Moon and Venus Appulse over a Tree - Astronomy picture of the day - 2019 February 9

Moon and Venus Appulse over a Tree 

Image Credit & Copyright: Alex Dzierba

Explanation: What's that bright spot near the Moon? Venus. About a week ago, Earth's Moon appeared unusually close to the distant planet Venus, an angular coincidence known as an appulse. Similar to a conjunction, which is acoordinate term, an appulse refers more generally to when two celestial objects appear close together. This Moon and Venus appulse -- once as close as 0.05 degrees -- was captured rising during the early morning behind Kokocrater on the island of O'ahu in Hawaii, USA. The Moon was in a crescent phase with its lower left reflecting direct sunlight, while the rest of the Moon is seen because of Earthshine, sunlight first reflected from the Earth. Some leaves and branches of a foreground kiawe tree are seen in silhouette in front of the bright crescent, while others, in front of a darker background, appear white because of forward scattering. Appulses involving the Moon typically occurseveral times a year: for example the Moon is expected to pass within 0.20 degrees of distant Saturn on March 1.

Science & Technologie - Video - "On a vu la mort"

Dans les organes, dans le cerveau, dans les cellules... la science a découvert ce qui se passe dans le corps quand on meurt. Une chronique de Thomas Cavaillé-Fol sur Science & Vie TV.

En 2018, trois expériences différentes ont permis de voir la mort... et même de la filmer ! Surprise : mourir, ce n'est pas s'éteindre d'un coup. Au contraire, c'est un processus auquel prennent part tous nos organes et cellules, par l'activation de certains gènes. Tout commence dans le cerveau, où la faucheuse frappe en premier. Récit de comment la vie quitte le corps par Thomas Cavaillé-Fol, journaliste au magazine Science & Vie.

Science & Vie

Science & Technology - Astronomy picture of the day - 2019 February 5 : Perijove 16: Passing Jupiter

Perijove 16: Passing Jupiter 
Video Credit & License: NASA, Juno, SwRI, MSSS, Gerald Eichstadt;  Music: The Planets, IV. Jupiter (Gustav Holst); USAF Heritage of America Band (via Wikipedia)

Explanation: Watch Juno zoom past Jupiter again. NASA's robotic spacecraft Juno is continuing on its 53-day, highly-elongated orbits around our Solar System's largest planet. The featured video is from perijove 16, the sixteenth time that Juno has passed near Jupiter since it arrived in mid-2016. Each perijove passes near a slightly different part of Jupiter's cloud tops. This color-enhanced video has been digitally composed from 21 JunoCam still images, resulting in a 125-fold time-lapse. The video begins with Jupiter rising as Juno approaches from the north. As Juno reaches its closest view -- from about 3,500 kilometers over Jupiter's cloud tops -- the spacecraft captures the great planet in tremendous detail. Juno passes light zones and dark belt of clouds that circle the planet, as well as numerous swirling circular storms, many of which are larger than hurricanes on Earth. As Juno moves away, the remarkabledolphin-shaped cloud is visible. After the perijove, Jupiter recedes into the distance, now displaying the unusual clouds that appear over Jupiter's south. To get desired science data, Juno swoops so close to Jupiter that its instruments are exposed to very high levels of radiation.

Slides music - London Philharmonic Orchestra & David Parry : "On the Beautiful Blue Danube, Op. 314"

"On the Beautiful Blue Danube"

Science & Technology - Astronomy picture of the day - 2019 February 3 : An Airglow Fan from Lake to Sky

An Airglow Fan from Lake to Sky Image Credit & Copyright: Dave Lane; Rollover Annotation: Judy Schmidt

Explanation: Why would the sky look like a giant fan? Airglow. The featured intermittent green glow appeared to rise from a lake through the arch of our Milky Way Galaxy, as captured during 2015 next to Bryce Canyon in Utah, USA. The unusual pattern was created by atmospheric gravity waves, ripples of alternating air pressure that can grow with height as the air thins, in this case about 90 kilometers up. Unlike auroras powered by collisions with energetic charged particles and seen at high latitudes, airglow is due to chemiluminescence, the production of light in a chemical reaction. More typically seen near the horizon, airglow keeps the night sky from ever being completely dark.

Short texto - Pinochio

Ha quem lhe chame Pinochio... Eu não ; Pinochio foi um heroi legendario de banda desenhada e, se bem tenha utilisado a mentira na sua existência, não prejudicou qualquer ser.

Ao moderno Socrates, e bem assim "fidalgos" de todos partidos, fodam-lhes o focinho, rebentem-lhes o cu ; façam-nos ajoelharem-se para que nobre e gentilmente recebam a merecida ostia !

Longe de mim FDgP !!!

02-02-2019

JoanMira 

Science & Technology - Astronomy picture of the day - 2019 February 1 : Twin Galaxies in Virgo

"Twin Galaxies in Virgo"  Image Credit & Copyright: CHART32 Team, Processing - Johannes Schedler

Explanation: Spiral galaxy pair NGC 4567 and NGC 4568 share this sharp cosmic vista with lonely elliptical galaxy NGC 4564. All are members of the large Virgo Galaxy Cluster. With their classic spiral arms, dust lanes, and star clusters, the eye-catching spiral pair is also known as the Butterfly Galaxies or the Siamese Twins. Very close together, the galaxy twins don't seem to be too distorted by gravitational tides. Their giant molecular clouds are known to be colliding though and are likely fueling the formation of massive star clusters. The galaxy twins are about 52 million light-years distant, while their bright cores appear separated by about 20,000 light-years. Of course, the spiky foreground stars lie within our own Milky Way.

Science & Technology - Astronomy picture of the day - 2019 January 31 : Sharpless 308: Star Bubble

"Sharpless 308: Star Bubble" 
Image Credit & Copyright: Laubing

Explanation: Blown by fast winds from a hot, massive star, this cosmic bubble is huge. Cataloged as Sharpless 2-308 it lies some 5,200 light-years away toward the constellation of the Big Dog (Canis Major) and covers slightly more of the sky than a Full Moon. That corresponds to a diameter of 60 light-years at its estimated distance. The massive star that created the bubble, a Wolf-Rayet star, is the bright one near the center of the nebula. Wolf-Rayet stars have over 20 times the mass of the Sun and are thought to be in a brief, pre-supernova phase of massive star evolution. Fast winds from this Wolf-Rayet star create the bubble-shaped nebula as they sweep up slower moving material from an earlier phase of evolution. The windblown nebula has an age of about 70,000 years. Relatively faint emission captured in the expansive image is dominated by the glow of ionized oxygen atoms mapped to a blue hue. SH2-308 is also known as The Dolphin Nebula.

Science & Technology - Astronomy picture of the day - 2019 January 30 : From the Northern to the Southern Cross

From the Northern to the Southern Cross 

Image Credit & Copyright: Nicholas Buer

Explanation: There is a road that connects the Northern to the Southern Cross but you have to be at the right place and time to see it. The road, as pictured here, is actually the central band of our Milky Way Galaxy; the right place, in this case, is dark Laguna Cejar in Salar de Atacama of Northern Chile; and the right time was in early October, just after sunset. Many sky wonders were captured then, including the bright Moon, inside the Milky Way arch; Venus, just above the Moon; Saturn and Mercury, just below the Moon; the Large and Small Magellanic Clouds satellite galaxies, on the far left; red airglow near the horizon on the image left; and the lights of small towns at several locations across the horizon. One might guess that composing this 30-image panorama would have been a serene experience, but for that one would have required earplugs to ignore the continued brays of wild donkeys.

Science & Technology : Lua cheia

Lua cheia