Pic of the Week: A Protostar in the Cepheus A Region

Posted on by onespaceman2000
Image (Credit): The Cepheus A region, including a protostar causing much of this region’s illumination. (NASA, ESA, and R. Fedriani (Instituto de Astrofisica de Andalucia); Processing: Gladys Kober (NASA/Catholic University of America))

This week’s image was taken by the Hubble Space Telescope. It shows the star-forming region Cepheus A in the constellation of Cepheus. This region is about 2,400 light-years away.

Here is more from NASA about this region:

The high-mass star-forming region Cepheus A hosts a collection of baby stars, including one large and luminous protostar, which accounts for about half of the region’s brightness. While much of the region is shrouded in opaque dust, light from hidden stars breaks through outflow cavities to illuminate and energize areas of gas and dust, creating pink and white nebulae. The pink area is an HII region, where the intense ultraviolet radiation of the nearby stars has converted the surrounding clouds of gas into glowing, ionized hydrogen.

Movie: In the Blink of an Eye

Posted on by onespaceman2000
Credit: Hulu

On February 27th, a new movie called In the Blink of an Eye premieres on Hulu. It sounds like an interesting story told in three parts over thousands of years from primitive human life all the way to travel to a new planet. You can see the outline for yourself in this trailer.

While I did not see many movies showing up for 2026 in this realm, they tend to pop up like mushrooms when they are ready. That is fine with me. It also has the same director as WALL-E, which gives me hope.

So far the reviews are so-so.

RogerEbert.com states:

At just around 90 minutes, it often feels like the Cliffs Notes version of a 500-page novel. 

And Rotten Tomatoes has the TomatoReader at 16 percent based on 19 reviews. Richard Lawson with The Hollywood Reporter states:

There is so little texture to these character arcs that the actors are mostly just working in service of a blandly uplifting message. It’s as if they’ve all been commissioned by a well-funded science museum.

I still want to judge the film for myself. Plus, I like the cast that includes Kate McKinnon, Rashida Jones, and Daveed Diggs.

You can wait for the perfect film, or simply take what is offered at the moment.

Image (Credit): A scene from the film In the Blink of an Eye. (Hulu)

More Satellites Planned by Iran

Posted on by onespaceman2000
Credit: Image by 政徳 吉田 from Pixabay

Just as we deal with more and more satellites from SpaceX, Amazon, Europe, and the Chinese, creating an increasing amount of orbital pollution, we now have to contemplate Iran adding thousands more satellites to this number.

According to the Tehran Times, Iran is looking to create its own internet satellite system similar to Starlink. Hassan Salarieh, the head of the Iranian Space Agency, stated:

To develop satellite constellations to offer ‘wideband’ services in low Earth orbit (LEO) requires a large number of satellites. Based on the altitude of the orbit and the type of design, sometimes it would be necessary to inject several thousand satellites into the orbit to achieve full coverage.

This is the same country that shut down its entire internet system recently to thwart protesters, only to find that the US was smuggling Starlink terminals into Iran. So one can only assume the government will be keeping close tabs on any internet service, be it ground-based or satellite-based.

Whatever the case, the continued proliferation of such systems will only put greater strains on Earth-based astronomy.

Space Stories: NASA Probes the Northern Lights, India Announces New Telescopes, and Titan May Be a Moon Merger

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Image (Credit): The northern lights from October 2013 as captured by Astronaut Mike Hopkins aboard the International Space Station. (NASA)

Here are some recent space-related stories of interest.

—Space.com “NASA Launches Twin Rocket Missions from Alaska to Study Mysterious Black Auroras“

NASA launched two rockets from Alaska this week to learn more about the electrical “circuitry” within auroras, the colorful light shows that occur when solar wind collides with Earth’s atmosphere. The missions saw two suborbital sounding rockets launch from the Poker Flat Research Range near Fairbanks, Alaska loaded with scientific equipment that will fly into the atmosphere for a short period of time to gather data. The destination for the rockets in both missions was the northern lights, or aurora borealis.

—Physics World “India Announces Three New Telescopes in the Himalayan Desert“

India has unveiled plans to build two new optical-infrared telescopes and a dedicated solar telescope in the Himalayan desert region of Ladakh. The three new facilities, expected to cost INR 35bn (about £284m), were announced by the Indian finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman on 1 February.

—SETI Institute: “Saturn’s Moon Titan Could Have Formed in a Merger of Two Old Moons“

Recent research suggests that Saturn’s bright rings and its largest moon, Titan, may have both originated in collisions among its moons. While Cassini’s 13-year mission expanded our understanding of Saturn, the discoveries of its young rings and Titan’s rapidly shifting orbit raised new questions. Now, a study led by SETI Institute scientist Matija Ćuk proposes an explanation linking the formation of the moons and rings, centering on the possibility that Titan is the product of a moon merger.

Space Quote: An Odd Solar System

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Credit: Image by AstroGraphix_Visuals from Pixabay

“The paradigm of planet formation is that we have rocky inner planets very close to the stars, like in our solar system…This is the first time in which we have a rocky planet so far away from its host star, and after these gas-rich planets.”

-Statement by Thomas Wilson, an assistant professor in the department of physics at the University of Warwick in England, as quoted by KLS.com. He was referring to the findings in his recent paper about a solar system 116 light-years away with four exoplanets orbiting a red dwarf star – an inner rocky exoplanet, two gaseous exoplanets second and third from the parent star, and a final rocky exoplanet. Of course, that’s what we had here until 2006 when some wise guy decided to make Pluto a dwarf planet. It’s all in the definition.