Today, 01 Feb 2017, we concluded the Wow! Signal Experiment. The data was analyzed and summarized in a 16 page paper, which has been submitted to the Journal of the Washington Academy of Sciences for peer-review. We expect our findings to be publishes late Spring 2017.
Category: Astronomy
Wow! Experiment In Process
Today we directed our 10m telescope toward 266P. Data collection will continue for 14 days. Initial results will be analyzed and, if required, a synopsis will be published.
All System Go for Wow! Signal Experiment
We have tested the radio telescope and all equipment – everything appears to be working fine. We will start tracking the comet mid-January and will conduct the experiment for 10 days. Any findings will be published within 30-60 days post experiment!
Saturn’s ‘Watercolor’ Swirls
From NASA: Saturn’s north polar region displays its beautiful bands and swirls, which somewhat resemble the brushwork in a watercolor painting. Each latitudinal band represents air flowing at different speeds, and clouds at different heights, compared to neighboring bands. Where they meet and flow past each other, the bands’ interactions produce many eddies and swirls. Read More
NASA’s Juno Mission Exits Safe Mode, Performs Trim Maneuver
Mission Status Report NASA’s Juno spacecraft at Jupiter has left safe mode and has successfully completed a minor burn of its thruster engines in preparation for its next close flyby of Jupiter. Mission controllers commanded Juno to exit safe mode Monday, Oct. 24, with confirmation of safe mode exit received on the ground at 10:05 Read More
Mars Rover Views Spectacular Layered Rock Formations
The layered geologic past of Mars is revealed in stunning detail in new color images returned by NASA’s Curiosity Mars rover, which is currently exploring the “Murray Buttes” region of lower Mount Sharp. The new images arguably rival photos taken in U.S. National Parks. Curiosity took the images with its Mast Camera (Mastcam) on Sept. Read More
X-ray Telescopes Find Evidence for Wandering Black Hole
Astronomers have used NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory and ESA’s XMM-Newton X-ray observatory to discover an extremely luminous, variable X-ray source located outside the center of its parent galaxy. This peculiar object could be a wandering black hole that came from a small galaxy falling into a larger one. Astronomers think that supermassive black holes, with Read More
Studies Find Echoes of Black Holes Eating Stars
Supermassive black holes, with their immense gravitational pull, are notoriously good at clearing out their immediate surroundings by eating nearby objects. When a star passes within a certain distance of a black hole, the stellar material gets stretched and compressed — or “spaghettified” — as the black hole swallows it. A black hole destroying a Read More
Hubble Reveals Observable Universe Contains 10 Times More Galaxies Than Previously Thought
The universe suddenly looks a lot more crowded, thanks to a deep-sky census assembled from surveys taken by NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope and other observatories. Astronomers came to the surprising conclusion that there are at least 10 times more galaxies in the observable universe than previously thought. The results have clear implications for galaxy formation, Read More
Pluto ‘Paints’ its Largest Moon Red
In June 2015, when the cameras on NASA’s approaching New Horizons spacecraft first spotted the large reddish polar region on Pluto’s largest moon, Charon, mission scientists knew two things: they’d never seen anything like it elsewhere in our solar system, and they couldn’t wait to get the story behind it. Over the past year, after Read More