mapping and rendering were performed by Paul Schenk and John Blackwell of the Lunar and Planetary Institute in Houston.

NASA

What are the most important skills an astronaut should have m?

First of all, the basic requirement is a bachelor’s degree in a STEM field, and 3 years of experience (which can also be substituted for by an advanced degree). Other than that, operational experience (things with a technical/active/hands on nature like flying airplanes, SCUBA diving, taking things apart and putting them back together, basic fix-it skills, etc. etc.) is very important, as this is an integral aspect of every day of a space mission.  What we call “expeditionary skills” are also essential, basically the types of things you try to instill in your children, like how to play nicely with others, self care, team care, etc.  I like to think about this on the lines of a camping trip and who you would like to have along with you …someone that is competent and can take good care of themselves and their equipment, someone that contributes to the team and helps with group tasks, someone that is good natured and pleasant to be around, etc., someone fun!  These things are increasingly important now that we are regularly doing long duration missions (typical International Space Station mission is 6 months).  Experience living in extreme/remote/isolated environments with small teams is also useful, as it is similar to what we experience as astronauts.     

Ep. 8 Planets - HD and the Void

Eight planets in the solar system or nine? I go into depth with nine because I grew up with Pluto. The first five planets are visible to the naked eye but how did we find Uranus, Neptune, and Pluto? What are we doing to still learn about our close...

Earth is a super special world. It has life on it, and getting conditions just right so that life will survive is an incredibly difficult task. Other planets and other moons in our solar system may look like they could have life on them, but it just didn’t happen.

Life on other planets is for a different episode, though. In this one, I’m talking about what we can see on our close neighbors, the eight (maybe seven?) planets in our solar system. Learn how they were discovered, what naming conventions we use for them and their moons, how to differentiate between them, and what probes we’ve sent out to learn more about them. Also enjoy snippets from the lovely orchestral suite written for each planet by Gustav Holst! It’s the longest episode so far but I promise it’s worth it.

There’s a timeline below the cut in addition to the other resources because hooboy did I mention a lot of people. I may also put together a timeline of probes... But that’s for another podcast. Maybe the next podcast! Let me know what you think I should research by messaging me here, tweeting at me at @HDandtheVoid, or asking me to my face if you know me in real life. And please check out the podcast on iTunes, rate it or review it if you’d like, subscribe, and maybe tell your friends about it if you think they’d like to listen! Also below the cut are my sources, music credits, vocab list, and the transcript. I mention a book, a play, a poem, and a few works of art, and I quote an astronomy book in this episode so if you want to see that written down, those sources are there as well.

(My thoughts for the next episode were spectroscopy, auroras, or probes through the ages. Let me know by the 21st and I’ll have the next podcast up by July 31!)

Glossary:

auroras - a light display that occurs when a magnetosphere is sufficiently disturbed by solar wind that charged particles scatter into the upper atmosphere and lose their energy.

magnetosphere - an invisible barrier that surrounds a celestial objet. It is often generated by the movement of the liquid metal core of the object. Around a planet, it deflects high-energy, charged particles called cosmic rays that can either come from the Sun or, less often, from interstellar space.

prograde - when a planet spins from east to west.

retrograde - when a planet spins from west to east.

sol - a unit of time measuring one Martian day, or 24 Earth-hours and 40 Earth-minutes. The immediately previous Martian day is called yestersol.

transit of Mercury/Venus - when a planet passes in front of the Sun.

Script/Transcript

Timeline of people mentioned

Nicolaus Copernicus, Polish (1473-1543)

Tycho Brahe, Danish (1541-1601)

Galileo Galilei, Italian (1564-1642)

Johannes Kepler, German (1571-1630)

Simon Marius, German (1573-1625)

Pierre Gassendi, French (1592-1655)

Giovanni Cassini (also known as Jean-Dominique Cassini), Italian/French (1625-1712)

Christiaan Huygens, Dutch (1629-1695)

William Herschel, German/English (1738-1822)

Johann Elert Bode, German (1747-1826)

Caroline Herschel, German/English (1750-1848)

Johann Franz Encke, German (1791-1865)

John Herschel, English (1792-1871)

William Lassell, English (1799-1880)

Urbain Le Verrier, French (1811-1877)

Johann Galle, German (1812-1910)

John Couch Adams, English (1819-1892)

