Mountain View College Astrophysics Club

Geminid meteor shower peaks this week: Here's what to expect from the last big meteor shower of the year The Geminid meteor shower is one of the most anticipated meteor showers of the year and with good reason!

Check out Don Pettit’s pictures from the International Space Station:

Check out astronaut’s stunning ‘science and art’ photo from the ISS American astronaut Don Pettit has just shared another dazzling image captured from the International Space Station 250 miles above Earth.

Since this has been a particularly active solar storm season, here is an article by Stefanie Waldek about the new hyperspectral imaging system deployed by the Japan National Institute for Fusion Science:

1st 'hyperspectral' image of aurora borealis reveals true colors of northern lights Translation: We're learning all about the aurora's many colors.

Here is a link to a LiveScience/Space.com article by Harry Baker about the JWST having captured an image pf an Einstein Ring. In such phenomena, light from a distant galaxy passes through a gravitational lens formed by a closer galaxy along the same line of sight. The specific image referenced in the article was generated by an astronomy enthusiast on Reddit.

Stunningly perfect 'Einstein ring' captured by James Webb Space Telescope It is our best look yet at these weird gravitationally-warped halos of light.

I'm sure by now we've all seen this picture from the JWST: an image of a region 13 billion light years distant. The solid angle subtends the equivalent of a single grain of sand held at arm's length. Note the gravitational lensing in the image:
https://www.facebook.com/ESAWebb/photos/a.219893913659709/348005640848535/

📢 The moment we have been waiting for is here. delivers deepest infrared image of Universe yet in special briefing. Known as Webb’s First Deep Field, this image features the galaxy cluster SMACS 0723, which is overflowing with detail.

The image – which focuses on a spot in the sky that, from the perspective of someone on the ground, is about the size of what would be covered by a grain of sand held at arm’s length – reveals thousands of galaxies, including the faintest objects ever observed in the infrared.

“What an incredible honour for ESA and its international partners to reveal Webb’s first image from the White House,” says ESA Director General Josef Aschbacher.

“Only with teamwork, dedication, and the human drive to push boundaries and explore have we arrived at this historical moment of seeing the deepest view of the early Universe to date.”

View the image in higher resolution and read more here: https://esawebb.org/announcements/ann2207/

📷 NASA - National Aeronautics and Space Administration ESA - European Space Agency Canadian Space Agency Space Telescope Science Institute

Just saw this press conference with the National Science Foundation, announcing the first direct image of SgrA*, the supermassive black hole at the heart of our own galaxy. Here's a link:

How are black holes studied? Secure .gov websites use HTTPS. A lock () or https:// means you’ve safely connected to the .gov website. Share sensitive information only on official, secure websites.

Here is a link to a news release from the South Africa Radio Astronomy Observatory, which recently produced an image magnetic strands near the center of our galaxy. I found this story on a mainstream news website and decided to do a little digging for the source material:

New MeerKAT radio image reveals complex heart of the Milky Way – SARAO The South African Radio Astronomy Observatory (SARAO) has released today a new MeerKAT telescope image of the centre of our Galaxy, showing radio emission from the region with unprecedented clarity and depth. The international team behind the work is publishing the initial science highlights from th...

This article caught my attention today. If you've ever wondered why our solar appears to occupy an oddly empty region of space, a new article by a team led by Catherine Zucker and published in _Nature_ offers some insight: Here is a link to a synopsis by Michelle Starr of ScienceAlert:

The Solar System Exists Inside a Giant, Mysterious Void, And We Finally Know Why The Solar System floats in the middle of a peculiarly empty region of space.

Thanks to myriad other operational obligations this past month, I had been unable to keep up with the latest developments in astronomy and astrophysics; even missing out on the December 25 launch of the James Webb Space Telescope, now on its way to LaGrange point 2, where it will collect infrared emissions from the farthest reaches of the observable universe. Here’s a link to the project:

Webb's Launch GSFC/NASA NASA's Webb Space Telescope Launch: From arrival at the ESA launch Facility in Kourou French Guiana, through launch and deployment, this is your starting point for exploring Webb's launch and commissioning. The James Webb Space Telescope's revolutionary technology will study every phase of cosmic hi...

If you are willing to stay up for it, and to endure tonight's dropping temperatures, check out the longest Lunar eclipse in nearly six centuries:

The Beaver Moon lunar eclipse won't be a true 'blood moon,' but it may look red. Here's why. The show starts early Friday (Nov. 19).

I just saw an article about Hamilton's Object: a ‘folded’ gravitationally lensed image in a Hubble Space Telescope image. This object appears as a bizarre "double galaxy" as a result of gravitational lensing, and provides additional evidence of the elusive "dark matter" in the universe. The article appears in Volume 506, issue 2 of the Monthly Notes of the Royal Astronomical Society, published by Oxford UP:

https://www.space.com/hubble-telescope-double-galaxy-dark-matter-ripple-photo

https://academic.oup.com/mnras/article-abstract/506/2/1595/6276726

Mystery solved! Bizarre Hubble double galaxy caused by 'ripple' in space Dark matter is involved.