** What’s Up: July 2022 Skywatching Tips from NASA – NASA JPL
What are some skywatching highlights in July 2022? The naked-eye planets of dawn – Venus, Mars, Jupiter, and Saturn – dominate the sky, appearing more spread out each morning. Next, if you’re feeling the July heat, note the origin of “the dog days” of summer has to do with the bright star Sirius. Finally, if you can find a certain teapot-shaped pattern of stars in the evening, you’ll be looking toward the center of the Milky Way.
0:00 Intro 0:11 Morning planet lineup
0:40 Sirius and the “dog days” of summer
1:50 The Teapot and Milky Way core 3:11 July Moon phases
Additional information about topics covered in this episode of What’s Up, along with still images from the video, and the video transcript, are available at https://solarsystem.nasa.gov/skywatch….
In July, find the Scorpius constellation to identify the reddish supergiant Antares, which will lead you to discover a trio of globular star clusters. Keep watching for space-based views of these densely packed, spherical collections of ancient stars, as well as three nebulas: the Swan Nebula, the Lagoon Nebula, and the Trifid Nebula.
** What’s in the Night Sky July 2022 #WITNS | Milky Way core | Supermoon | Noctilucent Clouds – Alyn Wallace
00:00 Intro
01:40 Squarespace
02:40 Northern Hemisphere Night Sky
05:30 Southern Hemisphere Night Sky 07:24 Close Approaches 08:06 Full Moon
08:37 Meteor Showers 09:44 #WITNS Winners
Our monthly Sky Tour #astronomy #podcast provides an informative and entertaining 10-minute guided tour of the nighttime sky. Listen to July’s episode for #stargazing tips and learn about the #stars of #summer.
This composite image shows the star-forming region 30 Doradus, also known as the Tarantula Nebula. The background image, taken in the infrared, is itself a composite: it was captured by the HAWK-I instrument on ESO’s Very Large Telescope (VLT) and the Visible and Infrared Survey Telescope for Astronomy (VISTA), shows bright stars and light, pinkish clouds of hot gas. The bright red-yellow streaks that have been superimposed on the image come from radio observations taken by the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA), revealing regions of cold, dense gas which have the potential to collapse and form stars. The unique web-like structure of the gas clouds led astronomers to the nebula’s spidery nickname.
Astronomers have unveiled intricate details of the star-forming region 30 Doradus, also known as the Tarantula Nebula, using new observations from the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA). In a high-resolution image released today by the European Southern Observatory (ESO) and including ALMA data, we see the nebula in a new light, with wispy gas clouds that provide insight into how massive stars shape this region.
“These fragments may be the remains of once-larger clouds that have been shredded by the enormous energy being released by young and massive stars, a process dubbed feedback,”
says Tony Wong, who led the research on 30 Doradus presented today at the American Astronomical Society (AAS) meeting and published in The Astrophysical Journal. Astronomers originally thought the gas in these areas would be too sparse and too overwhelmed by this turbulent feedback for gravity to pull it together to form new stars. But the new data also reveal much denser filaments where gravity’s role is still significant.
“Our results imply that even in the presence of very strong feedback, gravity can exert a strong influence and lead to a continuation of star formation,”
adds Wong, who is a professor at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, USA.
Located in the Large Magellanic Cloud, a satellite galaxy of our own Milky Way, the Tarantula Nebula is one of the brightest and most active star-forming regions in our galactic neighbourhood, lying about 170 000 light-years away from Earth. At its heart are some of the most massive stars known, a few with more than 150 times the mass of our Sun, making the region perfect for studying how gas clouds collapse under gravity to form new stars.
“What makes 30 Doradus unique is that it is close enough for us to study in detail how stars are forming, and yet its properties are similar to those found in very distant galaxies, when the Universe was young,”
said Guido De Marchi, a scientist at the European Space Agency (ESA) and a co-author of the paper presenting the new research.
“Thanks to 30 Doradus, we can study how stars used to form 10 billion years ago when most stars were born.”
This image shows the star-forming region 30 Doradus, also known as the Tarantula Nebula, in radio wavelengths, as observed by the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA). The bright red-yellow streaks reveal regions of cold, dense gas which have the potential to collapse and form stars. The unique web-like structure of the gas clouds is characteristic of the Tarantula Nebula.
While most of the previous studies of the Tarantula Nebula have focused on its centre, astronomers have long known that massive star formation is happening elsewhere too. To better understand this process, the team conducted high-resolution observations covering a large region of the nebula. Using ALMA, they measured the emission of light from carbon monoxide gas. This allowed them to map the large, cold gas clouds in the nebula that collapse to give birth to new stars — and how they change as huge amounts of energy are released by those young stars.
“We were expecting to find that parts of the cloud closest to the young massive stars would show the clearest signs of gravity being overwhelmed by feedback,” says Wong. “We found instead that gravity is still important in these feedback-exposed regions — at least for parts of the cloud that are sufficiently dense.”
