The Sky is Waiting.
The Current Number of Exoplanets Discovered is: 3989
Pictured is a Delta IV rocket launch from Cape Canaveral on November 21st, 2010. The image is a 20 second exposure taken at dusk, shot from about 100 miles west of the launch site. The launch placed a classified payload in orbit for the United States Air Force.
Difficult but not impossible to catch against the dawn or dusk sky, spotting an extreme crescent moon can be a challenge. The slender crescent pictured was shot 30 minutes before sunrise when the Moon was less than 20 hours away from New. A true feat of visual athletics to catch, a good pair of binoculars or a well aimed wide field telescopic view can help with the hunt.
The Sun is our nearest star, and goes through an 11-year cycle of activity. This image was taken via a properly filtered telescope, and shows the Sun as it appeared during its last maximum peak in 2003. This was during solar cycle #23, a period during which the Sun hurled several large flares Earthward. The next solar cycle is due to peak around 2013-14.
Located in the belt of the constellation Orion, Messier 42, also known as the Orion Nebula is one of the finest deep sky objects in the northern hemisphere sky. Just visible as a faint smudge to the naked eye on a clear dark night, the Orion Nebula is a sure star party favorite, as it shows tendrils of gas contrasted with bright stars. M42 is a large stellar nursery, a star forming region about 1,000 light years distant.
Orbiting the planet in Low Earth Orbit (LEO) every 90 minutes, many people fail to realize that you can see the International Space Station (ISS) from most of the planet on a near-weekly basis. In fact, the ISS has been known to make up to four visible passes over the same location in one night. The image pictured is from the Fourth of July, 2011 and is a 20 second exposure of a bright ISS pass.
Next to the Sun, the two brightest objects in the sky are the Moon and the planet Venus. In fact, when Venus is favorably placed next to the Moon, it might just be possible to spot the two in the daytime. Another intriguing effect known as earthshine or ashen light is also seen in the image on the night side of the Moon; this is caused by sunlight reflected back off of the Earth towards our only satellite.
A mosaic of three images taken during the total lunar eclipse of December 21st, 2010. The eclipse occurred the same day as the winter solstice. The curve and size of the Earth’s shadow is apparent in the image.
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Astro-Vid Of the Week: A New Look at LIGO
The entrance to LIGO Livingston. (Photo by Author)
An exciting astronomical observatory is finally be getting the recognition it deserves.
We’ve written about the Laser Interferometer Gravitational Wave Observatory (LIGO) before. LIGO consists of a pair of L-shaped arrays, one based in Hanford Washington and one in Livingston Louisiana which we toured in 2010. LIGO first went online in 2002, and its mission is to detect gravity waves generated by such exotic events as binary pulsar or black hole mergers.
And the really exciting news is that LIGO is getting a documentary film in 2014 entitled LIGO: A Passion for Understanding. Primary footage was acquired in late 2013, and the trailer is now available online:
LIGO, A Passion for Understanding – Trailer from Kai Staats on Vimeo.
LIGO has yet to detect gravity waves, but all that could change soon when Advanced LIGO (AdLIGO) goes online later this year. With ten times greater sensitivity, AdLIGO could open our view to the universe and usher in a new era of gravitational wave astronomy. This could include a future where even more powerful detectors consisting of free flying laser arrays such as the European Space Agency’s (ESA) proposed Laser Interferometer Space Antenna (LISA) mission probe the secrets of the universe.
And already, the lack of detection of gravity waves has placed some key constraints on such events as the birth of the universe itself. LIGO requires two geographically separate detectors to rule out local interference. Each consisting of a pair of two kilometre long arms in a Fabry-Pérot configuration, LIGO researchers periodically inject test signals into the data to test sensitivity.
Will the first direct detection of gravity waves happen in 2014? Be sure to follow the documentary for a fascinating look at the LIGO project.