@coreyspowell@mastodon.social
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coreyspowell

@coreyspowell@mastodon.social

Writer, editor, magazine maker, podcaster, procrastinator.

Former editor of Discover and American Scientist magazines. Co-host of #ScienceRules podcast. Invisible Universe on Substack: https://invisibleuniverse.substack.com/

Co-founder of OpenMind magazine.

#science #nature #space #scicomm

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coreyspowell, to random
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Everything in this image of the Eagle Nebula is invisible to the human eye.
JWST shows the infrared glow of warm gas & dust. Chandra shows x-rays blasting from active young stars. Our technology brings the invisible universe into view.
https://chandra.harvard.edu/photo/2023/chandrawebb2/

coreyspowell,
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Thought for the weekend:
Our eyes are narrowly adapted to conditions on Earth. To see reality as it truly is, we have to use instruments that go far beyond the limits of human vision.
These images merge visible light with infrared & x-rays to show a bigger universe:
https://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/chandra/news/nasas-chandra-webb-combine-for-arresting-views.html

coreyspowell, to space
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50 years ago today, astronauts moved into the world's first space station. NASA's Skylab had suffered significant damage on launch & required a makeshift sunshade to avoid deadly overheating.
https://history.nasa.gov/SP-4011/contents.htm.

coreyspowell,
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The Sun-blocking "parasol" that rescued the Skylab space station was woven by workers from International Latex Corporation. Here they are at work: Delores Zeroles (front) and Ceal Webb.
https://www.nasa.gov/centers/marshall/history/gallery/msfc_iow_14.html

coreyspowell,
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A wonderfully deadpan history of Skylab's near-disastrous launch and rapid rescue, via NASA's History Division: https://history.nasa.gov/SP-4011/part3c.htm

coreyspowell,
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@yogthos Quite right -- my error. I must have blocked that from my memory because of the tragic end of the Salyut 1 crew. But the Soviets were definitely first.

coreyspowell,
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Correction: I forgot about Salyut 1. The Soviets beat the US by sending up the first space station in 1971. Salyut 1's only crew died on reentry, bringing the project to a sad, early end. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Salyut_1

coreyspowell, to space
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Engineers have completed the digital "eyes" of the Roman Space Telescope, NASA's next great observatory. After launch in 2027 it will send back unique, sweeping views of the cosmos.
https://www.nasa.gov/feature/goddard/2023/nasa-completes-heart-of-roman-space-telescope-s-primary-instrument

Principal technician Billy Keim installs a cover plate over the detectors for NASA’s Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope. Second image: Simulated comparison images of the Eagle Nebula from Hubble and the Roman Space Telescope.

coreyspowell,
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The Roman Space Telescope will search for planets by observing how their gravity distorts the light from more distant stars.
By the time it's done, the Roman telescope is expected to discover more than 100,000 new worlds. https://roman.gsfc.nasa.gov/exoplanets.html

Gravitational lensing is an observational effect that occurs because the presence of mass warps the fabric of space-time, sort of like the dent a bowling ball makes when set on a trampoline. The effect is extreme around very massive objects, like black holes and entire galaxies. But even stars and planets cause a detectable degree of warping, called microlensing.

coreyspowell,
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@aburtch It's a complementary tool. Roman has an extremely wide field of view (powerful for surveys) and a light-blocking coronagraph (crucial for seeking out planets), which sets it apart.

coreyspowell, to ai
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I'm fascinated by the weird clip art people use to illustrate stories about AI.
I'm fascinated, too, by the differences between American & Eastern European approaches to that AI art.
(Left: Popular Mechanics. Right: ForkLog)

An AI illustration from an story in the Estonian ForkLog blog.

coreyspowell, to space
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The sky is dotted with odd circular structures, giant enough to surround multiple galaxies & visible only in radio waves.
Astronomers, in their wisdom, have dubbed them "odd radio circles." ORCs, for short.
https://skyandtelescope.org/astronomy-news/new-image-reveals-possible-origins-of-odd-radio-circles/

coreyspowell,
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One possibility: Odd Radio Circles might be enormous shockwaves, a million light years wide, spreading outward from colliding galaxies. https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.3847/1538-4357/acb5f5

franco_vazza, to random
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An extra triggered, as many telescopes, by
new supernova in Galaxy M101, the closest we had a while.