Edouard Roche, French (1820-1883)

Heinrich Louis d’Arrest, German (1822-1875)

Asaph Hall III, American (1829-1907)

James Clark Maxwell, Scottish (1831-1879)

Giovanni Schiaparelli, Italian (1835-1910)

Percival Lowell, American (1855-1916)

Eugène Antoniadi (also known as Eugenios Antoniadis), Greek (1870-1944)

Gerard Kuiper, Dutch/American (1905-1973)

Clyde Tombaugh (1906-1997)

Sources:

Who discovered each planet via Cornell University

The mathematical discovery of Neptune and Pluto via University of St. Andrews, where my mom’s boyfriend’s son graduated last year! Mad props, Henry!

Holst’s The Planets via the Utah Symphony

More on Holst’s suite, including music files

Chronology of solar system discovery

MESSENGER information via John Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory

Auroras via NASA’s Themis mission

Magnetospheres via NASA, which has a tumblr! You should follow it! Good stuff.

Curiosity rover via NASA

‘Canali on Mars’ debacle via NASA

Mariner 9 via NASA

Origin of ‘yestersol’ and Martian day-length via A Way With Words

Richard Bram: “Superlatives are inadequate; words fail. Look. Think. Be in awe.”

Images of Mars through the years via The Telegraph

Mars-One mission to colonize Mars

Names of all the planet’s moons and their significance in mythology, last updated in 2013 and questionably reliable but from what I know of mythology—and I do know more than most—it’s not too far off.

Table of moons of various planets

Jupiter via NASA

Jupiter moon name facts via NASA

The Galilean Moons of Jupiter via University of Colorado at Boulder

Saturn’s moons via Phys.org

Cassini mission website

Saturn overview via NASA

Saturn’s moon Titan via NASA

Ethane via PubChem

Methane via EPA

Neptune’s moons via Space.com

What is Pluto via NASA

Pluto Overview via NASA

“Dwarf planets may provide the best evidence about the origins of our solar system.”

New Horizons mission via NASA

Pluto and our designations for planets are mentioned very briefly in this Oatmeal comic. I liked it.

Sobel, Dava. The Planets. Viking: NY, 2005.

“But tides raised by the Sun in the planet’s molten middle gradually damped Mercury’s rotation down to its present slow gait” (34).

“Light and heat always hit Mercury dead on, while the north and south poles, which receive no direct sunlight, remain relatively frigid at all times” (35).

“Venusian clouds comprise large and small droplets of real vitriol—sulfuric acid along with caustic compounds of chlorine and fluorine. They precipitate a constant acid rain, called virga, that evaporates in Venus’ hot, arid air before it has a chance to strike the ground” (61).

“…Neptune, where the voices of a female choir, sequestered in a room offstage, are made to fade out at the finale (with no sacrifice in pitch) by the slow, silent closing of a door” (165).

Holst: “Saturn brings not only physical decay but also a vision of fulfillment” (165).

“They occupy a nearby region of perpetual fragmentation known as the Roche zone, named for the nineteenth-century French astronomer Edouard Roche, who formulated the safe distances for planetary satellites” (172).

“It's near twin, Neptune, reveals a more complex beauty in subtle stripes and spots of royal to navy blue, azure, turquoise, and aquamarine” (200).

“This outlying population offered Pluto a new identity—if not the last planet, then the first citizen of a distant teeming shore” (214).

Van Gogh, Vincent. Starry Night (June 1889). 

—. Road with Cypress and Star (May 1890). 

—. White House at Night (June 1890). 

Shakespeare, William. A Midsummer Night’s Dream (1605).

Pope, Alexander. “The Rape of the Lock” (1712). (It’s a mock-epic satiric poem about stealing a lock of hair, not physical rape)

Duane, Diane. Wizards at War. Harcourt Trade Publishers: San Diego CA, 2005.

Intro Music: ‘Better Times Will Come’ by No Luck Club off their album Prosperity

Filler Music: The Planets (1918) by Gustav Holst, performed by the London Symphony Orchestra in 2003.

Outro Music: ‘Fields of Russia’ by Mutefish off their album On Draught

Ep. 18 Zombie Stars and Supernovae - HD and the Void

Zombie stars were in the news in November but get in the holiday spirit by hearing about them now! Learn about the life cycle of a star, the power of a supernova, and what undeath looks like in a star.

