DEEP ASTRONOMY

Like this content? Please consider becoming a patron: https://patreon.com/DeepAstronomy Astronomers were enthusiastic but cautious about the Hubble observations that suggested Europa had water plumes ejected from its icy surface. Every telescope observation of these eruptions was at the limit of detection. Then, it was suggested that that a thermal signature had been recorded by the Galileo satellite years before, right at the corresponding position on Europa's surface. Now, digging through the archives of Galileo, a team has carefully re-analyzed the data and discovered that the satellite may actually have flown through a plume. Europa's icy surface likely is a crust over a global ocean. Through cracks in that surface, water can spew out in a huge plume. As a result of a re-analysis of Galileo's measurements combined with a model including constraints of the plumes observed by Hubble, it appears as though Galileo flew through a similar plume in 1997. Thus it seems there is strong independent evidence of the presence of plumes at Europa. Join Tony Darnell and Carol Christian during Afternoon Astronomy Coffee on May 24 at 3PM Eastern time as they discuss with the investigators, Xianzhe Jia (U Michigan), Margaret Kivelson and Krishan Khurana (UCLA), and William Kurth (U Iowa) how they combed the Galileo archive and what their analysis yielded. Read more: https://www.nasa.gov/press-release/old-data-reveal-new-evidence-of-europa-plumes Follow DeepAstronomy on Twitter: @DeepAstronomy

Surprisingly, it may be easier to get to Mars orbit one day with astronauts than it will be to actually land: safely landing on the Red Planet poses some major challenges yet to be overcome. So far, many Mars landers and rovers have used a variety of technologies to keep from crashing onto the Martian surface, everything from protective inflatable bags to retro-firing rocket and parachutes. It is far from clear however, what technology and methods will be used to safely land humans. Please join our Hangout, when our regular moderator, Tony Darnell, will discuss the present and future of landing on Mars with Tara Polsgrove (NASA Marshall Space Flight Center) and Michelle Munk (NASA Langley Research Center).

Astronomers believe there is an undiscovered super-Earth Sized planet lurking in our outer solar system. If it exists, then astronomers think it would have an estimated mass of ten Earths, a diameter two to four times that of Earth, and an elongated orbit lasting approximately 15,000 years. So far, efforts to find this planet have failed. They are calling it Planet Nine and astronomers are seriously trying to find it. Our guests today have written a paper outlining efforts to locate this planet using WISE and NEOWISE data. They think that Planet Nine, if it exists, should be self-luminous enough and potentially bright enough in the near infrared that the NEOWISE telescope should be able to see it. Today we’ll talk about those efforts along with what WISE and NEOWISE is, why we think Planet Nine is there in the first place, and whether or not it will have any adverse effect on the Earth anytime soon. Scientists are searching for this illusive body in our solar system using all the data they can find and obtain with observatories including those in space. It is speculated that this planet orbits the Sun very far out in the solar system, at hundreds of times the distance from the Earth to the Sun (one Astronomical Unit). It could be that the planet shines on its own in the infrared, making it perfect for the Wide Field Infrared Explorer (WISE) satellite. A clever methodology by scientists is aimed to detect very faint moving objects. What is the result? Join Tony Darnell and Carol Christian during Afternoon Astronomy Coffee on May 10 at 3PM Eastern time as they discuss with Aaron Meisner (UC Berkeley), Ben Bromley (U of Utah), and Scott Kenyon (Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory) their deep search for Planet Nine and what they found. Link to today's Paper: https://arxiv.org/abs/1712.04950 Visit Backyard Worlds on Zooniverse: https://www.zooniverse.org/projects/marckuchner/backyard-worlds-planet-9 This posting fixes audio issues from the Live Hangout

Consider supporting Space Fan News: https://patreon.com/DeepAstronomy to ensure you get current space & astronomy news each week! In this episode, more bad news coming out of the James Webb Space Telescope Mission, specifically, Northrop Grumman’s facilities in Redondo Beach California. Apparently stuff is falling off the sun shield and engineers are trying to figure out the cause. Link to this story: http://spacenews.com/jwst-suffers-new-problem-during-spacecraft-testing/ Space Fan News Theme by Stephen Dubois available for download here: http://ancienteyesmusic.com Space Fan News Background Music by Colour the Landscapes: https://colourthelandscapes.bandcamp.com/ Follow DeepAstronomy on Twitter: @DeepAstronomy Like DeepAstronomy on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/DeepAstronomy/ Like Space Fan News on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/SpaceFanNews/

Like this content? Please consider becoming a patron: https://patreon.com/DeepAstronomy Some propulsion technologies proposed to take astronauts and future generations of robotic explorers to Mars seem almost science fiction. But that’s hardly the case and advanced propulsion capabilities are under active development in laboratories around the world and are being deployed today. Please join our Hangout, when our regular moderators, Tony Darnell and Harley Thronson will discuss the present and future of space propulsion with Franklin Chang-Diaz (Ad Astra Rocket Company), Dan Herman (NASA Glenn Research Center), and Joseph Cassady (Aeroject Rocketdyne). Follow DeepAstronomy on Twitter: @DeepAstronomy Like DeepAstronomy on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/DeepAstronomy/ Like Space Fan News on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/SpaceFanNews/

Like this content? Please consider becoming a patron: https://deepastronomy.com/DeepAstronomy Have you ever wondered what the difference was between an astronomer and an astrophysicist? You're not alone. I get this question all the time and I'll have the answer for you in today's Deep Astronomy vlog post. Follow DeepAstronomy on Twitter: @DeepAstronomy Like DeepAstronomy on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/DeepAstronomy/ Like Space Fan News on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/SpaceFanNews/

