Starship Asterisk*

Sure. And as you move off the centerline you also get closer to the Sun's surface along on axis. The Moon is closer to us now than it usually is during eclipses, so appears larger than the Sun... the consequence being a very long period of totality (about 5 minutes). Thanks. Are these "greater...

Well, the news is Odie tipped over during landing while having an unplanned horizontal motion. It's condition still appears good, and may still get enough sunlight for the solar array power.

There is a cluster in the very beginning of the video (at 2 seconds). Could this cluster be M11? What do you think? APOD 19 February 2024 annotated.png https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/7/78/M11_Killarney_Provincial_Park_Observatory.jpg/1200px-M11_Killarney_Provincial_Park_Observ...

" Lower energy particles descend deeper"? Surely, that must be higher energy particles, right? The following link has a lot more detail that was very clearly explicated - clearly enough even for me to understand! It's complicated. Higher energy particles can be preferentially absorbed dep...

nikkam wrote: ↑Thu Dec 28, 2023 6:29 am I live in Turin (Torino) where Superga's Basilica is; only one who does not live in Turin can be supposed to think that this shot is true; it's only a tremendous fake.

So why do you think that?

Sky & Tel: Bits of Theia Might Be in Earth's Mantle LInked Nature article: Moon-forming impactor as a source of Earth’s basal mantle anomalies Interesting. The statement that the cores of proto-Earth and Theia likely merged would seem to rule out a "glancing blow". It's also not clear...

So then what did happen to the stuff that made up Theia? Was it just ejected away from the Earth-Moon system? It would seem very unlikely that none of Theia was incorporated. The simulations I've seen involve glancing blows where most of the colliding body (now melted) continues on its way. But the...

The planet and its large natural satellite even appear about the same apparent size Hardly. The Earth is only about 60% of the size of the Moon here! Yes. In fact, about 4 hrs prior to the image, the moon occulted the Earth for about 77 minutes. Correction: Occultation starts 3.6 hours prior; durat...

Let's add some annotations to make this all more clear (hopefully): the PDS 70 protoplanetary star system.jpg On the surface, certainly seems reasonable you've correctly labeled 70b, but according to the ESO desription , 70b is not visible this image, and nothing said about those additional blob(s)...

Annular Eclipse October 14, 2023 Annular Eclipse from Mount Vernon, WA.jpg   Copyright: Travis Seamans Location: Mount Vernon, WA Date & Time: 14 Oct 2023, 09:14 PDT (6½ minutes before maximum eclipse) Camera: Cell phone, Galaxy S21 Ultra, hand-held Filter: Eclipse safety glasses, hand-held

... Well, if Gaia has measured the parallax of Mu Cephei, then the news of this has not come to Simbad . The APOD caption said that the distance to Mu Cephei is nearly 3,000 light-years from planet Earth. Did Gaia tell you that, Robert Nemiroff and Jerry Bonnell, in private communication? Even thou...

... Wikipedia wrote: The distance to Mu Cephei is not very well known. The Hipparcos satellite was used to measure a parallax of 0.55±0.20 mas, which corresponds to an estimated distance of 1,800 parsecs. However, this value is close to the margin of error. A determination of the distance based upo...

Are there two clusters in Trapezium, or just one? https://asterisk.apod.com/download/file.php?id=48541&t=1 There are two clusters all right. "The Trapezium proper" is just one cluster, of course. But there is most certainly another cluster to the northwest (upper right) of it, the one...

johnnydeep wrote: ↑Tue Oct 10, 2023 9:01 pm Are there two clusters in Trapezium, or just one?


trapezium - one or two clusters.png

Just one - circled lower left.

Yes, push pins sounds good. And the Kapton tape holds the pins in place until the lid is attached to the venting hole. The white disc under the tape could be made of e.g. Teflon or ceramic. In case of Teflon the Tape will not stick very well, unless the surface would have been activated, with plasm...

I hope someone is able to answer my question even if I am asking it a day late...what does the "sun" emblem mean and why was it not charred upon re-entry? I wondered about that too. Since you asked, I looked into it and can answer your question. I couldn't find what the emblem meant, but ...

I hope someone is able to answer my question even if I am asking it a day late...what does the "sun" emblem mean and why was it not charred upon re-entry? I wondered about that too. Since you asked, I looked into it and can answer your question. I couldn't find what the emblem meant, but ...

johnnydeep wrote: ↑Sat Sep 30, 2023 1:59 pm PS - the link to the credited copyright holder doesn't work, but perhaps that's deliberate, based on how it looks: "https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/giabar5insta [at] gmail []"

This is the instagram address: https://www.instagram.com/giabar5/

... P.S. it would seem the capsule photo has been 'sanitized' by removing the parachute. Its even been disconnected in this view. For reasons that can only be guessed at ? https://earthsky.org/upl/2023/09/asteroid-sample-OSIRIS-REx-wide-view-cp2.jpeg Viewing a NASA visualization video of the landin...

So the two bright blue stars at the top of the pic are obviously stars from our galaxy but the stream of stars behind the right star looks to be an irregular galaxy. Is that correct? How far distant is that from the star in front? Thanks. The galaxy goes by LEDA 1237172, and is identified only as a...

I still don't understand why the crescent slivers aren't all identical on each side. Aren't we seeing the same left or right limn of the Moon in either case? I don't understand your question. The shadows on the left side originate from the left lunar limb, and the right side shadows come from the r...

Today's APOD is accompanied by insufficient information--as you can see by the other questions. Are all the rings what appears at the edge of the moon just before and after the eclipse but would be seen in the same place? How much time elapses between the rings? Why is there no "diamond ring&q...

Today's APOD is accompanied by insufficient information--as you can see by the other questions. Are all the rings what appears at the edge of the moon just before and after the eclipse but would be seen in the same place? How much time elapses between the rings? Why is there no "diamond ring&q...

Those exposures were so short (on the order of 5 or 6 minutes total, stacked from 10 or 15 second subs), and the field wide enough, that I just let a small, roughly polar aligned mount track the sky. Then I aligned on the comet. You can see that the stars are trailed slightly. Longer exposures at a...