Littlecadet-biguniverse - Space, Our Favorite Frontier!!

Solar surges are cool jets of plasma ejected in the solar atmosphere from chromospheric into coronal heights. This particular surge has been captured in a loopy structure and streamed sunwards along the magnetic field lines.

Surges are associated with active regions and they are most likely triggered by magnetic reconnection and magnetohydrodynamic (MHD) wave activity. According to their morphological features, surge prominences can be classified into three types: jet-like, diffuse, and closed loop (above). Jet-like and diffuse surges are associated with coronal mass ejections (CMEs), but the closed-loop surges are not because the initial acceleration of the eruption is slowed down and finally stopped by the overlying coronal loops.

Credit: SDO/ LMSAL

The Milky Way was so very alive this weekend in the backcountry.. Hope you all had a chance to look up and watch the cosmos whiz by.. #stars #nightphotography #nightsky #darksky #adventure

Juno Arrives at Jupiter Today!

Today on the 4th of July, 2016 (barring any tragic occurrence with the engine firing) NASA’s Juno spacecraft will enter into orbit around Jupiter.

It’s been traveling since 2011 and carries thick shielding to protect its instruments from the dangerous fields of radiation surrounding the planet.

Juno’s not the first spacecraft to go to Jupiter, but it will be the closest. I like to imagine that Juno will look like a scene from Alien: Isolation where you get to look out the window and see that massive gas giant below you.

The goals of this mission are essentially thus: investigate the weather, atmosphere and magnetosphere on Jupiter.

Moving into a grander context, as answers start to come in and we learn more about Jupiter’s nature we hope to learn more about the questions we must be asking in order to investigate the formation of our very solar system on a deeper level.

Of course with any luck and a lot of hard work, we will be able to build a more harmonious theory of how a star system forms, and the things that go into the construct of a massive gas giant.

(Image credit: NASA and JPL)

A cosmic concoction in NGC 2467

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Wide-field view of the sky around the exotic binary star system AR Scorpii

This wide-field image from the Digitized Sky Survey 2 shows the rich starfields surrounding the exotic binary star system AR Scorpii.

Credit: Digitized Sky Survey 2. Acknowledgement: Davide De Martin

Andromeda glowing in infrared.

The remnants of a supernova, which usually leaves behind a neutron star. However, no such x-rays have been discovered. Could this be the youngest black hole in the milky way?

Just so you know, you can always watch the Earth live from the ISS. Its really relaxing to me