Category Archives: space

Jul12

way out.

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The first publicly released image from the James Webb Space Telescope, showing countless galaxies and multiple arcs where the combined gravity of those galaxies magnifies light from background objects, bringing even more distant galaxies into view.  NASA—
NASA Administrator Bill Nelson described the image to President Biden, saying all the stars and galaxies it encompassed were located in an area of space the size of a grain of sand held at arm’s length by someone standing on Earth.

“We’re looking back more than 13 billion years,” he said. “That light that you are seeing has been traveling for over 13 billion years, and by the way, we’re going back farther. This is just the first image. They’re going back about thirteen-and-a-half billion years. And since we know the universe is 13.8 billion years old, we’re going back almost to the beginning.”

NASA plans to release additional “first light” images Tuesday, photos designed to showcase Webb’s ability to chart the details of stellar evolution, from starbirth to death by supernova, to study how galaxies form, merge and evolve and to probe the chemical composition of atmospheres around planets orbiting other stars.

This initial Webb deep field released Monday promises to rewrite the astronomy books yet again, providing the data needed to fill in many of the major gaps in the history of the universe, perhaps even providing the framework to determine when —  and how —  the first massive stars formed, exploded and seeded the cosmos with the heavy elements that make life possible.

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“the size and age of the cosmos are beyond ordinary human understanding.
lost somewhere between immensity and eternity is our tiny planetary home.” 
-carl sagan, cosmos
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source credit: nasa
Sep28

‘i refuse to accept pluto’s resignation as a planet.’- amy lee

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 though not the first to go,

pluto lost its planetary status 15 years ago

 and not everyone agrees.

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“as a planetary scientist, I don’t know what else to call Pluto: it’s big and round and thousands of miles wide.’ alan stern

 

 

 

 

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credits: mental floss, jeopardy, getty images, courtney k

Jul21

11.

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(in honor of all the recent space activity and a soon to arrive full moon – a repost from 2 years ago)

50th anniversary of the week of the Apollo 11 moon landing

I was 11

on the cusp of everything 

we went over

to my parents’ friends’ house

everyone was transfixed

air was electric

all gathered around the tv

watching

silent and awestruck

gobsmacked

as the first man walked on the moon

spoke his first words on the moon

 lots of emotion in the house

I ran to the window to look at the moon 

hoping I would see him up there

right in the middle of all of this

the hostess

left to go to the hospital

to have her baby

she named him neil

after that man on the moon.

—

“we ran as if to meet the moon.” 

― robert frost

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image credit: Ann Arbor district library archives

Aug3

down to earth.

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a sidewalk homage to success 

as the first spaceX crew dragon spacecraft “Endeavour” with a human crew

returns american nasa astronauts and best friends, bob and doug, to earth 

 

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“i don’t know what you could say about a day in which you have seen four beautiful sunsets.”

– john glenn,  american astronaut

 

 

 

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photo credit: nasa.gov (Robert Behnken and Douglas Hurley- astronauts)

Jan23

stardust.

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Scanning electron microscope image of one of the clumps of presolar grains, or stardust. Image via Janaína N. Ávila/EurekAlert!

 

Ancient stardust in meteorite is older than Earth

Grains of stardust – particles left behind by star explosions – in an Australian meteorite are now the oldest known material on Earth. A new study suggests this stardust came to be long before our sun ever existed.

As the saying goes, we are all made of stardust. It’s true. The elements in our bodies – oxygen, carbon, nitrogen, calcium and so on – are made in the thermonuclear furnaces of stars. When scientists speak of stardust, or cosmic dust, they’re speaking of the leftover tiny particles from dead stars that exploded as supernovae. This stardust later goes into forming new stars, planets and moons, including those in our own solar system. It goes into the solar system’s debris, the asteroids and comets, and ultimately meteorites, or rocks from space that find their way to Earth’s surface. Now scientists at the Field Museum in Chicago have found the oldest known samples of stardust in a meteorite that landed in Australia. The meteorite is estimated to be 5 to 7 billion years old. The stardust samples are the oldest material ever discovered on Earth. This dust is even older than our solar system.

The new peer-reviewed study was published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences on January 13, 2020.

 

 

 

 

 

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credits: SPACE – Paul Scott Anderson, Proceedings of the National Academy of Science, Earth Sky, Chicago Field Museum, Phillip Heck

Jul19

11.

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50th anniversary of the week of the Apollo 11 moon landing

I was 11

on the cusp of everything 

we went over

to my parents’ friends’ house

everyone was transfixed

air was electric

all gathered around the tv

watching

silent and awestruck

gobsmacked

as the first man walked on the moon

spoke his first words on the moon

 lots of emotion in the house

I ran to the window to look at the moon 

hoping I would see him up there

right in the middle of all of this

the hostess

left to go to the hospital

to have her baby

she named him neil

after that man on the moon.

—

“we ran as if to meet the moon.” 

― robert frost

 

 

—

image credit: Ann Arbor district library archives

May15

spaces.

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stop filling all the spaces.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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as you simplify,

let the extra spaces

in your home,

on your calendar

and in your mind

be empty for awhile.

the emptiness may be uncomfortable at first,

but that’s where the answers lie.

soon you’ll have room for what you really want.

 

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source:  be more with less.

Feb13

universe.

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On an eight-day flight aboard the Space Shuttle Endeavour in 1992, AAAS member Mae Carol Jemison became the first African American woman to travel in space. Happy International Day of Women and Girls in Science!

Mae C. Jemison, born on this day in 1956, has a few firsts to her name: She was the first woman of color in space, as well as the only real astronaut to have served on the U.S.S. Enterprise, where she portrayed a lieutenant on an episode of Star Trek: TNG.

“we inhabit a universe that is characterized by diversity.”

-desmond tutu