Like this content? Please consider becoming a patron: https://patreon.com/DeepAstronomy Follow DeepAstronomy on Twitter: @DeepAstronomy The recently launched Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS) was designed to find Earth - sized planets around bright stars nearby. Candidates will be observed from ground based telescopes to verify that planets have been uncovered. Also questions such as "What are the characteristics of those planets?" and "What kind of stars have planets" are key to the TESS mission. When such satellites are launched, significant work goes into understanding what the probability of success is in finding the target objects. To predict accurately all the observational parameters of the satellite are considered and analysis is done, and in this case, to estimate the number and types of planets that might be found. Join Tony Darnell and Carol Christian during Afternoon Astronomy Coffee on April 26 at 3PM Eastern time as they discuss with Joshua Pepper (Lehigh University) and Thomas Barclay (NASA Goddard Space Flight Center), how their theoretical models are used to predict what TESS might find. Read Paper here: TESS expected yield https://arxiv.org/pdf/1804.05050.pdf

Consider supporting Space Fan News: https://patreon.com/DeepAstronomy to ensure you get current space & astronomy news each week! In this episode, on this day of the momentous second data release of the Gaia spacecraft, astronomers from the University of Uppsala in Sweden have been working on a way to find Dyson Spheres and other megastructures that may be around other stars in our galaxy that would provide our first confirmation of other civilizations in the Milky Way Galaxy. Paper "SETI WITH GAIA: THE OBSERVATIONAL SIGNATURES OF NEARLY COMPLETE DYSON SPHERES" https://arxiv.org/pdf/1804.08351.pdf Dyson Sphere Art by Adam Burn: https://adamburn.deviantart.com/art/SHield-World-Construction-118068881 Gaia DR2 Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VINs-JcNmKs Space Fan News Theme by Stephen Dubois available for download here: http://ancienteyesmusic.com Space Fan News Background Music by Colour the Landscapes: https://colourthelandscapes.bandcamp.com/ Follow DeepAstronomy on Twitter: @DeepAstronomy Like DeepAstronomy on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/DeepAstronomy/ Like Space Fan News on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/SpaceFanNews/

Like this content? Please consider becoming a patron: https://patreon.com/DeepAstronomy In just a few short months, NASA will launch the Parker Solar Probe, a mission designed to get the closest we've ever been to the Sun. NASA's historic Parker Solar Probe mission will revolutionize our understanding of the Sun, where changing conditions can propagate out into the solar system, affecting Earth and other worlds. The Parker Solar Probe will travel through the Sun’s atmosphere, closer to the surface than any spacecraft before it, facing brutal heat and radiation conditions — and ultimately providing humanity with the closest-ever observations of a star. Please join Tony Darnell and Dr. Harley Thronson and discuss this amazing mission with members of the Parker Solar Probe team. Follow DeepAstronomy on Twitter: @DeepAstronomy Like DeepAstronomy on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/DeepAstronomy/ Like Space Fan News on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/SpaceFanNews/

Like this content? Please consider becoming a patron: https://patreon.com/DeepAstronomy Quickly setting up to watch the TESS Launch Follow DeepAstronomy on Twitter: @DeepAstronomy Like DeepAstronomy on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/DeepAstronomy/ Like Space Fan News on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/SpaceFanNews/ Follow DeepAstronomy on Google+ http://google.com/+DeepAstronomy http://google.com/+TonyDarnell We also have a great Google+ Community, come share your thoughts and join the discussion! https://plus.google.com/communities/109849939648748938781

Consider supporting Space Fan News: https://patreon.com/DeepAstronomy to ensure you get current space & astronomy news each week! in this episode, we received some bad news from NASA regarding the venerable Kepler/K2 mission: it is running out of fuel and preparations are being made for the final end - for real this time - of the mission that showed us there were more planets in our galaxy than stars. Space Fan News Theme by Stephen Dubois available for download here: http://ancienteyesmusic.com Space Fan News Background Music by Colour the Landscapes: https://colourthelandscapes.bandcamp.com/ Follow DeepAstronomy on Twitter: @DeepAstronomy Like DeepAstronomy on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/DeepAstronomy/ Like Space Fan News on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/SpaceFanNews/

Like this content? Please consider becoming a patron: https://patreon.com/DeepAstronomy The search for exoplanets began more than 30 years ago and once evidence for these objects began to accumulate, the number of confirmed planets has increased dramatically. As the surveys and searches continue, the plethora of types of exoplanets also has become fascinatingly diverse. Having discovered the "Hot Jupiter" type of planets, researchers now looking for smaller and colder objects. Taking a lesson from our own solar system, it does appear that things that might qualify as planets elsewhere might be moons in our own system. Take for example Saturn's moon Titan, and also Jupiter's moon Ganymede. These objects may harbor water and conditions conducive to life. What if we found such objects around other stars? We probably would call them planets if they orbited the star rather than a large gas planet. What is it that qualifies an object as an exoplanet and what types of distant objects might actually be able to support some sort of life? Join Tony Darnell and Carol Christian during Afternoon Astronomy Coffee on April 12 at 3PM Eastern time as they discuss with Juan Lora (UCLA), Tiffany Kataria (JPL), and Peter Gao (UC Berkeley) how they are creating models of such objects to understand the atmospheric characteristics and chemistry of exoplanets that have more uncommon with the moons of our solar system than the objects we call planets. Read more: http://aasnova.org/2018/03/26/a-new-kind-of-animal-in-the-exoplanet-zoo/ http://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.3847/1538-4357/aaa132/meta Deep Astronomy Discord Server: https://discord.gg/nqGpvtK Follow DeepAstronomy on Twitter: @DeepAstronomy Like DeepAstronomy on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/DeepAstronomy/ Like Space Fan News on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/SpaceFanNews/

