I’m sending everybody over to Space.com today to read an article from my favorite SETI astronomer, Dr. Seth Shostak. The title of the article (and it’s short) is “The Six Most Likely Places to Find Alien Life”. Dr. Shostak has some surprises in the line-up for you, and of course you’ll recognize his incomparable writing style.
Go. Enjoy. Then come back and tell me what you think of his choices. Here’s the link:
Greetings! I bet you thought you were finally rid of me. I appreciate all the emails, but really guys, I didn’t slip and break my neck (again). Nor was I abducted by space aliens (huh – I wish). I am perfectly fine; however, if I find the doofus who wished I would live in interesting times, we’re going to talk.
Fair warning.
Today I want to revisit a giant with you. No, not Jupiter… although that’s extremely interesting. I’m talking true size. Today I’m talking about VY Canis Majoris.
Doesn't this just give you chills? This is the fine work of David Jarvis, and is currently under copyright. All rights reserved.
Identified as the largest known star, and one of the most luminous, VY CMa weighs in at a whopping estimated 1800 – 2100 solar radii. This semiregular variable red hypergiant exists as a single star, not in a binary system (as is more common).
Located in the constellation Canis Major, VY CMa is about 4,900 lya. We have recorded observations of VY CMa from a little over 200 years ago, and it seems that the star is losing luminosity. It was noted as a 7th magnitude star in 1801, while modern studies give it an average of about 7.9607. Roughly.
VY Canis Majoris has been found to be extremely unstable. Astronomers expect it to hypernova in the next 100,000 years; very likely giving off gamma ray bursts and forming an enormous black hole when it goes. It is currently an M star, with an effective temperature of about 3,000 K – making it a complex star indeed. During its main sequence it was an O star.
While we are far enough away from VY CMa that when it hypernovas we should be safe, it will absolutely do considerable damage to any life forms in its immediate neighborhood. There are novae, supernovae, and then there are the hypernovae. This will be one of the most powerful detonations in the universe. It should be quite a show.
A very close in image of the terrain on Enceladus. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/Space Science Institute
Cassini took this image of some rough terrain on the Saturn moon Enceladus. I think the mission managers might be a little crazy (in a good way), this picture was taken from just 115 miles / 185 km from the surface of Enceladus. Oh the camera was about 8.8 AU from us – that’s about 818 million miles / 1.3 billion km!
1 AU is 92,955,807 miles / 149,597,871 km.
I’m not sure as this is a raw image so there isn’t description from JPL, but it appears the gash in the center could be one of the vents that emits the famous spray.
The Big Dipper from the JunoCam. Click for larger. Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/SWRI/MSSS
and it looks like the camera is working nicely.
From JPL
In England it is known as the “Plough,” in Germany the “Great Cart,” and in Malaysia the “Seven Ploughs.” Since humanity first turned its eyes skyward, the seven northern hemisphere stars that compose the “Big Dipper” have been a welcome and familiar introduction to the heavens.
