LIGO

"In 2015, the Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory, or LIGO, made history when it made the first direct detection of gravitational waves, or ripples in space and time, produced by a pair of colliding black holes."

https://www.ligo.caltech.edu/news/ligo20231023?utm_source=join1440&utm_medium=email&utm_placement=newsletter

SWIM

"The NASA-funded Subsurface Water Ice Mapping (SWIM) project released its fourth and most recent map of where on Mars we might find, as you might expect, subsurface water ice."

https://www.space.com/map-water-ice-mars-nasa-astronauts

Mystery of Mars

https://ethz.ch/en/news-and-events/eth-news/news/2023/10/mystery-of-the-martian-resolved.html?utm_source=join1440&utm_medium=email&utm_placement=newsletter

Powerful Radio Waves

"Eight billion years ago, something happened in a distant galaxy that sent an incredibly powerful blast of radio waves hurtling through the universe."

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/fast-radio-burst-8-billion-years-reaches-earth-mind-blowing/

Jupiter's Atmosphere

"The atmosphere of Jupiter has east–west zonal jets that alternate as a function of latitude as tracked by cloud motions at tropospheric levels."

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41550-023-02099-2

Milky Way

"If you’ve ever wanted to see the Milky Way galaxy from Earth, late September through October is your window of opportunity! Right now, we’re aimed toward the most concentrated part of the Milky Way. Learn more to see the kind of inspirational, star-filled panorama experienced in planetariums!"

https://www.almanac.com/best-time-view-milky-way-galaxy-earth

Ring of Fire Eclipse

"A rare “ring of fire” eclipse of the sun cut across the Americas on Saturday, stretching from Oregon to Brazil, and huge crowds were on the move before dawn in cities, rural areas and national parks to try to catch a glimpse of it."

https://www.wmtw.com/article/solar-eclipse-videos/45537670

Solar Eclipse

"On Saturday morning, October 14, an annular solar eclipse will cross the skies of the Southwestern United States, allowing viewers to see a dazzling “ring of fire” surround the shadowy new moon."

https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/how-to-watch-the-annular-ring-of-fire-solar-eclipse-on-saturday-180983048/

Direct Collapse

Did you know?

Direct Collapse

"Giuseppe Lodato published a series of papers explaining how dense primordial gas clouds (essentially protogalaxies) in the early universe could have collapsed to form seed black holes with masses of 1,000 to 100,000 Suns. Normally, such clouds would have fragmented during the collapse process to form a multitude of massive stars instead of a single black hole. But under certain rare conditions, a few clouds could have collapsed to form extremely black holes."Astronomy Magazine March 2021 "How to Grow a Giant Black Hole" pp. 16-23

How Gas Clouds Cool

Did you know?

"The key to black holes forming is how gas clouds cool. Most of these clouds cool. Most of these clouds in the early universe contained a high abundance of molecular hydrogen (H), which consists of two hydrogen atom boundp together. Natarajan and Lodato found that such clouds will cool quickly, which causes them to fragment into numerous clumps that each go to form a star."

Astronomy Magazine March 2021 "How to Grow a Giant Black Hole" pp. 16-23

Direct Collapse Black Hole

Did you know?

"Instead, the cloud gravitationally collapse without cooling, ultimately concentrating such a huge amount of mass into a small volume of space that it forms what Natarajan calls "a direct-collapse black hole," or DCBH. This process bypasses the formation of traditional stars, although it could form a very short-lived supermassive star."

Astronomy Magazine March 2021 "How to Grow a Giant Black Hole" pp. 16-23

Primordial Cloud

"If a primordial cloud lies close to a much larger protogalaxy that is rapidily forming stars, those stars relentlessly zap the cloud with ultraviolet radiation. This massive input of energy breaks the chemical bonds that bind moleculer hydrogen together, converting the cloud into one of the almost pure atomic hydrogen (H), which is less efficient at radiating away energy. This gas remains hot, meaning it can't fragment to clumps that cool and condense to form stars."

Astronomy Magazine March 2021 "How to Grow a Giant Black Hole" pp. 16-23

Psyche Asteroid

Getting off to a ground-shaking start, NASA's $1.2 billion Psyche asteroid probe roared into space atop a Falcon Heavy rocket Friday, setting off on a 2.2-billion-mile voyage to a rare, metal-rich asteroid that may hold clues about how the cores of rocky planets like Earth first formed.

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/nasa-launches-asteroid-probe-psyche/

Gravitational Lensing

"Gravitational Lensing, Clusters of Galaxies as Astrophysical Laboratories, Black Hole Physics, Binary Black Holes, Issues in Galaxy Formation, History & Philosophy of Science."

https://physics.yale.edu/people/priyamvada-natarajan

Prada new suit

"Prada will take its designs to the next atmospheric level as the Italian fashion house announced its latest partnership with Axiom Space to design spacesuits for astronauts."

https://www.theguardian.com/science/2023/oct/07/nasa-artemis-iii-moon-mission-prada-axiom-space-spacesuit

Blue Sunset

https://www.sciencealert.com/perseverance-captures-a-beautifully-strange-blue-sunset-on-mars?utm_source=join1440&utm_medium=email&utm_placement=newsletter

NASA'S Curiosity

"It was a long slog. But NASA's Curiosity rover did it."

https://mashable.com/article/mars-nasa-curiosity-rover-image

Across Europe

"Across Europe, the entire night sky was aglow."

https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/how-to-watch-the-draconid-meteor-shower-this-weekend-180983029/

Arthur Eddington

Did you know?

"Whizzing around the black hole at near-light-speed, the disk heats up and blast out torrents of radiation across many wavelengths. This intense radiation across many wavelengths. This intense radiation exerts pressure that literally pushes away nearby matter, limiting how fast black holes can add mass. An object's theoretical maximum accretion rate is known as the Eddington limit, after British astrophysicist Sir Arthur Eddington (1882-1944)."

Astronomy Magazine March 2021 "How to Grow a Giant Black Hole" p. 20

Ravenous Black Hole

Did you know?

"Even the most ravenous black hole could not consume enough material in 500 million years to attain the mass of a billion Suns. That's because as matter gathers around a black hole, it settles into an accreditation disk."

Astronomy Magazine March 2021 "How to Grow a Giant Black Hole" p. 20

JUICE

"ESA’s Jupiter Icy Moons Explorer, Juice, will make detailed observations of the giant gas planet and its three large ocean-bearing moons – Ganymede, Callisto and Europa – with a suite of remote sensing, geophysical and in situ instruments."

https://www.esa.int/Science_Exploration/Space_Science/Juice

Martian Dust Devil

"The lower portion of a Martian dust devil was captured moving along the western rim of Mars’ Jezero Crater by NASA’s Perseverance rover on Aug. 30, 2023, the 899th Martian day, or sol, of the mission."

https://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/nasas-perseverance-captures-dust-filled-martian-whirlwind

Radio Waves from Space

"Every so often, astronomers glimpse an intense flash of radio waves from space – a flash that lasts only instants but puts out as much energy in a millisecond as the Sun does in a few years."

https://cosmosmagazine.com/science/physics/scientists-look-for-the-origin-of-fast-radio-bursts-and-come-up-empty/