Consider supporting Space Fan News: https://patreon.com/DeepAstronomy to ensure you get current space & astronomy news each week! New observations of two supernovae: The Crab Nebula and Cassieopia A show wildly differing amounts of a vital component for life to thrive: Phosphorus. A team of astronomers from the University of Cardiff in Wales have measured these two supernovae in an attempt to find out how Phosphorus was distributed throughout the galaxy. What they found was surprising and rather bad news for those of us hoping to find a galaxy teeming with life. Space Fan News Theme by Stephen Dubois available for download here: http://ancienteyesmusic.com Space Fan News Background Music by Colour the Landscapes: https://colourthelandscapes.bandcamp.com/ Follow DeepAstronomy on Twitter: @DeepAstronomy Like DeepAstronomy on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/DeepAstronomy/ Like Space Fan News on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/SpaceFanNews/

Like this content? Please consider becoming a patron: https://patreon.com/DeepAstronomy InSight is scheduled to launch from the California coast to the plains of Mars on May 5, 2018. This is the first launch to another planet from the West Coast. A whole new region of the country will witness the start of an interplanetary journey when InSight soars into predawn skies. In this Hangout, we will get an update on the status of the Mars InSight Mission, including a summary of what InSight will do once it arrives on Mars from Jonathan Grinblat and Emily Manor-Chapman from JPL. We will also discuss the instrumentation and aerospace innovations required to study the deep interior of the Red Planet. Follow DeepAstronomy on Twitter: @DeepAstronomy Like DeepAstronomy on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/DeepAstronomy/ Like Space Fan News on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/SpaceFanNews/ Follow DeepAstronomy on Google+ http://google.com/+DeepAstronomy http://google.com/+TonyDarnell We also have a great Google+ Community, come share your thoughts and join the discussion! https://plus.google.com/communities/109849939648748938781

Consider supporting Space Fan News: https://patreon.com/DeepAstronomy to ensure you get current space & astronomy news each week! In this episode, there’s an update on the NASA TESS mission. A date has finally been set! TESS is a followup mission to Kepler and K2 and is designed to scan the entire sky over two years to find as many exoplanets as it can among the closest and brightest stars to Earth. This is coming at a perfect time as the venerable K2 mission winds down forever. Get your amazing TESS T-shirt here: https://teespring.com/stores/deep-astronomy Space Fan News Theme by Stephen Dubois available for download here: http://ancienteyesmusic.com Space Fan News Background Music by Colour the Landscapes: https://colourthelandscapes.bandcamp.com/ Follow DeepAstronomy on Twitter: @DeepAstronomy Like DeepAstronomy on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/DeepAstronomy/ Like Space Fan News on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/SpaceFanNews/

Consider supporting Space Fan News: https://patreon.com/DeepAstronomy to ensure you get current space & astronomy news each week! In this episode, the case for proving that there is no such thing as dark matter just got a lot harder. After announcing the discovery of an ultra-diffuse galaxy made up of 99.99 percent dark matter called Dragonfly 44, the same team of astronomers have now found another galaxy with almost NO dark matter. Space Fan News Theme by Stephen Dubois available for download here: http://ancienteyesmusic.com Follow DeepAstronomy on Twitter: @DeepAstronomy Like DeepAstronomy on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/DeepAstronomy/ Like Space Fan News on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/SpaceFanNews/

Want a TESS t-shirt and support Deep Astronomy? Go here: https://teespring.com/stores/deep-astronomy Consider supporting Space Fan News: https://patreon.com/DeepAstronomy to ensure you get current space & astronomy news each week! In this episode: NASA announced today that the James Webb Space Telescope, Hubble’s successor, is now officially the Just Wait Space Telescope: it will not launch before May 2020. Space Fan News Theme by Stephen Dubois available for download here: http://ancienteyesmusic.com Space Fan News Background Music by Colour the Landscapes: https://colourthelandscapes.bandcamp.com/ Follow DeepAstronomy on Twitter: @DeepAstronomy Like DeepAstronomy on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/DeepAstronomy/ Like Space Fan News on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/SpaceFanNews/

Consider supporting Space Fan News: https://patreon.com/DeepAstronomy to ensure you get current space & astronomy news Since it has been a few weeks since I've uploaded an episode of Space Fan News, I thought I'd take a moment to share what I've been doing with that time. Space Fan News will be back next week! Space Fan News Theme by Stephen Dubois available for download here: http://ancienteyesmusic.com Space Fan News Background Music by Colour the Landscapes: https://colourthelandscapes.bandcamp.com/ Check out our website for more content: https://deepastronomy.space/video/B1gj-Ei6Rmw Follow DeepAstronomy on Twitter: @DeepAstronomy Like DeepAstronomy on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/DeepAstronomy/ Like Space Fan News on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/SpaceFanNews/

Like this content? Please consider becoming a patron: https://patreon.com/DeepAstronomy Eruptions from the Sun cause Aurora and are the drivers of space weather throughout the solar system. Creating beautiful night time displays and interesting features in the atmospheres of outer planets like Jupiter, Saturn, Neptune and Uranus, space weather can also disrupt communications on Earth and damage power grid equipment. But understanding space weather is complex and requires a 3 dimensional understanding of the magnetic structure of solar eruptions and how they propagate outwards. How is that done? By combining data from several spacecraft spread around Earth’s orbit and constructing 3D computer models a team of researchers is examining what happens when an ejection occurs and creates a shock wave. In particular, they are examining data from ESA/NASA’s Solar and Heliospheric Observatory (SOHO)and the twin Solar Terrestrial Relations Observatory (STEREO) satellites. Join Tony Darnell and Carol Christian during Afternoon Astronomy Coffee on March 22 at 3PM Eastern time as they discuss with Angelos Vourlidas (Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Lab) and Ryun Young Kwan (George Mason University) how they visualize the Sun’s Coronal Mass Ejections and what significance such events have for solar system weather. Solar Eruptions in 3D Press release: https://www.nasa.gov/feature/goddard/2018/3-nasa-satellites-recreate-solar-eruption-in-3-d Check out our website for more content: https://deepastronomy.space/video/c_RhQcb39KM