In November, a couple lovely people brought my attention to articles about a recent discovery that headlines consistently referred to as the ‘zombie star.’ What the heck is a zombie star? What makes it a zombie? I found a zombie star from 2014 in addition to the one in 2017 and I dug into the life cycle of the average star to get a sense of what undeath looks like in stars.

Below the cut are my sources, music credits, a vocab list, and the transcript of this episode. Suggest what you think I should research next by messaging me here, tweeting at me at @HDandtheVoid, or asking me to my face if you know me. Please subscribe on iTunes, rate it and maybe review it, and tell friends if you think they’d like to hear it! Also, welcome if you found me through PodCon!

(My thoughts on the next episode are the International Space Station, the transit of Venus, or astronaut training practices. The next episode will allegedly be up on New Year’s Day, January 1st. We’ll see about that.)

Glossary

Chandrasekhar limit - the upper limit for the mass of an astronomical body that can support extreme density without imploding: about 1.4 times the mass of our Sun. Any white dwarf star that has less than that mass will stay a white dwarf forever; any star that exceeds the Chandrasekhar limit will end in a supernova. 

dwarf nova - a close binary system of a red dwarf, a white dwarf, and an accretion disk around the white dwarf. They brighten by 2 to 6 magnitudes depending on the stability of the disk, which loses material to the white dwarf. Categorized as a cataclysmic variable.

neutron star - a type of star that has gone supernova, when the surviving core is 1.5 to 3 solar masses and contracts into a small, very dense, very fast-spinning star.

nova - a close binary system of a white dwarf and a secondary star that’s a little cooler than the Sun. The system brightens 7 to 16 magnitudes in 1 to 100 days, and then the star fades slowly to the initial brightness over a period of several years or decades. At maximum brightness, it’s similar to an A or F giant star. Recurrent novae are similar to this category of variable but have several outbursts during their recorded history. Categorized as a cataclysmic variable.

pulsar - a type of neutron star that spins very, very fast. Also a kind of variable star that emits light pulses usually between 0.0014 seconds and 8.5 seconds. 

reflection telescope - reflects light rays off the concave surface of a parabolic mirror to get an image of a distant object. Higher contrast image, worse color quality. 

spectroscopy - the study of light from an incandescent source (or, more recently, electromagnetic radiation and other radiative energy) that has its wavelength dispersed by a prism or other spectroscopic device that can disperse an object’s wavelength. The spectra of distant astronomical objects like the Sun, stars, or nebulae are patterns of absorption lines that correspond to elements that these objects are made up of.

supernova - a massive star that explodes with a magnitude increase of 20 or more. Supernovae have led us to realize that the expansion of the Universe is accelerating.

supernova progenitors - the kinds of stars and conditions that will result in certain types of supernovae.

white dwarf star - a star that has exhausted all of its nuclear fuel (i.e. no longer has hydrogen to convert into helium through nuclear fusion). It is the hot, dense core of a star. Unless it is acquiring/accreting matter from a nearby star, it will cool over time and become a dead star.

Script/Transcript

Sources

Chandrasekhar limit via PBS, Jan 2012

“The Chandrasekhar Limit is therefore not just as upper limit to the maximum mass of an ideal white dwarf, but also a threshold. A star surpassing this threshold no longer hoards its precious cargo of heavy elements. Instead, it delivers them to the universe at large in a supernova that marks its own death but makes it possible for living beings to exist.”

Type I and Type II supernovae via Space.com

Type Ia supernovae via Swinburne University of Technology

Type Ia Supernova Progenitors via Swinburne University of Technology

Zombie star via NASA, Aug 2014

Curtis McCully “I was very surprised to see anything at the location of the supernova. We expected the progenitor system would be too faint to see, like in previous searches for normal Type Ia supernova progenitors. It is exciting when nature surprises us.” 

The abstract of the article McCully and his team wrote on Type 1ax supernovae via Nature Magazine, Aug 2014

Zombie star via CNN, Nov 2017

Arcavi: "My first thought was that this must be some nearby star in our galaxy, just varying its brightness. But when we got the first spectrum of it, we saw that it was in fact a supernova 500 million light-years away. My mind was blown. The fact that it got bright and dim five times was very unusual. We'd never seen a supernova do that before."

Arcavi: "This means that we still have a lot to learn about how massive stars evolve and how they explode." 

