Where have all the dim stars gone? From many places on the Earth including major cities, the night sky has been reduced from a fascinating display of thousands of stars to a diffuse glow through which only a few stars are visible. The featured map indicates the relative amount of light pollution that occurs across the Earth. The cause of the pollution is artificial light reflecting off molecules and aerosols in the atmosphere. Parts of the Eastern United States and Western Europe colored red, for example, have an artificial night sky glow over ten times that of the natural sky. In any area marked orange or red, the central band of our Milky Way Galaxy is no longer visible. The International Dark Sky Association suggests common types of fixtures that provide relatively little amounts of light pollution.

https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap230308.html ( March 08, 2023)

ISS Daily Summary Report – 3/06/2023

 

Payloads: Investigating Structure and Function of the Eye (ISAFE): In preparation for experiment activities, the crew reviewed the Big Picture Words package. Microgravity causes blood and cerebrospinal fluid to shift toward the head, which is believed to be an underlying cause of structural changes to the eyes, known as “Spaceflight Associated Neuro-Ocular Syndrome” or SANS. … ...

March 06, 2023 at 11:00AM
From NASA: https://blogs.nasa.gov/stationreport/2023/03/06/iss-daily-summary-report-3-06-2023/

Dumbbell Nebula Pumps Out Light Show

Infrared light surges out from the Dumbbell Nebula, also known as Messier 27, in this Aug. 10, 2011, image from NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope.

from NASA http://www.nasa.gov/image-feature/dumbbell-nebula-pumps-out-light-show
via IFTTT

Is this a spiral galaxy? No. Actually, it is the Large Magellanic Cloud (LMC), the largest satellite galaxy of our own Milky Way Galaxy. The LMC is classified as a dwarf irregular galaxy because of its normally chaotic appearance. In this deep and wide exposure, however, the full extent of the LMC becomes visible. Surprisingly, during longer exposures, the LMC begins to resemble a barred spiral galaxy. The Large Magellanic Cloud lies only about 180,000 light-years distant towards the constellation of the Dolphinfish (Dorado). Spanning about 15,000 light-years, the LMC was the site of SN1987A, the brightest and closest supernova in modern times. Together with the Small Magellanic Cloud (SMC), the LMC can be seen in Earth's southern hemisphere with the unaided eye.

https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap230307.html ( March 07, 2023)

It was visible around the world. The sunset conjunction of Jupiter and Venus in 2012 was visible almost no matter where you lived on Earth. Anyone on the planet with a clear western horizon at sunset could see them. Pictured here in 2012, a creative photographer traveled away from the town lights of Szubin, Poland to image a near closest approach of the two planets. The bright planets were then separated only by three degrees and his daughter struck a humorous pose. A faint red sunset still glowed in the background. Jupiter and Venus are together again this month after sunset, passing within a degree of each other about a week ago.

https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap230306.html ( March 06, 2023)

What are those two bright spots? Planets. A few days ago, the two brightest planets in the night sky passed within a single degree of each other in what is termed a conjunction. Visible just after sunset in much of the world, the two bright spots were Jupiter (left) and Venus (right). The featured image was taken near closest approach from Cirica, Sicily, Italy. The week before, Venus was rising higher in the sunset sky to meet the dropping Jupiter. Now they have switched places. Of course, Venus remains much closer to both the Sun and the Earth than Jupiter -- the apparent closeness between the planets in the sky of Earth was only angular. You can still see the popular pair for an hour or so after sunset this month although they continue to separate, and Jupiter continues to set earlier each night.

https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap230305.html ( March 05, 2023)

10 Days of Venus and Jupiter

Venus and Jupiter may have caught your attention lately. The impending close conjunction of the two brightest planets visible in clear evening skies has been hard to miss. With Jupiter at the top, starting on February 21 and ending on March 2, their close approach is chronicled daily, left to right, in these panels recorded from Dhanbad, India. Near the western horizon, the evening sky colors and exposures used for each panel depend on the local conditions near sunset. On February 22, Jupiter and Venus were joined by the young crescent Moon. The celestial pair appeared to be only the width of a full moon apart by March 2. Of course on that date the two planets were physically separated by over 600 million kilometers in their orbits around the Sun. In the coming days Jupiter will slowly settle into the glare at sunset, but Venus will continue to move farther from the Sun in the western sky to excel in its current role as the brilliant evening star.

https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap230304.html ( March 04, 2023)

NASA's ER-2 Flying High

A NASA ER-2 high-altitude aircraft soars upward at the L.A. county airshow in this image from Mar. 25, 2023.

from NASA http://www.nasa.gov/image-feature/nasas-er-2-flying-high
via IFTTT

ISS Daily Summary Report – 3/02/2023

 

Crew-6 Launch: The Endeavour Crew launched at 11:34 PM CT Wednesday night from Launch Complex 39A at KSC on the SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket. The Crew Dragon spacecraft will dock at approximately 12:17 AM CT Friday morning. Payloads: Sphere Camera-1 (SphereCam-1): The Solid State Drives were changed out from NanoRack’s Mainframe Alpha. SphereCam-1 uses a … ...

March 02, 2023 at 11:00AM
From NASA: https://blogs.nasa.gov/stationreport/2023/03/02/iss-daily-summary-report-3-02-2023/

RCW 86: Historical Supernova Remnant

In 185 AD, Chinese astronomers recorded the appearance of a new star in the Nanmen asterism. That part of the sky is identified with Alpha and Beta Centauri on modern star charts. The new star was visible to the naked-eye for months, and is now thought to be the earliest recorded supernova. This deep telescopic view reveals the wispy outlines of emission nebula RCW 86, just visible against the starry background, understood to be the remnant of that stellar explosion. Captured by the wide-field Dark Energy Camera operating at Cerro Tololo Inter-American Observatory in Chile, the image traces the full extent of a ragged shell of gas ionized by the still expanding shock wave. Space-based images indicate an abundance of the element iron in RCW 86 and the absence of a neutron star or pulsar within the remnant, suggesting that the original supernova was Type Ia. Unlike the core collapse supernova explosion of a massive star, a Type Ia supernova is a thermonuclear detonation on a white dwarf star that accretes material from a companion in a binary star system. Near the plane of our Milky Way galaxy and larger than the full moon on the sky this supernova remnant is too faint to be seen by eye though. RCW 86 is some 8,000 light-years distant and around 100 light-years across.

https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap230303.html ( March 03, 2023)