Like this content? Please consider becoming a patron: https://patreon.com/DeepAstronomy Even though it is relatively nearby at 300 million light years from Earth, the galaxy, named Dragonfly 44, had been missed by astronomers for decades because it is very dim. The discovery of this dim object heralds in a new class of galaxies that have become known as ‘dark galaxies’ or ‘ultra diffuse galaxies’ because they contain relatively few stars, yet have a mass equal to our own Milky Way with hundreds of billions of stars. It was only discovered recently, in 2015, when the Dragonfly Telephoto Array, then a small collection of 24 commercially available 400mm telephoto lenses, looked towards a region of sky in the constellation Coma. But as astronomers looked closer using larger telescopes with specialized instruments, they realized this dim, tiny galaxy was more than meets the eye - literally. It contained so few stars. There were so few stars in this galaxy that there was no way they could all stay together as a gravitationally bound object - they would simply fly apart. So what was keeping the stars in Dragonfly 44 together? Astronomers had pretty good idea: dark matter. Dragonfly 44 image Pieter van Dokkum / Roberto Abraham / Gemini Observatory / SDSS / AURA. Darkness Speaks by Kevin MacLeod is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution license (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) Source: http://incompetech.com/music/royalty-free/index.html?isrc=USUAN1100364 Artist: http://incompetech.com/ Deep Space by Audionautix is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution license (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) Artist: http://audionautix.com/ Follow DeepAstronomy on Twitter: @DeepAstronomy Like DeepAstronomy on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/DeepAstronomy/ Like Space Fan News on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/SpaceFanNews/

Join Tony Darnell, Dr. Jeff Kuhn, Dr. Svetlana Berdugina and Kevin Lewis as they discuss the latest development in the field of astrobiology. Want to learn the latest in Exoplanet research? The cutting edge of finding related to our search for life elsewhere? Then this is the hangout for you! This week we'll talk about Pi Day, Stephen Hawking's death, the GAO report on the JWST mission and much, much more. Miss the hangout live? Watch and comment on our website: https://deepastronomy.space/video/zXW7uXo04aE/exolife-hangout-happy-pi-day Want a TESS Mission Tee like Tony? Get one here: https://teespring.com/stores/deep-astronomy

We live in a time when searching for and finding the faintest galaxies in the universe is possible. So, where are they? The universe contains galaxies at many scales, from diffuse objects to the massive galaxies containing supermassive black holes, often contained in large clusters of galaxies of diverse types. It is interesting to understand how faint galaxies get - do they include even what might be called a mere "collections of stars", larger than star clusters, but not containing organized shapes like spiral galaxies do? How are such illusive objects found? Do computational models predict that such objects exist, and what do they contain? In the nearby universe surveys are used to discover them, but those can only uncover a limited sample of such objects. Join Tony Darnell and Carol Christian during Afternoon Astronomy Coffee on March 8, 2018 at 3PM Eastern Time as they discuss with Shany Danieli, Pieter van Dokkum and Dr. Marla Geha (Yale University) the prospects for finding these “integrated light” images of dwarfs, and what telescopes would be optimum for conducting the searches. Please join our LIVE CHAT on our Discord server: https://discord.gg/nqGpvtK https://deepastronomy.space/video/pakjxBzDqJU/the-faintest-galaxies-where-are-they

What are the advantages and disadvantages of Schmidt-Cassegrain Telescopes? They are among the most popular telescopes among amateur astronomers, SCT's have been around for decades in the commercial market. During this hangout, we'll discuss some of the advantages of these scopes, why they are so popular, and delve into the many characteristics of their optical design. Should you buy one? Tune in to find out! Each week Tony Darnell, Adam Smith, John Suffill and Alexander Reinders get together to talk about telescopes and amateur astronomy. You don't want to miss out on our expertise if you're new to the hobby and are thinking about buying your first telescope. Join in our online chat on Discord here: https://discord.gg/nqGpvtK

Finding another planet like Earth outside of our solar system is now a possibility like never before. More than at any other time in human history, we have to tools to begin finding Earth's twin. Today's hangout features a discussion with Dr. Jessie Christiansen, Staff Scientist at the NASA Exoplanet Archive. Jessie is an expert in exoplanetary systems and has focused her research on: Measurement and analysis of exoplanet atmosphere compositions; detection and characterisation of interesting exoplanet systems; derivation of planet occurrence rates from the NASA Kepler mission and the generation and analysis of planet and planet candidate catalogues. Jessie loves to talk to the public about astronomy and the search for life beyond our solar system and has been been featured in many media programs including NASA's Unexplained Files on the Discovery Science channel. Here is NASA's Exoplanet Archive: https://exoplanetarchive.ipac.caltech.edu/ Join our chat on Discord: https://discord.gg/nqGpvtK

Consider supporting Space Fan News: https://patreon.com/DeepAstronomy to ensure you get current space & astronomy news! In this episode, TESS, the Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite is complete and arrives at the Kennedy Space Center to be loaded on a Falcon 9 rocket; later this year, NASA will launch the Mars InSight Lander, the latest mission to land on the Red Planet; the Hubble Space telescope updates the Hubble Constant of universal expansion to an even greater degree; and an amateur astronomer accidentally records a supernova explosion on his home telescope. New Deep Astronomy Store: https://teespring.com/stores/deep-astronomy Space Fan News Theme by Stephen Dubois available for download here: http://ancienteyesmusic.com Space Fan News Background Music by Colour the Landscapes: https://colourthelandscapes.bandcamp.com/ Follow DeepAstronomy on Twitter: @DeepAstronomy Like DeepAstronomy on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/DeepAstronomy/ Like Space Fan News on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/SpaceFanNews/

