Top 10 Astronomy Stories from 2021

Posted on by onespaceman2000
Source: Sciencealert.com webpage – “We’re Going Back to Venus! NASA Announces Two New Missions by 2030.”

Before we get too far into 2022, it is worth considering some of the top astronomy stories from 2021. Space.com put together a nice list that I highlighted below.

  1. Discovery of Comet Bernardinelli-Bernstein: “…It may be 10 times wider and 1,000 times more massive than a typical comet.”
  2. Amateur astronomer discovers a new moon around Jupiter: “The new moon, called EJc0061, belongs to the Carme group of Jovian moons.”
  3. NASA will return to Venus this decade: “…NASA has not launched a dedicated mission to the planet since 1989.”
  4. The sun is reawakening: “In early November, for instance, a series of solar outbursts triggered a large geomagnetic storm on our planet.”
  5. James Webb Space Telescope flies into space: “…JWST is heading to an observational perch located about a million miles from our planet.”
  6. Event Horizon Telescope takes high-resolution image of black hole jet: “The end result is a resolution that is 16 times sharper and an image that is 10 times more accurate than what was possible before.”
  7. Scientists spot the closest-known black hole to Earth: “Just 1,500 light-years from Earth…”
  8. Earth’s second ‘moon’ flies off into space: “…the object, known as 2020 SO, is a leftover fragment of a 1960s rocket booster from the American Surveyor moon missions.”
  9. Parker Solar Probe travels through the sun’s atmosphere: “The probe managed to get as low as 15 solar radii, or 8.1 million miles (13 million km) from the sun’s surface.”
  10. Perseverance begins studying rocks on Mars: “Perseverance is taking its observations from the 28-mile-wide (45 kilometers) Jezero Crater, which was home to a river delta and a deep lake billions of years ago.”

Visit the Space.com website for more details on each of these astronomy science stories.

Pic of the Week: Paris and the Moon

Posted on by onespaceman2000
Source: “Year Ender 2021: The Most Awe-inspiring Space Photos of the Year,” News18.com.

Each week the site will highlight an interesting image from the past 12 months showing a bit of this awesome universe. This week’s photo comes from a Reuters photographer. In the accompanying news story, this April 2021 view from Paris has the following label:

The full moon, known as the Super Pink Moon” rises behind the Eiffel Tower during a nationwide curfew due to tighter measures against the spread of the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) in Paris, France on April 27. 

Rogue Planets?

Posted on by onespaceman2000

The Isaac Newton Group of Telescopes recently reported on its discovery of more than 70 new planets without a parent star:

Using observations and archival data from several telescopes around the world and in orbit, including the Isaac Newton Telescope (INT), astronomers have discovered at least 70 new free-floating planets (FFPs) — planets that wander through space without a parent star to orbit — in the Upper Scorpius OB stellar association, which is the nearest region of star formation to our Sun. This is the largest sample of such planets found in a single group and it nearly doubles the number known over the entire sky.

Source: Isaac Newton Group of Telescopes.

The origin of these rogue planets is still a big question. The article states:

The nature and origin of FFPs remains unknown: do they form like stars through the gravitational collapse of small clouds of gas? Or do they form like planets around stars and are then dynamically ejected or stripped off? The number of FFPs discovered in the Upper Scorpius association exceeds the number of FFPs expected if they only form like stars from the collapse of a small molecular cloud, indicating that other mechanisms must be at play.

Astronomers believe there are billions of these rogue planets lurking around our galaxy. And we worry about a stray asteroid.

Space Investments are No Guarantee

Posted on by onespaceman2000
Source: Virgin Orbit.

The recent initial public offering for Virgin Orbit, a commercial space launch company that spun-off from Richard Branson’s Virgin Galactic, did not go as well as planned. IG International reported that Virgin Orbit had hoped to raise $483 million as part of the public offering, but only raised $228 million. Moreover, the stock is down about 20 percent.

Virgin Orbit has already had some successfully launches from its modified Boeing 747, but the space launch industry is getting crowded and risky.

In June 2021, Virgin Orbit’s Tubular Bells: Part One mission for the US Department of Defense placed seven satellites to Low Earth Orbit – four R&D CubeSats for the US Department of Defense, two optical satellites for SatRevolution, and the Royal Netherlands Air Force’s first military satellite.  You can learn more about the past and planned US Department of Defense and NASA launches here.

Source: Virgin Orbit.

Meteor Watch: Time to Look Up

Posted on by onespaceman2000

Looking up may have been useless the other day in Pennsylvania because of the cloud cover, but shaking houses were evidence enough of a meteor exploding in the atmosphere. On New Year’s Day, the incoming meteor exploded over southwestern Pennsylvania with the force of 30 tons of TNT.

The Facebook page for the National Weather Service in Pittsburgh, PA explained the initial situation (image below):

We have been getting a lot of questions about a loud explosion that was heard over southwest Pennsylvania earlier today. Data from GOES-16 may provide a clue.

This image is a product of the satellite’s Geostationary Lightning Mapper function, showing Total Optical Energy (basically, a measure of flash intensity). You can see the flash showing up here in the area of western Washington County, PA at 16:22Z (11:22 EST). This flash does not appear to be connected to any lightning activity in the area. One possible explanation is that a meteor exploded at some level above the ground. We do not have any confirmation of this at this time, but it seems to be the most likely explanation.

Source: National Weather Service.

Later on, NASA Meteor Watch confirmed it was a meteor breaking up in the atmosphere. The meteor was estimated to be about a yard in diameter and weigh approximately half a ton.