In the image released today by ESO, we see the new ALMA data overlaid on a previous infrared image of the same region that shows bright stars and light pinkish clouds of hot gas, taken with ESO’s Very Large Telescope (VLT) and ESO’s Visible and Infrared Survey Telescope for Astronomy (VISTA). The composition shows the distinct, web-like shape of the Tarantula Nebula’s gas clouds that gave rise to its spidery name. The new ALMA data comprise the bright red-yellow streaks in the image: very cold and dense gas that could one day collapse and form stars.
This infrared image shows the star-forming region 30 Doradus, also known as the Tarantula Nebula, highlighting its bright stars and light, pinkish clouds of hot gas. The image is a composite: it was captured by the HAWK-I instrument on ESO’s Very Large Telescope (VLT) and the Visible and Infrared Survey Telescope for Astronomy (VISTA).
The new research contains detailed clues about how gravity behaves in the Tarantula Nebula’s star-forming regions, but the work is far from finished.
“There is still much more to do with this fantastic data set, and we are releasing it publicly to encourage other researchers to conduct new investigations,”
** What’s Up: June 2022 Skywatching Tips from NASA – NASA JPL
What are some skywatching highlights in June 2022? The morning quartet of Jupiter, Saturn, Venus, and Mars continues to shine, though they will spread farther apart over the next couple of months. Globular cluster M13, aka the Hercules Cluster, is best observed with a telescope, but binoculars will reveal it as a fuzzy spot. And the constellation Lyra is easily located thanks to its brightest star, Vega.
0:00 Intro 0:11 Morning planets spread out 0:44 Globular Cluster M13
2:20 Find the Constellation Lyra
3:42 June Moon phases
Additional information about topics covered in this episode of What’s Up, along with still images from the video, and the video transcript, are available at https://solarsystem.nasa.gov/skywatch….
Though the nights are shorter in June, they are filled with fine sights. Look for the Hercules constellation, which will lead you to a globular star cluster with hundreds of thousands of densely packed stars. You can also spot Draco the dragon, which will point you to the Cat’s Eye Nebula. Keep watching for space-based views of globular star clusters and the nebula.
About this Series: “Tonight’s Sky” is a monthly video of constellations you can observe in the night sky. The series is produced by the Space Telescope Science Institute, home of science operations for the Hubble Space Telescope, in partnership with NASA’s Universe of Learning. This is a recurring show, and you can find more episodes—and other astronomy videos—at TONIGHT’S SKY
Alvin Remmers, whom I met while he was making a video series focused on the NewSpace industry and community, tells me about a new documentary film he is producing and directing. The Magic of Inspiration aims to
… unleash the potential of young women and cultivate their aspirations for careers in STEM-related fields. Firm in the belief that “If you can see it, you can be it”, the film is bursting at the seams with role models who have the ability to launch dreams into careers.
We are profiling women who will provide a look behind the curtain at their remarkable careers, the paths they took to get there and the challenges and joys they derive from their vocations. Our goal is to develop a more diverse and capable workforce.
We also will profile organizations and institutions dedicated to developing the curiosity in young people necessary to begin to imagine themselves solving today’s puzzles and influencing tomorrow’s outcomes.
The Magic of Inspiration – a documentary intended to inspire girls and young women to pursue STEM careers.
Alvin says the website, themagic.film, “contains brief info about the film, the reasons for making it, the film’s intended audiences and profiles of the filmmakers“.
Sign up here for updates on the making of the movie.
** What’s Up: May 2022 Skywatching Tips from NASA – NASA JPL
What are some skywatching highlights in May 2022? May provides some great planet spotting, including a close conjunction of Jupiter and Mars. At mid-month, a total eclipse of the Moon should delight skywatchers across the Americas, Europe, and Africa. And all month long, the Coma star cluster (aka, the Coma Berenices star cluster, or Melotte 111) is a great target for binoculars in the evening. YouTube Full Description (i.e., “Show More”)
0:00 Intro 0:11 Planet-spotting opportunities 1:02 Lunar eclipse
2:27 The Coma star cluster 3:33 May Moon phases
Additional information about topics covered in this episode of What’s Up, along with still images from the video, and the video transcript, are available at https://solarsystem.nasa.gov/skywatch….
In May, we are looking away from the crowded, dusty plane of our own galaxy toward a region where the sky is brimming with distant galaxies. Locate Virgo to find a concentration of roughly 2,000 galaxies and search for Coma Berenices to identify many more. Keep watching for space-based views of galaxies like the Sombrero Galaxy, M87, and M64. About this Series “Tonight’s Sky” is a monthly video of constellations you can observe in the night sky. The series is produced by the Space Telescope Science Institute, home of science operations for the Hubble Space Telescope, in partnership with NASA’s Universe of Learning. This is a recurring show, and you can find more episodes—and other astronomy videos—at https://hubblesite.org/resource-galle….
