ASTRONOMY - Lucy Launches to Eight Asteroids

 2021 October 20

Lucy Launches to Eight Asteroids
Image Credit & Copyright: John Kraus

Explanation: Why would this mission go out as far as Jupiter -- but then not visit Jupiter? Lucy's plan is to follow different leads about the origin of our Solar System than can be found at Jupiter -- where Juno now orbits. Jupiter is such a massive planet that its gravity captures numerous asteroids that orbit the Sun ahead of it -- and behind. These trojan asteroids formed all over our Solar System and some may have been trapped there for billions of years. Flying by these trojan asteroids enables studying them as fossils that likely hold unique clues about our early Solar System. Lucy, named after a famous fossil skeleton which was named after a famous song, is scheduled to visit eight asteroids from 2025 to 2033. Pictured, Lucy's launch was captured with reflection last week aboard a powerful Atlas V rocket from Cape Canaveral, Florida, USA.

ASTRONOMY - Earthshine Moon over Sicily

2021 October 18

Earthshine Moon over Sicily
Image Credit & Copyright: Dario Giannobile

Explanation: Why can we see the entire face of this Moon? When the Moon is in a crescent phase, only part of it appears directly illuminated by the Sun. The answer is earthshine, also known as earthlight and the da Vinci glow. The reason is that the rest of the Earth-facing Moon is slightly illuminated by sunlight first reflected from the Earth. Since the Earth appears near full phase from the Moon -- when the Moon appears as a slight crescent from the Earth -- earthshine is then near its brightest. Featured here in combined, consecutively-taken, HDR images taken earlier this month, a rising earthshine Moon was captured passing slowly near the planet Venus, the brightest spot near the image center. Just above Venus is the star Dschubba (catalogued as Delta Scorpii), while the red star on the far left is Antares. The celestial show is visible through scenic cloud decks. In the foreground are the lights from Palazzolo Acreide, a city with ancient historical roots in Sicily, Italy. 

MUSIC - Richard Wagner - The ride of Walkyries

"The ride of Walkyries"

ASTRONOMY - Fireball over Lake Louise

 2021 October 12

Fireball over Lake Louise
Image Credit & Copyright: Hao Qin

Explanation: What makes a meteor a fireball? First of all, everyone agrees that a fireball is an exceptionally bright meteor. Past that, the International Astronomical Union defines a fireball as a meteor brighter than apparent magnitude -4, which corresponds (roughly) to being brighter than any planet -- as well as bright enough to cast a human-noticeable shadow. Pictured, an astrophotographer taking a long-duration sky image captured by accident the brightest meteor he had ever seen. Clearly a fireball, the disintegrating space-rock created a trail so bright it turned night into day for about two seconds earlier this month. The fireball has been artificially dimmed in the featured image to bring up foreground Lake Louise in Alberta, Canada. Although fireballs are rare, many people have been lucky enough to see them. If you see a fireball, you can report it. If more than one person recorded an image, the fireball might be traceable back to the Solar System body from which it was ejected.

ASTRONOMY - Juno Flyby of Ganymede and Jupiter

Juno Flyby of Ganymede and Jupiter
Video Credit: Images: NASA, JPL-Caltech, SWRI, MSSS;
Animation: Koji Kuramura, Gerald Eichstädt, Mike Stetson; Music: Vangelis

Explanation: What would it be like to fly over the largest moon in the Solar System? In June, the robotic Juno spacecraft flew past Jupiter's huge moon Ganymede and took images that have been digitally constructed into a detailed flyby. As the featured video begins, Juno swoops over the two-toned surface of the 2,000-km wide moon, revealing an icy alien landscape filled with grooves and craters. The grooves are likely caused by shifting surface plates, while the craters are caused by violent impacts. Continuing on in its orbit, Juno then performed its 34th close pass over Jupiter's clouds. The digitally-constructed video shows numerous swirling clouds in the north, colorful planet-circling zones and bands across the middle -- featuring several white-oval clouds from the String of Pearls, and finally more swirling clouds in the south. Next September, Juno is scheduled to make a close pass over another of Jupiter's large moons: Europa.

ASTRONOMY - M43: Streams of Orion

 2021 October 6

M43: Streams of Orion
Image Credit & Copyright: Jari Saukkonen

Explanation: Where do the dark streams of dust in the Orion Nebula originate? This part of the Orion Molecular Cloud Complex, M43, is the often imaged but rarely mentioned neighbor of the more famous M42. M42, seen in part to the upper right, includes many bright stars from the Trapezium star cluster. M43 is itself a star forming region that displays intricately-laced streams of dark dust -- although it is really composed mostly of glowing hydrogen gas. The entire Orion field is located about 1600 light years away. Opaque to visible light, the picturesque dark dust is created in the outer atmosphere of massive cool stars and expelled by strong outer winds of protons and electrons.

