ASTRONOMY - Jupiter and Venus from Earth

 2023 March 6

Jupiter and Venus from Earth
Image Credit & Copyright: Marek Nikodem (PPSAE)

Explanation: It was visible around the world. The sunset conjunction of Jupiter and Venus in 2012 was visible almost no matter where you lived on Earth. Anyone on the planet with a clear western horizon at sunset could see them. Pictured here in 2012, a creative photographer traveled away from the town lights of Szubin, Poland to image a near closest approach of the two planets. The bright planets were then separated only by three degrees and his daughter struck a humorous pose. A faint red sunset still glowed in the background. Jupiter and Venus are together again this month after sunset, passing within a degree of each other about a week ago.

SANTé/MEDECINE - Cancer : l'espoir !

Cancer du rectum : médicament aux résultats surprenants (même pour les médecins)

Imaginez un médicament qui permet de faire disparaître une maladie chez tous les patients de l'étude menée pour analyseur s'il fonctionne ou non.

Naturellement, un résultat aussi positif attire l'attention de ceux qui ne sont pas des spécialistes en la matière.

"Mais même pour nous, médecins, c'est très surprenant", déclare l'oncologue Rachel Riechelmann, directrice du département d'oncologie clinique du centre de cancérologie AC Camargo à São Paulo.

C'est exactement ce qui s'est passé dans un essai sur le dostarlimab pour traiter le cancer du rectum (la dernière partie de l'intestin). 

Le dostarlimab appartient à la classe des immunothérapies, qui stimule le système immunitaire pour attaquer la tumeur.

L'étude a impliqué 12 patients qui ont été suivis pendant six mois. En fin de compte, tous n'avaient plus aucune preuve d'une tumeur dans le corps

Cela leur a cessé de devoir passer à des traitements plus agressifs, comme la chirurgie, la radiothérapie ou la régénération.

BBC

ASTRONOMY - Jupiter et Vénus au-dessus de l'Italie

 2023 mars 5

Jupiter et Vénus au-dessus de l'Italie
Crédit d'image et droit d'auteur :  Giovanni Tumino

Explication :  Quels sont ces deux points lumineux ?  Planètes.  Il y a quelques jours, les deux planètes les plus brillantes du  ciel nocturne  sont passées à un degré près l'une de l'autre dans ce qu'on appelle une  conjonction  .  Visibles juste après le coucher du soleil dans une grande partie du monde, les deux points lumineux étaient  Jupiter  (à gauche) et  Vénus  (à droite).  L'  image présentée  a été prise près de l'approche la plus proche de  Cirica  ,  Sicile  ,  Italie  .  La semaine précédente, Vénus s'élève plus haut dans le  ciel du coucher du soleil pour rencontrer la chute de Jupiter.  Maintenant, ils ont  changé de place  .  Bien sûr,  Vénus reste beaucoup plus proche à la fois du  Soleil  et de la Terre que Jupiter - la proximité apparente entre les planètes dans le ciel de  la Terre  n'était  qu'angulaire  .  Vous pouvez toujours  voir  la  paire populaire  pendant environ une heure après le coucher du soleil ce mois-ci, bien qu'ils continuent de se séparer, et  Jupiter  continue de se coucher plus tôt chaque nuit.

ASTRONOMY - 10 Days of Venus and Jupiter

 2023 March 4

10 Days of Venus and Jupiter
Image Credit & Copyright: Soumyadeep Mukherjee

Explanation: Venus and Jupiter may have caught your attention lately. The impending close conjunction of the two brightest planets visible in clear evening skies has been hard to miss. With Jupiter at the top, starting on February 21 and ending on March 2, their close approach is chronicled daily, left to right, in these panels recorded from Dhanbad, India. Near the western horizon, the evening sky colors and exposures used for each panel depend on the local conditions near sunset. On February 22, Jupiter and Venus were joined by the young crescent Moon. The celestial pair appeared to be only the width of a full moon apart by March 2. Of course on that date the two planets were physically separated by over 600 million kilometers in their orbits around the Sun. In the coming days Jupiter will slowly settle into the glare at sunset, but Venus will continue to move farther from the Sun in the western sky to excel in its current role as the brilliant evening star.

