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Astronomical News

Impressive SuperMoon tonight.
The full Moon peeped over the horizon as I was driving home and was being reported on BBC Radio at the same time. It's 7% bigger and 15% brighter than usual.
Look out your window now!
 
I was just reading about this. Although the Moon is bright today, it is slightly less bright than it was a month ago when the lunar Eclipse had just finished. Apparently, at the exact moment the lunar eclipse finished on Jan 21/1/19, the Moon was nearly at its absolute brightest, and it won't get any brighter until 2096.
 
This star in Andromeda has exploded every year for millions of years
The star, which annually erupts as a nova, has left behind one of the largest clouds of stellar debris ever observed. And it's not done yet.

Astronomers have discovered a star in the Andromeda galaxy that has been regularly erupting for the past million years, leaving behind one of the biggest shells of ejected material scientists have ever seen.

The new research, which was published last month in the journal Nature, not only marks the first discovery of such a super-remnant in another galaxy, it also paves the way for detecting a potentially massive population of repeatedly exploding stars, called recurrent novae, which may help shed light on how the universe has changed over time.

Astronomy/com
 
Sharpest views of Ultima Thule ever.

https://www.nasa.gov/feature/new-horizons-spacecraft-returns-its-sharpest-views-of-ultima-thule

"Project Scientist Hal Weaver, of the Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory, noted that the latest images have the highest spatial resolution of any New Horizons has taken – or may ever take – during its entire mission. Swooping within just 2,200 miles (3,500 kilometers), New Horizons flew approximately three times closer to Ultima than it zipped past its primary mission target, Pluto, in July 2015. "
 
It's curious that we managed to approach a spinning and complex shaped object almost flush on to one of the flat sides.

You can see some of the depth in the newer image on the upper edge, where it's curving around past 90 degrees in places.
 
You're not one of them flat asteroiders, are you? It's all a cover up by NASA.
 
How billion-mile-wide SUPERMASSIVE black hole is 'poised to swallow Earth WHOLE'

'A SUPERMASSIVE black hole could swallow our entire planet in years to come, a scientist has warned'.

https://www.express.co.uk/news/scie...assive-black-hole-swallow-earth-whole-spt/amp


155137235736939.jpg
 
Have you read astronomer Phil Plaitt's book Death From Above?
 
That makes a change from the Express' usual regular story about how the Earth is about to be wiped out by a giant asteroid (or heavy snow or immigrants.)

Pretty well every day now the Express prints unsubstantiated bunkum about ghosts, UFOs, alien structures on Mars, ABCs or reincarnation.
It's as if its striving to become a less-reputable version of our beloved Fortean Times.
 
Gravitational waves could reveal ultralight bosons lurking near black holes

05 Mar 2019

'Hypothetical particles called ultralight bosons could be spotted lurking near supermassive black holes by the Laser Interferometer Space Antenna (LISA), according to calculations by a team of astrophysicists. LISA is a space-based gravitational-wave detector that should be operational in 2034, when the team says it could determine whether ultralight bosons are a component of dark matter'.

https://physicsworld.com/a/gravitat...l-ultralight-bosons-lurking-near-black-holes/
 
This one has to be a starship.

Up until now, the worlds we've visited with robotic spacecraft have been composed largely of rock, ice and gas.

But a Nasa mission due to launch in 2022 will visit an object thought to be made largely of metal. 16 Psyche is part of the asteroid belt - the sprawling mass of planetary leftovers that orbits the Sun between Mars and Jupiter. About the size of the US state of Massachusetts, Psyche is the largest metallic asteroid known to science. But how did this 200 km-wide metal world come to be?

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-47559416
 
4 things we’ll learn from the first closeup image of a black hole

We’re about to see the first close-up of a black hole.

The Event Horizon Telescope, a network of eight radio observatories spanning the globe, has set its sights on a pair of behemoths: Sagittarius A*, the supermassive black hole at the Milky Way’s center, and an even more massive black hole 53.5 million light-years away in galaxy M87 (SN Online: 4/5/17).

https://www.sciencenews.org/article/event-horizon-telescope-first-image-black-hole-questions
 
A fascinating breakthrough at my old university.

Taking the temperature of black holes

Researchers at Heriot-Watt University in Edinburgh have developed a new formula to quickly calculate the temperature of a black hole.

They say it is simple and powerful, and offers fundamental insights into space and time.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-47773553
 
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Triple checked to make sure this wasn't an April Fool...

SCIENTISTS CALL MYSTERIOUS MEETING AS RUMOURS OF FIRST EVER BLACK HOLE PHOTO HEAT UP

Scientists are to hold mysterious meetings across the world to announce a "groundbreaking" new black hole discovery.

Press conferences around the globe are being organised, seemingly to announce a photograph that could break new ground in our understanding in space. Humanity might be about to see a black hole for the first ever time.

https://www.independent.co.uk/life-...t-meeting-event-horizon-eso-a8850486.html?amp
 
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