Space Weather

[thelufias]

I didn't get to see it last night but, thanks to Oz insisting on being fed at 4AM, I happened to look out the kitchen window and low and behold....the full moon in all it's glory....and it was certainly BRIGHT....

[Aelin]

Another short article on the Pink Supermoon
https://www.theguardian.com/science/2021/apr/25/pink-supermoon-set-to-brighten-uk-night-skies-next-week

[M-Callahan]

The First Real Images of Titan - What Have We Discovered?


The planet Titan is probably the most curious and fascinating object in our solar system. It has a number of extremely strange properties, looks breathtakingly beautiful, and has captivated scientists since its discovery in 1655—but let's leave it to you to be enchanted by this planet...

Titan is the largest moon of Saturn and the second largest in the solar system (after Ganymede, a moon orbiting the planet Jupiter). It is the only moon in the solar system with clouds and a dense, planet-like atmosphere. Scientists believe that conditions on Titan are similar to those in the early years of Earth (the main difference being that Earth has always been warmer because it is closer to the Sun). A NASA representative said, "In many ways, Saturn's largest moon, Titan, is one of the most Earth-like worlds we've found so far."

[thelufias]

  How uncanny.....I was just reading about that last night.....Now I hope I can see it....Haven't had hardly any luck with seeing my sky wonders.  Missed out on the meteorite showers.....

[Aelin]

2021 first Supermoon, this month. How to look for
https://www.sciencealert.com/april-s-full-moon-is-2021-s-first-supermoon-here-s-when-to-look-for-it

[thelufias]

Saw that in the Space Weather Site....gotta check out that Solar Blast next that was in their latest Newsletter...

[Jherrith]

JUPITER'S MOONS ARE ECLIPSING EACH OTHER: Jupiter is about to be edge-on to the sun, and that means unusual things are happening. Here's an example recorded by Australian astronomer Anthony Wesley on April 19th. "It's an eclipse of Ganymede by Callisto," he says.



Above: Anthony Wesley recorded this eclipse using a 16-inch telescope

Callisto is off-screen, stage left, but its circular shadow can be seen moving across the disk of Ganymede. Actually, look again. Just before Callisto's shadow appears, the shadow of Io partially eclipses Ganymede as well. Wesley captured two of Jupiter's moons eclipsing a third in only 10 minutes. Unusual, indeed.

This is happening because Jupiter is nearing its equinox on May 2nd; the sun is crossing Jupiter's equatorial plane. Around this time, the orbits of Jupiter's moons line up with the sun, allowing their shadows to fall across one another.

Astronomers call it "mutual event season." During the season, which lasts until August 2021, astronomers can see not only eclipses, but also occultations. That's when the physical disk of one moon blocks another. The last mutual event season occured in 2015; the next won't come until 2026.



Above: During a previous mutual event season 12 years ago, Io both eclipsed and occulted Ganymede. Christopher Go recorded the event using an 11-inch telescope. See Spaceweather's Aug. 19, 2009 archive page for details.

According to France's Institute for Celestial Mechanics and Computation of Ephemerides (IMCCE), there are 85 more mutual events between now and the end of the 2021 season. Some of the best may be found in this table from the Cambridge University Press. Only experienced astrophotographers will be able to make movies as detailed as Wesley's. However, even casual stargazers with ordinary backyard telescopes can see moons winking in and out as the shadow play unfolds. Look for Jupiter low in the southeast before dawn.

[thelufias]

Cool stuff indeed.....Neat post...

[Jherrith]

EINSTEIN'S ECLIPSE, RESTORED: On May 29, 1919, the Moon slid in front of the sun and forever altered our understanding of spacetime. It was "Einstein's Eclipse." Using his newly-developed theory of relativity, the young German physicist had predicted that the sun's gravity should bend starlight--an effect which could only be seen during a total eclipse. Some of the greatest astronomers of the age rushed to check his prediction.

More than 100 years later, Petr Horálek (ESO Photo Ambassador, Institute of Physics in Opava) and Miloslav Druckmüller (Brno University of Technology) have just released a stunning restoration of the photo that proved Einstein right:



Click to view the full-sized restored image

The original picture was taken in May 1919 by astronomers Andrew Crommelin and Charles Rundle Davidson, who traveled from the Greenwich Observatory in London to the path of totality in Sobral, Brazil. They were part of a global expedition headlined by Sir Arthur Eddington. Glass photographic plates from the expedition were typical of early 20th century astrophotography, colorless and a little dull.

"Our restoration shows how the eclipse would have been recorded today--a magnificent sight," says Horálek. "The astronomers in Brazil must have been amazed when they saw the giant prominence with their unaided eyes."

Horálek got the idea for this restoration in 2019 when he saw a partially restored image released by the ESO (European Southern Observatory) to celebrate the 100th anniversary of the eclipse. A scan of the original plate was provided by the Heidelberg Digitized Astronomical Plates project ... and then the hard work began.

"I started by manually removing scratches and specks of dust from the copied plate," says Horálek. "There were dozens of them, and the whole process took about 50 hours."

Next, Horálek applied Noise Adaptive Fuzzy Equalization (NAFE) software to sharpen the remaining details. Developed by Druckmüller to enhance images from NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory, NAFE worked marvelously on the old eclipse, revealing delicate streamers and hints of a dipole structure in the sun's corona.

Finally, he added color. "I created a palette to make the image as natural as possible. The sun's corona is white because it is sunlight scattered by free electrons. The prominence has that special red color (H-alpha) which hydrogen makes in the sun's atmosphere. Once these two colors were fixed, the dark-blue hue of the background sky emerged naturally. Voilà!--a modern view of Einstein's eclipse."




Meanwhile, back in 1919, the eclipse was a sensation. Eddington measured the positions of stars near the sun during the eclipse. Two of them, 65 and 67 Tauri, may be found in the bottom right of the restoration. They were displaced just as Einstein predicted. Spacetime really was a fabric that could be stretched.

The result was splashed across the front pages of most major newspapers, making Einstein and his theory of general relativity world famous. Einstein has been quoted describing his reaction if general relativity had not been confirmed: "Then I would feel sorry for the dear Lord. The theory is correct anyway."

"2021 is the 100th anniversary of Einstein's Nobel Prize," says Horálek. "This photo is our way of paying tribute to his work."

[thelufias]

Saw that....Very cool one Aelin...