I had this idea for a contest as I was trying to add images to the Worldwide Telescope Client. I need your help! Here are the details of the contest. I want to add this image to Worldwide Telescope: http://astropix.ipac.caltech.edu/image/esahubble/heic1307a That is an amazing image of the Horsehead Nebula taken to celebrate the 23rd anniversary of the Hubble Space Telescope. What's great about it is the level of detail one can see in the infrared wavelengths of the Wide Field Camera 3 on Hubble. The problem is, I can't just copy and paste the image into Worldwide Telescope. In order to know where to place the image in the sky and scale it properly, WWT needs more information, namely the World Coordinate System (WCS) information. Usually, that information is in the headers of the science data in FITS format, but these images are jpegs and png's, not FITS. To give jpg images processed for science outreach, NASA and others have developed a header for these images called the Astronomy Visualization Metadata (AVM) which is essentially a FITS header for jpgs and pngs. More about AVM here: http://astropix.ipac.caltech.edu/page/4 So the trick is to get the WCS data from the FITS images into the AVM header for the Horsehead jpg and then WWT will know what to do with it. To get the FITS images, we can go to the MAST Archive where all Hubble data are kept and get the Horsehead files: http://archive.stsci.edu/hst/search.php And search using Target Name=Horsehead and Prop ID=12812 That will return 14 or so FITS images. Download them all and get the WCS info from them and put them in the AVM header in the Horsehead jpgs. So, the challenge: create an AVM header that will import into the WWT for the Horsehead image linked to above. Here are some links that might help. Link to a howto from STScI: http://www.stsci.edu/~harrisj/HTML/howto3.html Some AVM resources: http://avm.ipac.caltech.edu/about The PRIZE: First up, you'll get my undying respect and a request to make some more for WWT. You'll also be contributing to a great resource for astronomy outreach. You'll also get a brand new (personalized - YOUR NAME) t-shirt from our growing list on out Teespring Store: https://teespring.com/stores/deep-astronomy Let's have FUN! =================== All Deep Astronomy Live Streams are sent to the following platforms: https://deepastronomy.space/live https://YouTube.com/DeepAstronomy https://twitch.tv/Deepastronomy https://pscp.tv/DeepAstronomy https://facebook.com/DeepAstronomy All chat happens on the Deep Astronomy Discord server here (all welcome!): https://discord.gg/nqGpvtK

The outskirts of our solar system is a region dominated by the solar wind flowing away from the Sun and encountering the interstellar material (ISM) in space. The solar wind is also magnetized and creates a bubble, called the heliosphere, around our planetary system. The bubble's shape depends on the strength of the wind and the properties of the ISM. But this distant region is difficult to probe. In order to understand what is going on in the heliosphere, data from the Voyager space craft and the International Boundary Explorer (called IBEX) have been used. IBEX is able to measure atoms in the heliosphere and the Voyager spacecraft measure the properties of the plasma field. Importantly though, all this accumulated information must be fed into complicated models to understand the detailed structure of the boundary layer. Join Tony Darnell and Carol Christian during Afternoon Astronomy Coffee on February 22, 2018 at 3PM Eastern (Daylight) Time as they discuss with Nikolai Pogorelov (University of Alabama), and Jacob Heerikhuisen (University of Alabama) about unraveling the data collected and the success in modeling the heliosphere boundary.

Why go through all the trouble and expense of buying and learning to use your own imaging equipment when you have access to ACTUAL Space Telescope data? If you've ever wanted to take a picture like the Hubble Space Telescope does of the Orion Nebula or capture Jupiter through the camera as well as the Juno spacecraft, then this hangout is for you. You can actually use data from these missions yourself. The data taken with all space telescopes eventually end up in the public archives that you can download and process yourself. In this hangout we'll discuss some of the ways of getting and processing this data for your own use. We'll also take some time to talk about what its like to have job processing data from these major missions and some of the requirements of that job.

The Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS) is scheduled to launch later this year. Where does the mission stand? Join us for the first Future in Space Hangout for 2018 as we take a look at the status of the TESS mission and discuss some of the amazing science it is designed to accomplish. As always, we hope you'll join in on the discussion via our Discord server: https://discord.gg/nqGpvtK

Consider supporting Space Fan News: https://patreon.com/DeepAstronomy to ensure you get current space & astronomy news each week! I was lucky enough to be able to attend the Falcon Heavy launch this week and it was Just Like Downtown! Here are some highlights. Also, astronomers make the strange leap from smeared light from a distant galaxy to extragalactic planets with no stars. And finally, the JWST is making it's way to California and is one step closer to launch. Here are the links: https://deepastronomy.space/ https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/did-we-just-find-exoplanets-in-another-galaxy/ https://www.nasa.gov/press-release/combined-optics-science-instruments-of-nasa-s-james-webb-space-telescope-arrive-in https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MS79Pk4naEk Space Fan News Theme by Stephen Dubois available for download here: http://ancienteyesmusic.com Space Fan News Background Music by Colour the Landscapes: https://colourthelandscapes.bandcamp.com/ Follow DeepAstronomy on Twitter: @DeepAstronomy Like DeepAstronomy on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/DeepAstronomy/ Like Space Fan News on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/SpaceFanNews/

Over the three years of the K2 mission, 287,309 stars have been observed, and tens of thousands more roll in every few months. So how do astronomers sift through all that data? A new discovery of a planetary system around the star K2-138 containing five planets that contain ice and gas, and maybe even be rocky is a result of observations with the K2 (Kepler extension) mission. Data from the K2 mission is made available to everyone through Zooniverse, a citizen science portal. A software package containing a signal-detection algorithm identifies potential transit signals in the K2 data. Those targets are made available to the public to peruse and find interesting objects. The website contains a training module so that interested individuals can quickly learn what to search for. The new, tightly packed planetary system contains planets between the size of Earth and Neptune that are circular, compared to our own solar system where the planets have elliptical orbits. The orbits of the planets are short - between 2 and 13 days! This means they are close to their parent K-type star and therefore are quite hot. Join Tony Darnell and Carol Christian during Afternoon Astronomy Coffee on February 8, 2018 at 3PM Eastern (Daylight) Time as they discuss with Jessie Christiansen (CalTech) and collaborators about the new planetary system and the citizen science effort. Chat with us on Discord Here: https://discord.gg/nqGpvtK Exoplanet Explorers: https://www.zooniverse.org/projects/ianc2/exoplanet-explorers