ASTRONOMY - NGC 4676: When Mice Collide

 2021 October 4

NGC 4676: When Mice Collide
Image Credit: NASA, ESA, Hubble; Processing & Copyright: William Ostling (The Astronomy Enthusiast)

Explanation: These two mighty galaxies are pulling each other apart. Known as the "Mice" because they have such long tails, each spiral galaxy has likely already passed through the other. The long tails are created by the relative difference between gravitational pulls on the near and far parts of each galaxy. Because the distances are so large, the cosmic interaction takes place in slow motion -- over hundreds of millions of years. NGC 4676 lies about 300 million light-years away toward the constellation of Bernice's Hair (Coma Berenices) and are likely members of the Coma Cluster of Galaxies. The featured picture was taken with the Hubble Space Telescope's Advanced Camera for Surveys in 2002. These galactic mice will probably collide again and again over the next billion years so that, instead of continuing to pull each other apart, they coalesce to form a single galaxy.

ASTRONOMY - A Light and Dusty Night

 2021 October 2

A Light and Dusty Night
Image Credit & Copyright: Rodrigo Guerra

Explanation: Posing as a brilliant evening star, Venus lies near the western horizon in this southern hemisphere, early spring, night skyscape. To create the composite view exposures tracking the sky and fixed for the foreground were taken on September 25 from Cascavel in southern Brazil. In view after sunset, Venus appears immersed in a cone of zodiacal light, sunlight scattered from dust along the Solar System's ecliptic plane. In fact from either hemisphere of planet Earth, zodiacal light is most visible after sunset near a spring equinox, (or before sunrise near an autumn equinox) when its luminous arc lies at steep angles to the horizon. Extending above the sunset on this night, the zodiacal light reaches toward rich starfields and immense interstellar dust clouds in the bulge of the central Milky Way. Follow along the Milky Way from the central bulge back toward the horizon and you'll spot the closest star system to the Sun, Alpha Centauri, a mere 4.37

PRATIQUE - Douleurs articulaires, arthrose, rumatismes

 

Comment faire?

1. Versez un litre d'eau dans une bouteille. 2. Mettez 20 g de chlorure de magnésium. 3. Mélangez. 4. Buvez votre remède. Résultat Et voilà, fini les douleurs aux articulations ! Grâce au chlorure de magnésium, vous avez soulagé rapidement vos douleurs dues à l'arthrose et aux rhumatismes :-) Selon le professeur Pierre Delbet, le chlorure de magnésium permet de rétablir l'équilibre minéral et le métabolisme du calcium contenu dans les os. Donc, forcément, puisqu'il renforce les os, le chlorure de magnésium prévient les douleurs articulaires. Vous pouvez en faire une cure pendant 3 semaines, chaque année. Commencez votre journée en prenant un verre de votre remède, chaque matin. En plus, faire une petite cure de ce type, avec 20 g de chlorure de magnésium dilué dans un litre d'eau, permet de fortifier votre métabolisme et de le protéger contre les agressions extérieures. 

Où trouver du chlorure de magnésium ? 

Vous pouvez trouver du chlorure de magnésium dans n'importe quelle pharmacie, dans les magasins diététiques ou bio et aussi sur Internet.

Comment économiser

ASTRONOMY - The Central Milky Way from Lagoon to Pipe

 2021 October 1

The Central Milky Way from Lagoon to Pipe
Image Credit & Copyright: Gabriel Rodrigues Santos

Explanation: Dark markings and colorful clouds inhabit this stellar landscape. The deep and expansive view spans more than 30 full moons across crowded star fields toward the center of our Milky Way Galaxy. Cataloged in the early 20th century by astronomer E. E. Barnard, the obscuring interstellar dust clouds seen toward the right include B59, B72, B77 and B78, part of the Ophiuchus molecular cloud complex a mere 450 light-years away. To the eye their combined shape suggests a pipe stem and bowl, and so the dark nebula's popular name is the Pipe Nebula. Three bright nebulae gathered on the left are stellar nurseries some 5,000 light-years distant toward the constellation Sagittarius. In the 18th century astronomer Charles Messier included two of them in his catalog of bright clusters and nebulae; M8, the largest of the triplet, and colorful M20 just above. The third prominent emission region includes NGC 6559 at the far left. Itself divided by obscuring dust lanes, M20 is also known as the Trifid. M8's popular moniker is the Lagoon Nebula.