Robert Evans via Sky and Telescope, Sept 2005

2017 zombie star articles I didn’t use because there were too many of them:

Air and Space Magazine, Nov 2017

The Atlantic, Nov 2017

BBC News, Nov 2017

BGR, Nov 2017

Carnegie Science, Nov 2017

Earth Sky, Nov 2017

Express UK, Nov 2017

The Guardian, Nov 2017

Intro Music: ‘Better Times Will Come’ by No Luck Club off their album Prosperity

Filler Music: 'Toll Free’ by the Shook Twins off their album What We Do

Outro Music: ‘Fields of Russia’ by Mutefish off their album On Draught

Solar System: Things to Know This Week

Like sailors of old, the Cassini mission team fondly thinks of the spacecraft as “she."  On April 22, she begins her Grand Finale, a spectacular end game—22 daring dives between the planet’s atmosphere and innermost rings. Here are 10 things to know about her Grand Finale.

1. She’s Broadcasting Live This Week

On Tuesday, April 4 at 3 p.m. EDT  (noon PDT), At Jet Propulsion Laboratory, the Cassini team host a news briefing to discuss the mission’s Grand Finale.

Tune in Tuesday: youtube.com/nasajpl/live

2. She’s Powered in Part By … Titan

Cassini left Earth with less than 1/30th of the propellant needed to power all her adventures at Saturn. The navigation team used the gravity of Saturn’s giant moon Titan to change course and extend the spacecraft’s exploration of Saturn. Titan also provides the gravity assist to push Cassini into its final orbits.

More on Cassini’s navigation: saturn.jpl.nasa.gov/mission/spacecraft/navigation/

3. She’s a Robot

Cassini is an orbiter that was named for 18th century astronomer Giovanni Domenico Cassini. She was designed to be captured by Saturn’s gravity and then explore it in detail with a suite of 12 powerful science instruments.

More on the Spacecraft: saturn.jpl.nasa.gov/mission/spacecraft/cassini-orbiter/

4. She Brought a Friend to Saturn

Cassini carried the European Space Agency’s Huygens Probe, which in 2005 descended through Titan’s thick, perpetual clouds and made the most distant landing to date in our solar system.

More on Huygens: saturn.jpl.nasa.gov/mission/spacecraft/huygens-probe/

5. She’s a Great Photographer

Your mobile phone likely captures dozens of megapixels in images. Cassini, using 1990s technology closer to one megapixel cameras, has returned some of the most stunning images in the history of solar system exploration.

Cassini Hall of Fame Images: go.nasa.gov/2oec6H2 More on Cassini’s Cameras: saturn.jpl.nasa.gov/imaging-science-subsystem/

6. She’s an Inspiration

Those great images have inspired artist’s and amateur image processors to create truly fantastic imagery inspired by the beauty of Saturn. Feeling inspired? There’s still time to share your Cassini-inspired art with us.

Cassini Inspires Campaign: saturn.jpl.nasa.gov/mission/cassiniinspires/

7. She’s Got a Long History

Two decades is a long time to live in the harsh environment of outer space (respect to the fast-approaching 40-year-old twin Voyager spacecraft). Launched in 1997, Cassini logged a lot of milestones over the years.

Explore the Cassini Timeline: saturn.jpl.nasa.gov/the-journey/timeline/

8. She Keeps a Diary

And, you can read it. Week after week going back to 1997, Cassini’s adventures, discoveries and status have been chronicled in the mission’s weekly significant events report.

Read It: https://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov/news/?topic=121

9. She’s Got a Fancy New App

Cassini was the prototype for NASA’s Eyes on the Solar System 3-D visualization software, so it’s fitting the latest Cassini module in the free, downloadable software is the most detailed, elaborate visualization of any mission to date.

Fly the Mission - Start to Finish: http://eyes.nasa.gov/cassini

10. She’s Going Out in a Blaze of Glory

In addition to all the new information from 22 orbits in unexplored space, Cassini’s engineers reprogrammed the spacecraft to send back details about Saturn’s atmosphere to the very last second before the giant planet swallows her up on Sept. 15, 2017.

More on the Grand Finale: saturn.jpl.nasa.gov/grandfinale

Discover more lists of 10 things to know about our solar system HERE.

Make sure to follow us on Tumblr for your regular dose of space: http://nasa.tumblr.com