Discord server https://discord.gg/K9BuW2U Like this content? Please consider becoming a patron: https://patreon.com/DeepAstronomy Follow DeepAstronomy on Twitter: @DeepAstronomy Like DeepAstronomy on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/DeepAstronomy/ Like Space Fan News on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/SpaceFanNews/ Follow DeepAstronomy on Google+ http://google.com/+DeepAstronomy http://google.com/+TonyDarnell We also have a great Google+ Community, come share your thoughts and join the discussion! https://plus.google.com/communities/109849939648748938781

Like this content? Please consider becoming a patron: https://deepastronomy.com/DeepAstronomy Wanted to let you guys know I'm going to the Falcon Heavy Launch tomorrow and provided it's not cancelled (and well, even if it is) I'll be doing some posting/vlogging/streaming from Kennedy Space Center tomorrow. Please follow along on our Discord chat, that's where I'll do most of my chatting tomorrow: Follow DeepAstronomy on Twitter: @DeepAstronomy Like DeepAstronomy on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/DeepAstronomy/ Like Space Fan News on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/SpaceFanNews/

This hangout features a giant in the field of SETI research: Dr. Jill Tarter. In this ExoLife Hangout we invite Dr. Jill Tarter, co-founder of the SETI Institute, to talk about her new book Making Contact. Tarter’s work has brought her wide recognition in the scientific community, including the Lifetime Achievement Award from Women in Aerospace, two Public Service Medals from NASA, and Chabot Observatory’s Person of the Year. Join us this week as we chat with Jill Tarter to learn about her new book, the history of SETI Institute, and her journey of being a woman in science and astronomy. Check out Jill's Book on Amazon here: https://www.amazon.com/shop/deepastronomy Join our Chat on Discord: https://discord.gg/nqGpvtK

Consider supporting Space Fan News: https://patreon.com/DeepAstronomy to ensure you get current space & astronomy news each week! Space Fan News Theme by Stephen Dubois available for download here: http://ancienteyesmusic.com Space Fan News Background Music by Colour the Landscapes: https://colourthelandscapes.bandcamp.com/ In this episode, astronomers publish a paper claiming the two of the earth-sized planets around TRAPPIST-1 are potentially habitable; the LISA Mission passes a critical Mission Design Readiness Review; and next week when Space Fans look up, there’s a special treat in store for us - that is if you like superbluebloodmoons. Watch and comment on Deep Astronomy Website: https://deepastronomy.space/video/Us3K9EKRwm4/trappist-1-habitability-possible-lisa-passes-milestone-super-blue-blood-moon-next-week-sfn-222 Links: http://www.psi.edu/news/barrtrappist1 https://www.elisascience.org/?q=news/top-news/lisa-mission-passes-review-successfully-and-begins-next-stage-development https://science.nasa.gov/science-news/news-articles/a-supermoon-trilogy Follow DeepAstronomy on Twitter: @DeepAstronomy Like DeepAstronomy on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/DeepAstronomy/ Like Space Fan News on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/SpaceFanNews/

What do you do when you're out of range of the global GPS system? Use Pulsars! Satellites must have a means to navigate in order to be useful for science, communications and technology. Once satellites move away from the proximity of Earth, and travel through the solar system, and perhaps beyond, they need an accurate system to determine their location. This is done by communicating with facilities on or near the Earth to do this. Now spacecraft navigation could be possible using the stars, specifically pulsars. These rapidly spinning objects, produced as the end stage of massive stars, give off very regular pulses that can be detected and used to pinpoint a spacecraft's location. This technique has been tested and could prove to be a new way to steer through space. Note that the Voyager and Pioneer spacecrafts carry a map that pinpoints Earth relative to several known pulsars! Join Tony Darnell and Carol Christian during Afternoon Astronomy Coffee on January 25th at 3PM Eastern Time as they discuss with Zaven Arzoumanian, Keith Gendreau, Jason Mitchell, and Luke Winternitz of Goddard Space Flight Center the demonstration of this technique along with interesting science results from the NICER instrument on the International Space Station (ISS). Please use our always-on Discord server to leave questions and comments: https://discord.gg/nqGpvtK The advantage is that this chat window is still open (and checked by me) frequently, even after the live stream ends!

So, you want to take images with your telescope? Watch this hangout and we'll tell you what you need to get started! Taking images through your telescope is perhaps one of the hardest things you can do. It is an advanced activity that usually needs expensive stuff, like: an excellent mount, good optics, superior tracking and of course, a good camera. This is not a beginner thing to do with your telescope, yet one of the first questions people ask who've never owned a scope before is, 'Can I take pictures through it?' In this hangout, Tony Darnell along with amateur astronomers Alexander Reinders, John Suffill and Adam Smith outline all the pitfalls you need to avoid when taking pictures through your telescope for the first time and we'll let you know what you need to get going! If you missed it live, you can always check it out on Deep Astronomy's website: https://deepastronomy.space/video/475/what-you-need-to-take-images-through-your-telescope

Just thought I'd take a look at the live stream of tonight's launch.

