Go.  Enjoy.  Then come back and tell me what you think of his choices.  Here’s the link:

Space.com

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.

Source

At the vet with the dog so no riddle, sorry.  I liked the video, something a little different.

Video

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.

“I can recall as a kid making an imaginary line from the two stars that make up the right side of the Big Dipper’s bowl and extending it upward to find the North Star,” said Scott Bolton, principal investigator of NASA’s Juno mission to Jupiter from the Southwest Research Institute in San Antonio. “Now, the Big Dipper is helping me make sure the camera aboard Juno is ready to do its job.”

Launched on Aug. 5, 2011, the solar-powered Juno spacecraft is 279 days and 380 million miles (612 million kilometers) into its five-year, 1,905-million-mile (3,065-million-kilometer) journey to Jupiter. Once there, the spacecraft will orbit the planet’s poles 33 times and use its nine instruments to image and probe beneath the gas giant’s obscuring cloud cover to learn more about Jupiter’s origins, structure, atmosphere and magnetosphere, and look for a potential solid planetary core.

One of those instruments, JunoCam, is tasked with taking closeups of the gas giant’s atmosphere. But, with four-and-a-half years to go before photons of light from Jupiter first fill its CCD (charge-coupled device), and a desire to certify the camera in flight, Juno’s mission planners took a page from their childhood and on March 21, aimed their camera at a familiar celestial landmark.

“I don’t know if it’s the first space-based image of the Big Dipper but, as it was taken when we were well beyond Mars orbit, it’s probably from the farthest out,” said Bolton. “But much more important than that is the simple fact that JunoCam, like the rest of this mission, works as advertised and is ready for its day in the sun – around Jupiter.”

The view from the rover Opportunity. Click for -slightly- larger. Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech

Opportunity is off and moving again after the Martian winter. Pretty good for a mission that ended its primary phase in 2004.

The bar is pretty high for the new rover Curiosity when it arrives.

From JPL:

NASA’s Mars Exploration Rover Opportunity drove about 12 feet (3.67 meters) on May 8, 2012, after spending 19 weeks working in one place while solar power was too low for driving during the Martian winter. The winter worksite was on the north slope of an outcrop called Greeley Haven. The rover used its rear hazard-avoidance camera after nearly completing the May 8 drive, capturing this view looking back at the Greeley Haven. The dark shape in the foreground is the shadow of Opportunity’s solar array. The view is toward the southeast.

Since landing in the Meridiani region of Mars on Jan. 25, 2004, Universal Time and EST (Jan. 24, PST), Opportunity has driven 21.4 miles (34.4 kilometers)

The NuSTAR is scheduled for launch sometime in June, the date isn’t available at the moment or at least as far as I could find. The date should be released by U.S. Army’s Reagan Test Site shortly.

The NuSTAR will be flown from the air-launched Orbital Sciences Corp. Pegasus rocket.  The Pegasus booster has flown 40 times overall and 25 in the more powerful Pegasus XL rocket.  The air launch is where the booster and spacecraft is dropped from a plane, in this case the L-1011 jumbo jet, at an altitude of about 40,000 feet.  The launch will occur over the Pacific Ocean.

Video source

Cassini takes a close look at the Saturn moon Janus during a flyby on March 27, 2012. Click for larger. Image Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/Space Science Institute

Here’s another small moon of Saturn named Janus. Audouin Dollfus discovered Janus on December 15, 1966, quite a discovery considering Janus has a diameter of just 111 miles / 179 km.

Janus and the much more famous moon Epimetheus make for some interesting riddle-fodder: they are co-orbitals. Yes they share an orbit around Saturn. Funny because the difference in semi-major axes is less than either moon’s average diameter. A confusing way to say one moon slowly catches up with the other and when it does it acts to increase the semi-major axis of the moon doing the catching and decreasing the one for the moon being caught up to. Still clear as mud? Well the end result of the dance is the two moons actually sway positions! Cool eh? Here’s a cartoon of the dance (160k).

More on the image from the JPL site.

The SpaceX Dragon spacecraft atop the Falcon 9 at the test firing test. Click for larger. Image: SpaceX via RedOrbit.

As you probably know if you’ve read this page, today was to be the demonstration flight to the ISS of the SpaceX Dragon space capsule atop the Falcon 9 rocket.

Last week I mentioned there was a dress rehearsal. Apparently while the rehearsal went quite well, time was needed to review data from the test including some software changes. The delay seems to avoid a potential conflict with a Russian Soyuz carrying three new crew for the ISS. The Soyuz mission is set to launch on May 14 and arrive at the ISS on May 17.

SpaceX is saying so far there have been “no issues” during the software review and they are being “extremely diligent.

There is a alternate date in case there is some problem on the 19^th.  Let’s hope everything goes smoothly.  I am hoping NASA TV will carry the launch live.

For now the it is expected the launch will be on May 19 at 0455 am EDT / 0855 UTC (if I did my math right).

Once successfully launched, the spacecraft will be extensively test to see that it can move very precisely and safely approach the ISS.  If those objectives are met, then docking with the ISS is next thing and unloading the 1200 pounds of supplies it will be carrying.

If for some reason there is any hesitation on the part of NASA or SpaceX about the way things are going, the mission will be called and a third launch will be in order.