Comet Watching for One and All

If you have a desire to look up into the night sky and watch comets go by like I do, you won't want to miss the 46P/Wirtanen comet on December 17, 2018 (when it makes its closest approach). This brilliant cosmic tourist may also be seen by the naked eye or with binoculars (this year) so everyone can try to spot it.

Check out the NASA video and description of the best hours/days and ways to view this wonderful astronomical occurrence. The next visit of the Wirtanen comet is projected to be much less impressive. So get out your coats, chairs and various gear now. Go science!

Leonid Meteor Shower

When I was a kid, we used to spend two weeks in the summer camping at a nearby reservoir. My brother and I often slept in the ski boat that was anchored out. We entertained ourselves by counting meteors as they flashed by in the dark sky. 

I credit those exciting observations with my subsequent interest in science and eventual work at NASA-Johnson Space Center. So cool.

Tonight, the Slooh Community Observatory, an astronomy broadcast service, will host a live webcast (Nov. 16) showing live views of the Leonid meteor shower. 

The livestream will host live meteor feeds from the observatory at the Institute of Astrophysics in the Canary Islands, as well as live streams from the United Kingdom, and Slooh’s HQ in Connecticut. Go science!

Leonid Meteor Shower

When I was a kid, we used to spend two weeks in the summer camping at a nearby reservoir. My brother and I often slept in the ski boat that was anchored out. We often entertained ourselves by counting meteors as they flashed by in the dark sky. 

I credit those exciting observations with my subsequent interest in science and eventual work at NASA-Johnson Space Center. So cool.

Tonight, the Slooh Community Observatory, an astronomy broadcast service, will host a live webcast (Nov. 16) showing live views of the Leonid meteor shower. 

The livestream will host live meteor feeds from the observatory at the Institute of Astrophysics in the Canary Islands, as well as live streams from the United Kingdom, and Slooh’s HQ in Connecticut. Go science!

Super Massive Black Holes Explained (so anyone can understand)

 Most of you know how much I love all things space. Combine that with the brilliant cartoon artwork of Jorge Cham, several astrophysicists talking about their work, and my day is made! 

When it comes to astrophysics and phenomenon like black holes, most of us think we have the topic covered. After all, the television and film industry has devoted a huge amount of reel space to presenting dangerous scenarios concerning black holes and their ilk.

It turns out there is a lot of straight forward science that is not well understood like black holes don't actually suck material in. (The word "hole" probably threw the scriptwriters off.)

Anyway, check out the video or read the explanation at PhD Comics. Both make it easy to explain to friends at a bar, baseball game, or during speed dating. Go science!

Checking Out A Mars Comet Flyby

We tend to forget how much space hardware we have in our cosmic quiver. Now these space science assets are gearing up for a once-in-a-lifetime comet (C/2013 A1) flyby of Mars on October 19, 2014. The comet, also called Siding Spring, will pass within 87,000 miles (139,500 km) of our neighboring planet. This may not seem like a near miss, but to put it into perspective, it is less than half the distance to our moon from Earth. 

NASA expects Siding Spring (coming from the Oort Cloud 5,000 - 100,000 astronomical units away and thought to be left from the formation of the solar system) to pass by Mars with little problem, but the debris trail that accompanies comets may be a different story. [NASA rovers Curiosity and Opportunity should be fine and checking out the visitor.] Time will tell.

In any event, we Earthlings and our NASA instrumentation/satellites will have front row seats to the action. Go science!

Interstellar Stardust and Its Absence

An international team of 23 scientists, has created maps (using data from 500,000 stars over a ten year period) of space materials located between the stars of the Milky Way. This material includes atoms and molecules left behind when a star dies, as well as building blocks for new stars and planets. The results published in the Aug. 15, 2014 issue of the journal Science may help astronomers solve a stardust puzzle that was first seen in 1922 in a graduate student's photographs of distant stars.

The research team focused on a strange feature in the light from stars; diffuse interstellar bands or "DIBs" (i.e., dark lines in the grad student's photographs). These visual and near-infrared spectra absorption lines seemed to show missing starlight as if something in the interstellar medium between Earth and the star was sucking up (not a technical term) the light. In fact, scientists have spotted more than 400 interstellar bands, but why the bands appear and their exact location are a mystery. 

Rosemary Wyse, a Johns Hopkins professor of physics and astronomy who played a major role in the research reports, "But we still don't know why stars form where they do. This study is giving us new clues about the interstellar medium out of which the stars form."

Finding the cause will allow researchers to better understand the physical conditions and chemistry of the space between stars and more on how stars and galaxies form. Go science!