What types of stars are most likely to have planets that harbor complex life? Astronomers (and everyone else for that matter) are very interested in finding out if there is life in the universe besides our own. One area of inquiry has been about the stars themselves: what types of stars might be most likely to have life in orbit around them. This hangout delves into this topic with Drs. Manfred Cuntz and Ed Quinan whose paper makes the case for the best type of star being a k dwarf star. Please join Tony Darnell, Dr. Jeffrey Kuhn and Dr. Svetlana Berdughina to discuss this and much more on the question of life in the universe. Here is a link to the paper: https://arxiv.org/abs/1606.09580

Consider supporting Space Fan News: https://patreon.com/DeepAstronomy to ensure you get current space & astronomy news each week! As many of you know who’ve been following SFN for a while know that this video series was started in January 2011 during the winter meeting of the American Astronomical Society. Well this week finished the one for 2018 and here is a roundup of stories I found most interesting. The people with the American Astronomical Society call their winter meeting the Superbowl of Astronomy and while that may be a bit hyperbolic, it is an exciting time for astronomers. They get to announce some of their most exciting work during this meeting and while I have been to several, lately I’ve had to watch them from afar. But I do hope to start live streaming from them again one day. So in the spirit of SFN, I’m going to give you a brief roundup of some of the latest research that came out this week from the world of professional astronomers from around the world. There was so much released this week that there is no way I can cover all of it in a 10 minute or so video, so I’m keeping it to those things I found most interesting. Links to the stories: http://news.fnal.gov/2018/01/dark-energy-survey-publicly-releases-first-three-years-of-data/ https://www.nasa.gov/feature/goddard/2018/webb-telescope-s-houston-highlights https://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news.php?release=2018-004 http://hubblesite.org/news_release/news/2018-04 http://www.caltech.edu/news/citizen-scientists-discover-five-planet-system-80989 Exoplanet Explorers: https://www.zooniverse.org/projects/ianc2/exoplanet-explorers Space Fan News Theme by Stephen Dubois available for download here: http://ancienteyesmusic.com Space Fan News Background Music by Colour the Landscapes: https://colourthelandscapes.bandcamp.com/ Follow DeepAstronomy on Twitter: @DeepAstronomy Like DeepAstronomy on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/DeepAstronomy/ Like Space Fan News on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/SpaceFanNews/

Like this content? Please consider becoming a patron: https://patreon.com/DeepAstronomy On January 11, 2017 the Spitzer and Hubble Space Telescope missions released an amazing flythrough of the Orion Nebula, or M42. Never before have we had such a detailed look at this naked eye object in two wavelengths. Using actual scientific imagery and other data, combined with Hollywood techniques, a team at the Space Telescope Science Institute in Baltimore, and the Caltech/Infrared Processing and Analysis Center (IPAC) in Pasadena, California, has created the best and most detailed multi-wavelength visualization yet of this photogenic nebula. Music used: "Signals" - Ancient Eyes Music http://ancienteyesmusic.com/discography/our_invisible_universe/ "Roten Himmel" - The Gateless Gate https://thegatelessgate.bandcamp.com/album/germania NASA Press Release: https://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news.php?release=2018-004 Follow DeepAstronomy on Twitter: @DeepAstronomy Like DeepAstronomy on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/DeepAstronomy/

Consider supporting Space Fan News: https://patreon.com/DeepAstronomy to ensure you get current space & astronomy news each week! We close out 2017 by reporting that NASA is showing its commitment to astrobiology by selecting two mission concepts finalists as part of the New Frontiers program; after a three-month investigation, scientists from the Very Large Array have zeroed in on the most likely explanation for what happened in the aftermath of a violent collision between two neutron stars; and finally, astronomers using ESO’s Very Large Telescope have for the first time directly observed convection or granulation patterns on the surface of a star outside the Solar System. Links to this week's Stories: https://www.nasa.gov/press-release/nasa-invests-in-concept-development-for-missions-to-comet-saturn-moon-titan https://public.nrao.edu/news/neutron-star-merger-phenomena/ http://www.eso.org/public/unitedkingdom/news/eso1741/ Space Fan News Theme by Stephen Dubois available for download here: http://ancienteyesmusic.com Space Fan News Background Music by Colour the Landscapes: https://colourthelandscapes.bandcamp.com/ Follow DeepAstronomy on Twitter: @DeepAstronomy Like DeepAstronomy on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/DeepAstronomy/ Like Space Fan News on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/SpaceFanNews/

As we approach the longest night of the year in the northern hemisphere, we talk about some of the best things you can see all year! Join us for the last Deep Astronomy Hangout of 2017 and let's talk about the wonders of the night sky during the longest night in the northern hemisphere. Where is the Orion Nebula? What about the Andromeda Galaxy? The Pleiades? The Crab Nebula? Every chance we get, Tony Darnell, Adam Smith, Alexander Reinders and John Suffill come together to discuss our love of amateur astronomy and the night sky. Please join in with your question or comments.

The environment around a supermassive black hole at the centers of galaxies are turbulent and dangerous places for stars to reside. Surprisingly, it appears that stars can survive and actually be formed near a super massive black hole despite the tremendous tidal forces at play. Observations with the Atacama Large Millimeter Array (ALMA) suggest that star formation is indeed occurring surprisingly close to Sgr A* (at the Milky Way center). How is this possible? What sort of environment would allow this to happen? Join Tony Darnell and Carol Christian during Afternoon Astronomy Coffee on December 14, 2017 at 3PM Eastern (Daylight) Time as they discuss with Farhad Zadeh (Northwestern University), Mark Wardle (Macquarie University, Australia) and Al Wootten (National Radio Astronomical Observatory) about this remarkable study. Read press release here: http://www.almaobservatory.org/en/press-release/alma-discovers-infant-stars-surprisingly-near-galaxys-supermassive-black-hole/

Consider supporting Space Fan News: https://patreon.com/DeepAstronomy to ensure you get current space & astronomy news each week! This week, astronomers at ESO find yet another system with rocky, earth-sized planets; the most distant quasar from the most distant supermassive black hole has been observed in the early universe and finding such a big black hole so early after the universe has astronomers confused; and a new planet finding spectrograph sees first light ushering in a new phase of precision for ground-based exoplanet research. Links to this week's stories: http://nouvelles.umontreal.ca/en/article/2017/12/05/two-super-earths-around-star-k2-18/ https://www.theverge.com/2017/12/6/16738652/quasar-supermassive-black-hole-early-universe-big-bang http://www.eso.org/public/unitedkingdom/news/eso1739/ Space Fan News Theme by Stephen Dubois available for download here: http://ancienteyesmusic.com Space Fan News Background Music by Colour the Landscapes: https://colourthelandscapes.bandcamp.com/ Follow DeepAstronomy on Twitter: @DeepAstronomy Like DeepAstronomy on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/DeepAstronomy/ Like Space Fan News on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/SpaceFanNews/

What role will the ISS Play in getting us to Mars? Human exploration of Mars present many technological, management, political, and engineering challenges. The International Space Station (ISS) offers today an essential initial demonstration site and proving ground for eventual human exploration beyond the Earth. Join Tony Darnell, Harley Thronson, and Alberto Conti as they discuss with Molly Anderson (NASA Johnson Space Center) and Katie Boggs (NASA Headquarters) some of the exciting developments in ISS experiments and technology development.

