Image (Credit): The Leviathan of Parsonstown, or Rosse six-foot telescope. (Planetary Society)
On this day in 1845, a 72-inch reflecting telescope built by William Parsons, the 3rd Earl of Rosse, came into use on his estate in Ireland. The telescope remained the largest in the world until 1917, when it was eclipsed by the Hooker reflecting telescope in California.
Known as both the Leviathan of Parsonstown and Rosse six-foot telescope, it was used William Parson to observe star clusters and nebulae. For example, it was used to view a spiral nebula that we know today as the spiral galaxy Messier 51, or The Whirlpool Galaxy, which is about 31 million light years from Earth (see below). You can see The Whirlpool Galaxy today with a pair of binoculars.
Go here for more information on the Earl and his telescope.
Image (Credit): Spiral galaxy Messier 51, also called The Whirlpool Galaxy. (NASA, ESA, S. Beckwith (STScI) and the Hubble Heritage Team (STScI/AURA))
Would you buy a lunar timeshare from Billy Crudup? Be careful how you answer. Or would you simply watch a show about Billy Crudup trying to sell lunar timeshares? I think you can answer yes to that with little risk of disappointment.
While Elon Musk is trying to sell us on Mars, I like how the focus of Hello Tomorrow!is closer to home. It is Artemis III meets Century21. The 10-episode series starts this Friday (February 17). Check out this trailer for more on what awaits you.
The Earth shown in the new series is already pretty different than what we have today with its floating cars and jet packs, so why not shoot for the Moon? For some reason, it appears it will not be that easy, but that is part of the drama. At least they will have their floating cars whatever else happens. We are still figuring out electric cars.
I was disappointed with SyFy’s The Ark, which seems to be a comedy masquerading as a tragedy wrapped in a farce. I am hoping Hello Tomorrow! is a somewhat more straightforward – just pure fun.
Image (Credit): White House briefing podium. (TVNewsCheck)
With a third unidentified object (aka UFO) shot down from the northern skies, the White House thought it was necessary to set the record straight earlier today. According to Politico, White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre made the administration’s position very clear:
I know there have been questions and concerns about this, but there is no — again no indication — of aliens or extraterrestrial activity with these recent takedowns…I wanted to make sure that the American people knew that, all of you knew that and it was important for us to say that from here because we’ve been hearing a lot about it.
It seems Gen. Glen VanHerck, commander of the North American Aerospace Defense Command and U.S. Northern Command, was not as quick denying an extraterrestrial origin during a Sunday interview, stating:
I’ll let the intel community and the counterintelligence community figure that out. I haven’t ruled out anything.
We have enough problems with the Russians and Chinese without some pesky aliens getting in the way. Talk about timing!
Rest assured that the White House is on top of it.
Update: I just hope that we are not shooting down our own space objects. In a February 14th article, The New York Times reported that the National Weather Service alone launches about 60,000 high-flying balloons annually. When you add NASA balloons and others from U.S. departments, you can only hope that the left hand knows what the right hand is doing. Internationally, we may need the World Meteorological Organization and other international bodies to help sort out the clutter in the lower atmosphere.
Image (Credit): Actual image of the exoplanet 2M1207b (red) around its star 2M1207A. (European Southern Observatory)
“What new discoveries from the James Webb space telescope (JWST) can I tell my nine-year old about?”
-The one question put to Google’s Bard AI program, which was designed to rival Microsoft’s ChatGPT. In response, Bard stated the JWST took the very first pictures of an exoplanet, which was incorrect. The first image of an exoplanet can be seen above, taken by the European Southern Observatory’s Very Large Telescope back in 2004. The exoplanet, called 2M1207 b, is a gas giant about five times the mass of Jupiter. Following the erroneous feedback, the stock of Google’s parent Alphabet dropped about $100 billion in value. Below is an image from another exoplanet spotted by the JWST last year, called HIP 65426 b, which is about six to eight times the mass of Jupiter.
Image (Credit): First direct image of an exoplanet by the JWST. The exoplanet, called HIP 65426 b, is about 6 to 8 times the mass of Jupiter and only 15 to 20 million years old. The Earth is about 4.5-billion-year-old Earth. (NASA/ESA/CSA, A Carter (UCSC), the ERS 1386 team, and A. Pagan (STScI))
Image (Credit): The weather tower at the Mount Washington Observatory. (Robin Lubbock/WBUR)
With all of the excitement last week regarding Chinese balloons, which is continuing into this week with two “unidentified object” incidents in Alaska and Canada, I forgot to mention the -108 F wind chill temperature at the top of Mount Washington in New Hampshire on February 3rd. The Washington Post reported that this may be the lowest temperature ever reported in U.S. history.
In fact, the Mount Washington temperature was lower than the temperature experienced that day by the Curiosity rover in Gale Crater on Mars. It is still autumn in the crater, so temperatures could still fall to -225 F during winter. Let’s not try that in New Hampshire.
Europe may be complaining about the unusually warm mountain temperatures this year, but you will not hear this talk from the Yankees up north. They are getting the full Martian treatment and staying close to their wood stoves.
Image (Source): Early February temperatures experienced by the Mars Curiosity rover. (NASA)
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