Who are we? We find that we live on an insignificant planet of a humdrum star lost in a galaxy tucked away in some forgotten corner of a universe in which there are far more galaxies than people

— Carl Sagan

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Eclipse 2024: When is it and where can I see it?

New Scientist Space - Cosmology - Wed, 03/27/2024 - 11:00am
North America will have a total solar eclipse on 8 April – here is where, when and how to view it safely
Categories: Astronomy

Eclipse 2024: When is it and where can I see it?

New Scientist Space - Space Headlines - Wed, 03/27/2024 - 11:00am
North America will have a total solar eclipse on 8 April – here is where, when and how to view it safely
Categories: Astronomy

Why Do Colors Change during a Solar Eclipse?

Scientific American.com - Wed, 03/27/2024 - 11:00am

When the moon fully eclipses the sun, it’s not just the sky that changes. Your eyes do, too

Categories: Astronomy

What Will We See in the Sky During Totality?

Sky & Telescope Magazine - Wed, 03/27/2024 - 10:58am

Most of our time will be focused on Sun during the minutes of totality on April 8th, but consider tearing yourself away for a few seconds to put it all in context.

The post What Will We See in the Sky During Totality? appeared first on Sky & Telescope.

Categories: Astronomy

I toured NASA's Mission Control ahead of Boeing's 1st Starliner astronaut flight. Here's what it was like (exclusive)

Space.com - Wed, 03/27/2024 - 10:00am
Reporters toured NASA's Johnson Space Center last week, getting a look at the rooms from which the first crewed flight of Boeing's Starliner will be controlled. And we got to watch a SpaceX launch, too.
Categories: Astronomy

ESA, NASA Solar Observatory Discovers Its 5,000th Comet

NASA - Breaking News - Wed, 03/27/2024 - 10:00am

4 min read

ESA, NASA Solar Observatory Discovers Its 5,000th Comet

On March 25, 2024, a citizen scientist in the Czech Republic spotted a comet in an image from the Solar and Heliospheric Observatory (SOHO) spacecraft, which has now been confirmed to be the 5,000th comet discovered using SOHO data. SOHO has achieved this milestone over 28 years in space, even though it was never designed to be a comet hunter.

The 5,000th comet discovered with the Solar and Heliospheric Observatory (SOHO) spacecraft is noted by a small white box in the upper left portion of this image. A zoomed-in inset shows the comet as a faint dot between the white vertical lines. The image was taken on March 25, 2024, by SOHO’s Large Angle and Spectrometric Coronagraph (LASCO), which uses a disk to block the bright Sun and reveal faint features around it.NASA/ESA/SOHO

The comet is a small body made of ice and rock that takes only a few years to orbit the Sun. It belongs to the “Marsden group” of comets. This group is thought to be related to comet 96P/Machholz (which SOHO observes when Machholz passes near the Sun every 5.3 years) and is named for the late scientist Brian Marsden who first recognized the group using SOHO observations. Only about 75 of the 5,000 comets discovered with SOHO belong to the Marsden group.

A joint mission of ESA (European Space Agency) and NASA, SOHO launched in December 1995 to study the Sun and the dynamics in its outer atmosphere, called the corona. A science instrument on SOHO, called the Large Angle and Spectrometric Coronagraph (LASCO), uses an artificial disk to block the blinding light of the Sun so scientists can study the corona and environment immediately around the Sun.

This also allows SOHO to do something many other spacecraft cannot – see comets flying close to the Sun, known as “sungrazing” comets or “sungrazers.” Many of these comets only brighten when they’re too close to the Sun for other observatories to see and would otherwise go undetected, lost in the bright glare of our star. While scientists expected SOHO to serendipitously find some comets during its mission, the spacecraft’s ability to spot them has made it the most prolific comet-finder in history – discovering more than half of the comets known today.

In fact, soon after SOHO launched, people around the world began spotting so many comets in its images that mission scientists needed a way to keep track of them all. In the early 2000s, they launched the NASA-funded Sungrazer Project that allows anyone to report comets they find in SOHO images.

This animation shows the Solar and Heliospheric Observatory’s 5,000th comet (circled) moving across the field relative to background stars. The images in this sequence were taken with the spacecraft’s Large Angle and Spectrometric Coronagraph (LASCO) instrument.NASA/ESA/SOHO

SOHO’s 5,000th comet was found by Hanjie Tan, a Sungrazer Project participant who is originally from Guangzhou, China, and is currently pursuing a doctoral degree in astronomy in Prague, Czech Republic. Tan has been participating in the Sungrazer Project since he was 13 years old and is one of the project’s youngest comet discoverers.

