Local Black Hole: False Alarm

Posted on by onespaceman2000
Source/Credit: MPG/ESO 2.2-metre telescope at ESO’s La Silla Observatory in Chile.

You may have remembered this NASA tweet from September 2020:

HR 6819 is the closest black hole we’ve detected so far, and it lies about 1,000 light-years away. ⚫️ Statistics say there should be one as close as 65 light-years, though we may never detect it unless it lights up!

The original European Space Agency (ESA) press release noted that an invisible object has two companion stars, one of which orbits the unseen object every 40 days. The data for this finding used the MPG/ESO 2.2-metre telescope at ESO’s La Silla Observatory in Chile.

Well, you can relax. The ESA announced last week that HR 6819 is not a black hole based on new data from ESO’s Very Large Telescope (VLT) and Very Large Telescope Interferometer (VLTI):

Our best interpretation so far is that we caught this binary system in a moment shortly after one of the stars had sucked the atmosphere off its companion star. This is a common phenomenon in close binary systems, sometimes referred to as “stellar vampirism” in the press,” explains Bodensteiner, now a fellow at ESO in Germany and an author on the new study. “While the donor star was stripped of some of its material, the recipient star began to spin more rapidly.

So, mystery solved. Now we need to talk about local vampires!

Television: The Orville Returns (Shortly)

Posted on by onespaceman2000
Source/Credit: The crew of the USS Orville from 20th Television.

Season three of The Orville was supposed to return this week, but is has been pushed off until June 2nd. Hence, it will have been more than three years since the last episode on April 25, 2019.

Seth McFarlane, also known as Captain Ed Mercer, tweeted that the delay relates to COVID, indicating that the long tentacles of COVID reach many years into the future as well.

I am not sure why it needs to be re-branded The Orville: New Horizons, except that it is now part of Hulu rather than Fox. Regardless of the name, this parody of Star Trek took some time to grow on me (not until season two, in fact), but I now look forward to this new season. Where else can you see the words of Dolly Parton being used to inspire a new society on a distant planet?

As Star Trek gets darker, this warped version (not pun intended) remains lighter, though this sneak peak of season three may seem to say otherwise. Maybe The Orville will be somewhat darker going forward.

If you need your space fix now, check out the second season of Star Trek: Picard. It premiered just last week.

In Case You Missed It: The Vatican’s Space Observatory

Posted on by onespaceman2000
Source/Credit: The telescope domes on the roof of the Vatican Observatory, at the Apostolic Palace in Castel Gandolfo from Andreas Solaro/AFP via Getty Images.

Just in case you missed it, I recommend you read NPR’s June 2021 article, “The Vatican’s Space Observatory Wants To See Stars And Faith Align.” You can read about the interplay of astronomy and the Catholic Church. For instance, did you know the idea of the Big Bang originated with a Belgian priest? Or that the Vatican Observatory coordinates with NASA on space issues?

You can learn more from the article. You might also want to visit the Vatican Observatory’s website or listen to one of the podcasts from the Observatory.

Click the image of Brother Guy Consolmagno for a video.

Pic of the Week: Lunar Transit

Posted on by onespaceman2000
Source/Credit: Thierry Legault

This week’s photo is a “lunar transit” of the International Space Station (ISS) taken on January 18, 2022. The details in the photo are impressive, including Tycho crater. The Mashable article accompanying this image states:

The silhouette of the space station is so clear, observers can make out a faint grid pattern on its solar panel arrays. The attached SpaceX Crew-3 spacecraft, which brought up NASA astronauts Raja Chari, Tom Marshburn, and Kayla Barron, as well as European Space Agency astronaut Matthias Maurer in November, is easily identifiable.