The SN exploded ~25 million year ago, and its output of neutrinos and photons is reaching us only now.

Did you know that 99% of the energy released by a supernova actually goes into neutrinos, and only the rest is left to photons, cosmic rays and kinetic energy of the expanding shell?

(image by https://twitter.com/katsumi_comet/status/1659787002722807808/photo/1)

coreyspowell,
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@franco_vazza @AkaSci It's worse than that. SN1987A was approx 168,000 light years away. M101 is ~125x as distant.

coreyspowell, to space
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More information about the new supernova in galaxy M101 (near the Big Dipper in the sky). It is the closest supernova observed in a decade, though "closest" is relative: M101 is 21 million light years away.
https://earthsky.org/todays-image/supernova-in-m101-pinwheel-galaxy-closest-in-a-decade-how-to-see/

coreyspowell,
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Ordinary person's definition of "close" vs an astronomer's definition.

Galaxy M101, photographed from the Wolf Creek Observatory.

coreyspowell,
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@TMEubanks I'm sure they are looking, but a Type II supernova at that distance is probably far below the detection threshold of LIGO, unfortunately.
https://aasnova.org/2019/07/05/can-we-detect-gravitational-waves-from-core-collapse-supernovae/

coreyspowell, to random
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A bright supernova just popped off in nearby galaxy M101! Not naked-eye bright, but should be visible through a decent amateur telescope.
M101 is about 21 million light years away, so this signal has been on its way to Earth for a looong time.
https://www.wis-tns.org/object/2023ixf/discovery-cert

coreyspowell,
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@cosmos4u Also, my understanding is that it was caught very early, so might still brighten by a magnitude or more.

coreyspowell,
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@cosmos4u In the absolute optimal scenario (bright end of the Type II range, zero extinction) it seems like it could reach 12th magnitude. Unlikely in the real world, though.

coreyspowell, to space
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These are some of the sharpest pictures ever taken of the Sun, captured by the Inouye Solar Telescope.
To get a sense of how big the Sun is, the zoomed-in image is about as wide as the entire Earth.
https://nso.edu/press-release/new-images-released-by-nsfs-inouye-solar-telescope

A light bridge is seen crossing a sunspot’s umbra from one end of the penumbra to the other. Light bridges are believed to be the signature of the start of a decaying sunspot, which will eventually break apart. Light bridges are very complex, taking different forms and phases. It is unknown how deep these structures form. This image shows one example of a light bridge in remarkable detail. Umbra: Dark, central region of a sunspot where the magnetic field is strongest. Penumbra: The brighter, surrounding region of a sunspot’s umbra characterized by bright filamentary structures.

coreyspowell,
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Death on the Sun: The dark smudges at left provide a rare close look at an old sunspot as it fades away. The granules are cells of hot plasma bubbling upward, typically about 1,000 kilometers wide. https://nso.edu/press-release/new-images-released-by-nsfs-inouye-solar-telescope

coreyspowell, to space
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If we ever discover an alien artifact, will we be able to understand it?
Archeologists can't even understand these ubiquitous objects made by the Romans 1800 years ago!
https://www.mentalfloss.com/article/514246/are-roman-dodecahedrons-worlds-most-mysterious-artifact #astronomy #aliens

coreyspowell,
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@NorCal_Lynne Quite possible! That's one of the theories.

Imagine if we find a piece of alien tech, spend centuries trying to decode it, and it's just a decorative paperweight.

kevinmgill, to random

Saw this guy walking the dog this afternoon. I was surprised he let me get this close for a picture before running off

coreyspowell,
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@kevinmgill I realize I'm being an annoying pedant, but I got such joy from my original reading of the sentence.

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