“Since 2009, I’ve discovered over 200 comets,” Tan said. “I got into the Sungrazer Project because I love looking for comets. It’s really exciting to be the first to see comets get bright near the Sun after they’ve been traveling through space for thousands of years.”

Most of the 5,000 comets discovered using SOHO have been found with the help of an international cadre of volunteer comet hunters – many with no formal scientific training – participating in the Sungrazer Project.

“Prior to the launch of the SOHO mission and the Sungrazer Project, there were only a couple dozen sungrazing comets on record – that’s all we knew existed,” said Karl Battams, a space scientist at the U.S. Naval Research Lab in Washington, D.C., and the principal investigator for the Sungrazer Project. “The fact that we’ve finally reached this milestone – 5,000 comets – is just unbelievable to me.”

SOHO’s 5,000th comet was discovered with the help of volunteers participating in the NASA-funded Sungrazer Project.
Credit: NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center

The vast number of comets discovered using SOHO has allowed scientists to learn more about sungrazing comets and groups of comets that orbit the Sun. Comets discovered by the Sungrazer Project have also helped scientists learn more about the Sun, by watching the comets plunge through our star’s atmosphere like small solar probes.

“The statistics of 5,000 comets, and looking at their orbits and trajectories through space, is a super unique dataset – it’s really valuable science,” Battams said. “It’s a testament to the countless hours the project participants have put into this. We absolutely would never had reached this milestone if it wasn’t for what the project volunteers have done.”

The Sungrazer Project is one of many opportunities that anyone can get involved with to help make discoveries with NASA during the Heliophysics Big Year, which extends through the end of 2024. Learn more about SOHO, the Sungrazer Project, and other NASA science projects you can participate in:

by Vanessa Thomas
NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Md.

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Categories: NASA

'Uncertain,' a New Podcast Series on the Joys of Not Knowing

Scientific American.com - Wed, 03/27/2024 - 10:00am

Does the word "uncertainty" make you nervous? Would you say it kinda describes the state of the world these days? Enter Uncertain, a new limited podcast series from Scientific American, that will change the way you think about that word.

Categories: Astronomy

SOHO reaches 5000 comets

ESO Top News - Wed, 03/27/2024 - 10:00am
Image:

A citizen scientist digging through data from the ESA/NASA Solar and Heliospheric Observatory has found the mission’s 5000th comet.

The tiny comet – indicated between the vertical lines in the inset – belongs to the ‘Marsden group’, named after the British astronomer Brian Marsden, who first recognised the group based on SOHO observations. Marsden group comets are thought to be pieces shed by the much bigger Comet 96P/Machholz, which SOHO observes as it passes close to the Sun every 5.3 years.

This 5000th comet was discovered by Hanjie Tan, an astronomy PhD student in Prague, Czechia. Hanjie has been comet hunting since he was just 13 years old, discovering over 200 comets since 2009.

Hanjie explains how he felt upon spotting this comet in the data: “The Marsden group comets represent only about 1.5% of all SOHO comet discoveries, so finding this one as the 5000th SOHO comet felt incredibly fortunate. It's really exciting to be the first to see comets get bright near the Sun after they've been travelling through space for thousands of years.”

Launched in 1995, SOHO studies the Sun from its interior to its outer atmosphere, providing unique views and investigating the cause of the solar wind. During the last three decades, SOHO has become the most prolific discoverer of comets in astronomical history.

The telescope’s prowess as a comet-hunter was unplanned, but turned out to be an unexpected success. With its clear view of the Sun’s surroundings, SOHO can easily spot a special kind of comet called a sungrazer – so-called because of their close approach to the Sun.

Like most who have discovered comets in SOHO’s data, Hanjie Tan is a volunteer citizen scientist, searching for comets in his free time with the Sungrazer Project. This NASA-funded citizen science project, managed by Karl Battams from the US Naval Research Lab, grew out of the huge number of comet discoveries by citizen scientists early into SOHO’s mission.

“Prior to the launch of the SOHO mission and the Sungrazer Project, there were only a couple dozen sungrazing comets on record – that’s all we knew existed,” said Karl Battams, who is the principal investigator for the Sungrazer Project. “The fact that we’ve finally reached this milestone – 5000 comets – is just unbelievable to me.”

