TV: Obi-Wan Kenobi

Posted on by onespaceman2000
Credit: Disney+

While Star Trek is generally a better fit for an astronomy site, I did not want to ignore the release this week of Disney+’s Obi-Wan Kenobi. As with the other similar releases in the last few years, including The Mandalorian and The Book of Boba Fett, Disney is mining the Star Wars stories for new angles. Of course, Paramount has also been doing the same with Star Trek.

Disney has been spending quite a bit of time on the planet of Tatooine in all three new series, be it bounty hunting in The Mandalorian, taking over Jabba the Hutt’s old business in The Book of Boba Fett, and now Obi-Wan watching over young Luke Skywalker’s formative years in Obi-Wan Kenobi. I hope you don’t mind sand. Here is a preview of what you can expect with this latest series.

So far I have enjoyed The Mandalorian and suffered through The Book of Boba Fett. Too often Star Wars seems to be mostly a vehicle to sell toys (think of Baby Yoda), and yet the creators kept it fun in The Mandalorian. Adding Amy Sedaris to the mix of characters was brilliant.

Maybe The Mandalorian worked because the main character said so little and Baby Yoda said basically nothing. I know Mr. Lucas is gone, but dialogue has not been the strongest part of the Star Wars universe. We can only hope the creators have finally learned how to use the talents of Ewan McGregor and Hayden Christensen in the latest series.

And yes, there’s more. Stay tuned for the next Star Wars series, Andor, coming out on August 31st. Season two of this new series is already in the works. It takes place 28 years after the film Star Wars: Revenge of the Sith and five years before the events of the film Rogue One. I think this one will stay away from Tatooine, thankfully. Diego Luna will be playing the role of Cassian Andor. Here is a teaser for Andor.

Credit: Disney+

Black Holes in the Center of Galaxies are More Common Than We Thought

Posted on by onespaceman2000
Image (Credit): An artist’s drawing a stellar black hole named Cygnus X-1. (NASA/CXC/M.Weiss)

We already knew a supermassive black hole sits at the center of our galaxy and others like it, but what about dwarf galaxies? SciTechDaily reports that astronomers in the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill’s Department of Physics & Astronomy have found that large black holes are also more common than previously thought in dwarf galaxies.

The astronomers developed a new way to identify such black holes and found that about 80 percent of all black holes found in dwarf galaxies could be found in this way. These smaller black holes may help to create the supermassive black holes we see in larger galaxies as the dwarf galaxies collide and combine to make the larger galaxies.

Professor Sheila Kannappan, Polimera’s Ph.D. advisor in the Department of Physics & Astronomy and coauthor of the study, stated:

We’re still pinching ourselves…We’re excited to pursue a zillion follow-up ideas. The black holes we’ve found are the basic building blocks of supermassive black holes like the one in our own Milky Way. There’s so much we want to learn about them.

While even Albert Einstein had doubts that his theoretical black hole could exist in reality, astronomers continue to find they are a larger part of the universe than anyone expected. When you consider smaller stellar black holes, the figure is enormous. As NASA noted:

Judging from the number of stars large enough to produce such black holes, however, scientists estimate that there are as many as ten million to a billion such black holes in the Milky Way alone.

Pic of the Week: Eerie Crater Marks the Spot

Posted on by onespaceman2000
Image (Credit): Martian crater Airy-0. (NASA/JPL-Caltech/University of Arizona)

This week’s pic is an eerie crater within the Airy Crater on Mars that marks an important spot – 0° longitude on Mars. You can see this position of this smaller crater, Airy-0, within the larger crater below. NASA posted this image on Instagram with a few more details:

The larger crater that sits within this crater, called the Airy Crater, originally defined zero longitude for Mars, but as higher resolution photos became available, a smaller feature was needed. This crater, called Airy-0 (zero) was selected because it did not need to adjust existing maps.

This image was captured by the High-Resolution Imaging Science Experiment (HiRISE), on the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter. The map is projected here at a scale of 50 centimeters (19.7 inches) per pixel.

The Airy Crater is names after Sir George Biddell Airy, the 7th Astronomer Royal, in 1850.

Image (Credit): Martian crater Airy. (Wikimedia Commons)

SpaceX is Worth About $125 Billion

Posted on by onespaceman2000
Image (Credit): Starship rocket. (SpaceX)

Even though Tesla is having valuation issues these days as Mr. Musk pursues Twitter, SpaceX seems to be doing well. Nasdaq news reports that the company had no issues raising $1.5 billion in new funding. The valuation for the company is now $125 billion, up from $100 billion last year.

While the company is earning a good fee for its resupply missions to the International Space Station, it has other ventures to fund as well, including the Starship rocket for deep-space missions and the Starlink satellite system being used around the world (including Ukraine). SpaceX is able to build about 45 Starlink satellite per week.

The company has plenty of openings on its website, such as those listed below. Let’s hope SpaceX can stay out of the fray as Mr. Musk continues to kick up dust.

Image (Credit): SpaceX job postings. (SpaceX)

Hubble: Galaxies Are Moving Away Even Faster Than Expected

Posted on by onespaceman2000
Credit: Hubblesite.org.

Astronomers using data from the Hubble Space Telescope have determined that the universe is expanding at a faster rate than estimated earlier. Using the Hubble data, the press release stated:

After 30 years of meticulous work using the Hubble telescope’s extraordinary observing power, numerous teams of astronomers have narrowed the expansion rate to a precision of just over 1%. This can be used to predict that the universe will double in size in 10 billion years.

I like another line in the Hubble press release following the discussion of another discovery showing that “the present expansion rate is different than it is expected to be as the universe appeared shortly after the big bang.” The press release noted:

You think this would frustrate astronomers, but instead it opens the door to discovering new physics, and confronting unanticipated questions about the underlying workings of the universe. And, finally, reminding us that we have a lot more to learn among the stars.

That’s the spirit. And yes, that galaxy far, far away is just getting ever further away every day.