Consider supporting Space Fan News: https://patreon.com/DeepAstronomy to ensure you get current space & astronomy news each week! In this episode, astronomers using ESO’s HARPS instrument find a new Earth-sized exoplanet around the inactive red dwarf star known as Ross 128; a new landmark five-year study released this week reveals that outdoor LED light fixtures are having an adverse effect on our night skies; and a new model of the universe is revealed that doesn’t need dark matter nor dark energy. Space Fan News Theme by Stephen Dubois available for download here: http://ancienteyesmusic.com Space Fan News Background Music by Colour the Landscapes: https://colourthelandscapes.bandcamp.com/ Follow DeepAstronomy on Twitter: @DeepAstronomy Like DeepAstronomy on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/DeepAstronomy/ Like Space Fan News on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/SpaceFanNews/ Links to this week's stories: Closest Cozy Exoplanet: http://eso.org/public/news/eso1736/ We're losing out night sky: http://www.darksky.org/five-years-of-satellite-images-show-global-light-pollution-increasing-at-a-rate-of-two-percent-per-year/ Five Myths about LED streetlights: http://www.darksky.org/5-popular-myths-about-led-streetlights/ MOND May be Back: https://www.unige.ch/communication/communiques/en/2017/cdp211117/ Science Paper: https://arxiv.org/abs/1710.11425

Looking for some really neat gifts for the astronomy buff in your life? Today we'll share with you some of our favorite gifts for the space fan in your life. While there's no shortage of telescopes and accessories out there, and those will be very good gifts make no mistake, there are a lot of other really interesting astronomy gifts you can buy that are unique and special. In this hangout, Tony Darnell, Adam Synergy Smith and John Suffill will share some of our favorites with you Most of our suggestions are on this Deep Astronomy Webpage, feel free to watch the hangout there and follow along: https://deepastronomy.space/article/18/cool-astronomy-gifts-for-christmas-2017 Here is a link-dump of the amazing things Galaxia found that I didn't have time to put in the webpage article: "https://www.thisiswhyimbroke.com/galaxy-rugs/ https://www.thisiswhyimbroke.com/galaxy-paintjob-lamborghini/ https://www.thisiswhyimbroke.com/galaxy-lollipops/ https://www.thisiswhyimbroke.com/galaxy-donuts/ https://www.thisiswhyimbroke.com/moon-clock/ + glow in the dark sheets https://www.thisiswhyimbroke.com/glow-in-the-dark-constellation-dress/ https://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov/resources/7777/?category=graphics -- FREE https://www.scientificsonline.com/product/scale-solar-system-model-standard ----- ON SCALE! https://www.scientificsonline.com/product/luminary-art-led-base-rectangle https://www.scientificsonline.com/product/milky-way-galaxy-star-crystal https://myscienceshop.com/product/gift/81098 --- black hole paper weight https://www.myscienceshop.com/product/globe/81091 --- Mars globe https://www.zazzle.com/a_cluster_of_stars_wrapping_paper-256502802 https://www.zazzle.co.uk/hubble_deep_field_mug_two_tone_coffee_mug-168026821834300623 https://www.zazzle.co.uk/astronaut_postcard-239793444599719011 (Christmas) https://www.zazzle.com/infinity_loop_and_galaxy_space_hipster_custom_guitar_pick-256176386043620719 https://www.zazzle.com/playing_cards_standard_index_faces_playing_cards-256826079160734201 http://www.cafepress.com/mf/102773633/stainless-steel-travel_mugs?productId=1702664183 http://www.cafepress.com/mf/34408573/event-horizon-ash_sweatshirt?productId=433391888 https://www.presentindicative.com/collections/astronomy

What were 20% of the astronomers and observatories in the world doing on August 25, 2017? Coordinating observations for the fifth gravitational wave event! One of the most exciting astrophysics results of the past few years has been the detection of gravitational waves and light across the electromagnetic spectrum from the merger of two neutron stars in a nearby galaxy. These observations by the LIGO/Virgo gravitational wave network and dozens of space- and ground-based telescopes represents new capabilities for joint discoveries in multi-messenger astronomy. Please join our regular hosts, Tony Darnell, Alberto Conti, and Harley Thronson, as they discuss with Drs. Judy Racusin, Tito Dal Canton, and Brad Cenko, all of NASA Goddard Space Flight Center the recent ‘multi-messenger’ observation of merging neutron stars and possibilities of future joint observations of merging massive objects in space.

Epigenetics gives humanity the incredible power to increase our lifespan and alter resistance to disease and illnesses like cancer and alzheimer's disease. Coined by British scientist C. H. Waddington, epigenetics is the study of changes in organisms caused by modification of gene expression rather than alteration of the genetic code itself. Join us this week as we invite Dr. Peter Ward a Professor at the University of Washington and author of a new book titled, Lamarck's Revenge: How Epigenetics Is Revolutionizing Our Understanding of Evolution's Past and Present. Well answer a range of questions like: *How is epigenetics going to change humanity over the next 15 - 30 years? *What are the possible negative effects of epigenetics? *Is it possible that epigenetics will be the cure for seemingly incurable diseases like cancer? *How should we be thinking about epigenetics in the broader context of evolution as a whole?