SOHO is a cooperative effort between ESA and NASA. Mission control is based at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland. SOHO’s Large Angle and Spectrometric Coronagraph Experiment, or LASCO, which is the instrument that provides most of the comet imagery, was built by an international consortium, led by the US Naval Research Lab.

Full story

SOHO’s 4000th comet

SOHO’s 3000th comet

 

[Image description: A bright orange circle covers almost the whole image, with a smaller disc in the middle. Out of the smaller disc protrude wisps of the Sun's atmosphere. To the upper right of the inner circle, an inset zooms in on a small square, with vertical lines surrounding a faint smudge.]

Categories: Astronomy

Strong Magnetic Fields Swirl Near Milky Way’s Black Hole

Sky & Telescope Magazine - Wed, 03/27/2024 - 9:12am

Astronomers have detected twisted, orderly magnetic fields near the event horizon of Sagittarius A*.

The post Strong Magnetic Fields Swirl Near Milky Way’s Black Hole appeared first on Sky & Telescope.

Categories: Astronomy

New view of our galaxy's black hole reveals a swirling magnetic field

New Scientist Space - Cosmology - Wed, 03/27/2024 - 9:00am
The black hole at the centre of our galaxy, known as Sagittarius A*, has been captured in polarised light to reveal its magnetic field
Categories: Astronomy

New view of our galaxy's black hole reveals a swirling magnetic field

New Scientist Space - Space Headlines - Wed, 03/27/2024 - 9:00am
The black hole at the centre of our galaxy, known as Sagittarius A*, has been captured in polarised light to reveal its magnetic field
Categories: Astronomy

New view of the supermassive black hole at the heart of the Milky Way hints at an exciting hidden feature (image)

Space.com - Wed, 03/27/2024 - 9:00am
Astronomers have for the first time imaged the powerful magnetic fields that dwell around the supermassive black hole at the heart of the Milky Way, Sagittarius A*.
Categories: Astronomy

Radar journey to centre of Hera’s asteroid with Juventas CubeSat

ESO Top News - Wed, 03/27/2024 - 8:47am

A small, shoebox-sized spacecraft delivered to ESA’s Hera mission this week promises to make a giant leap forward in planetary science. Once deployed from the Hera spacecraft at the Didymos binary asteroid system, the Juventas CubeSat will perform the first radar probe within an asteroid, peering deep into the heart of the Great-Pyramid-sized Dimorphos moonlet.

Categories: Astronomy

Does Long-Term Benadryl Use Increase Dementia Risk?

Scientific American.com - Wed, 03/27/2024 - 8:30am

Benadryl, which contains diphenhydramine, is a drugstore mainstay and just one medication out of many that could possibly damage brain health

Categories: Astronomy

Most accurate clock ever can tick for 40 billion years without error

New Scientist Space - Cosmology - Wed, 03/27/2024 - 8:00am
The record for the most accurate clock has been broken in an experiment with strontium atoms almost as cold as absolute zero, and it is twice as accurate as any predecessor
Categories: Astronomy

Most accurate clock ever can tick for 40 billion years without error

New Scientist Space - Space Headlines - Wed, 03/27/2024 - 8:00am
The record for the most accurate clock has been broken in an experiment with strontium atoms almost as cold as absolute zero, and it is twice as accurate as any predecessor
Categories: Astronomy

How Animal Brains Tell Friends from Strangers

Scientific American.com - Wed, 03/27/2024 - 8:00am

A small section of the mouse brain’s hippocampus uses specific neural codes to denote social familiarity and identity

Categories: Astronomy

Solar Eclipse Experiment Will Fly a Kite to Avoid Cloudy Skies

Scientific American.com - Wed, 03/27/2024 - 7:30am

A kite-borne experiment will observe the sun’s mysterious corona during the upcoming total solar eclipse

Categories: Astronomy

Viral Genetics Confirms What On-the-Ground Activists Knew Early in the Mpox Outbreak

Scientific American.com - Wed, 03/27/2024 - 7:00am

Molecular biology could have changed the mpox epidemic—and could stop future outbreaks

Categories: Astronomy

How Visually Impaired People Can Experience Solar Eclipses

Scientific American.com - Wed, 03/27/2024 - 6:45am

Scientists have created a guide to the 2024 total solar eclipse for the visually impaired that includes tactile graphics

Categories: Astronomy