MUSICA - Rossini - William Tell

"William Tell"

ASTRONOMY - Crescent Moon Beyond Greek Temple

 2023 February 28

Crescent Moon Beyond Greek Temple
Image Credit & Copyright: Elias Chasiotis

Explanation: Why is a thin crescent moon never seen far from a horizon? Because the only geometry that gives a thin crescent lunar phase occurs when the Moon appears close to the Sun in the sky. The crescent is not caused by the shadow of the Earth, but by seeing only a small part of the Moon directly illuminated by the Sun. Moreover, the thickest part of the crescent always occurs in the direction of the Sun. In the evening, a thin crescent Moon will set shortly after the Sun and not be seen for the rest of the night. Alternatively, in the morning, a crescent Moon will rise shortly before the Sun after not being seen for most of the night. Pictured two weeks ago, a crescent moon was captured near the horizon, just before sunrise, far behind remnants of the ancient Temple of Poseidon in Greece.

ASTRONOMY - Jones-Emberson 1

 023 February 24

Jones-Emberson 1
Image Credit & Copyright: Serge Brunier, Jean-François Bax, David Vernet, C2PU/OCA

Explanation: Planetary nebula Jones-Emberson 1 is the death shroud of a dying Sun-like star. It lies some 1,600 light-years from Earth toward the sharp-eyed constellation Lynx. About 4 light-years across, the expanding remnant of the dying star's atmosphere was shrugged off into interstellar space, as the star's central supply of hydrogen and then helium for fusion was finally depleted after billions of years. Visible near the center of the planetary nebula is what remains of the stellar core, a blue-hot white dwarf star. Also known as PK 164 +31.1, the nebula is faint and very difficult to glimpse at a telescope's eyepiece. But this deep broadband image combining 22 hours of exposure time does show it off in exceptional detail. Stars within our own Milky Way galaxy as well as background galaxies across the universe are scattered through the clear field of view. Ephemeral on the cosmic stage, Jones-Emberson 1 will fade away over the next few thousand years. Its hot, central white dwarf star will take billions of years to cool.

ASTRONOMY - Arp 78: Peculiar Galaxy in Aries

 2023 February 23

Arp 78: Peculiar Galaxy in Aries
Image Credit & Copyright: Josep Drudis

Explanation: Peculiar spiral galaxy Arp 78 is found within the boundaries of the head strong constellation Aries. Some 100 million light-years beyond the stars and nebulae of our Milky Way galaxy, the island universe is an enormous 200,000 light-years across. Also known as NGC 772, it sports a prominent, outer spiral arm in this detailed cosmic portrait. Tracking along sweeping dust lanes and lined with young blue star clusters, Arp 78's overdeveloped spiral arm is pumped-up by galactic-scale gravitational tides. Interactions with its brightest companion galaxy, the more compact NGC 770 seen above and right of the larger spiral, are likely responsible. Embedded in faint star streams revealed in the deep telescopic exposure, NGC 770's fuzzy, elliptical appearance contrasts nicely with spiky foreground Milky Way stars in matching yellowish hues.

ASTRONOMY - Our Increasingly Active Sun

 2023 February 22

Our Increasingly Active Sun
Image Credit & Copyright: Mehmet Ergün

Explanation: Our Sun is becoming a busy place. Only two years ago, the Sun was emerging from a solar minimum so quiet that months would go by without even a single sunspot. In contrast, already this year and well ahead of schedule, our Sun is unusually active, already nearing solar activity levels seen a decade ago during the last solar maximum. Our increasingly active Sun was captured two weeks ago sporting numerous interesting features. The image was recorded in a single color of light called Hydrogen Alpha, color-inverted, and false colored. Spicules carpet much of the Sun's face. The brightening towards the Sun's edges is caused by increased absorption of relatively cool solar gas and called limb darkening. Just outside the Sun's disk, several scintillating prominences protrude, while prominences on the Sun's face are known as filaments and show as light streaks. Magnetically tangled active regions are both dark and light and contain cool sunspots. As our Sun's magnetic field winds toward solar maximum over the next few years, whether the Sun's high activity will continue to increase is unknown.

ASTRONOMY - Comet ZTF over Yosemite Falls

 2023 February 21

Comet ZTF over Yosemite Falls
Image Credit & Copyright: Tara Mostofi

Explanation: They are both falling. The water in Yosemite Falls, California, USA, is falling toward the Earth. Comet ZTF is falling toward the Sun. This double cosmic cascade was captured late last month as fading Comet C/2022 E3 (ZTF) had just passed its closest to planet Earth. The orange star just over the falls is Kochab. With the exception of a brief encounter with a black bear, the featured image was a well-planned composite of a moonlit-foreground and long-duration background exposures - all designed to reconstruct a deep version of an actual single sight. Although Comet ZTF is now fading as it glides back to the outer Solar System, its path is determined by gravity and so it can be considered to still be falling toward the Sun -- but backwards.