Happy TRAPPIST-1 Day! 

Black Hole Caught Devouring Star For An Entire Decade

“Normally lasting weeks or months, a new record has just been set for TDEs. XJ1500+0154, 1.8 billion light years away, is the largest, longest-lasting one ever seen. First detected in July of 2005, the X-rays from this distant source brightened by a factor of 100 over 3 years. They remain bright even today. Although dozens of TDEs have been observed since the 1990s, none have lasted this long. It may be caused by the most massive star ever observed creating a TDE.”

When any object passes too close to the event horizon of a black hole, the tidal forces acting on it can become so strong that they’ll tear the entire object apart in a spaghettification disaster. While most of the matter will get ejected from the encounter, a significant fraction can be accreted, absorbed and used to fuel the black hole’s growth. These tidal disruption events have been seen numerous times since the launch of our X-ray observatories, and are now known to come in a wide variety of magnitudes, at a variety of distances and to last a variable amount of time. So when you see the largest, longest-lasting one ever, you sit up and take notice! That’s exactly what’s happened with XJ1500+154, which is now in its second decade of X-ray signals.

Come get the full story on this amazing object, and learn how it might solve the puzzle of supermassive black hole growth on today’s Mostly Mute Monday!

Statistically the most handsome ever.

A tesla coil gun made from a giant coil that uses re-purposed MRI capacitors with a water-cooled backpack. This looks like something out of Ghostbusters. (Source)

Old but gold 💛

December 17, 1965 – Stunning images of Earth captured by the astronauts of Gemini 7 as their craft raced around the planet.

(NASA/ASU)

Pan-STARRS solves the biggest problem facing every astronomer

“The science that came out of it alone is staggering. Nobody has had as much astronomical data in all of history as what Pan-STARRS has produced. They’ve discovered about 3,000 new near-Earth objects; tens of thousands of asteroids in the main belt, approximately 300 Kuiper belt objects (about a third of all the Kuiper belt objects ever discovered), and imaged a total of more than three billion verified objects. For those of you wondering, there’s no evidence for or against Planet Nine in the data, but the Pan-STARRS data does support that our Solar System ejected a fifth gas giant in its distant past.”

If you want to observe the night sky, it’s not quite as simple as pointing your telescope and collecting photons. You have to calibrate your data, otherwise your interpretation of what you’re looking at could be skewed by gas, dust, the atmosphere or other intervening factors that you’ve failed to consider. Without a proper calibration, you don’t know how reliable what you’re looking at is. The previous best calibration was the Digitized Sky Survey 2, which went down to 13 millimagnitudes, or an accuracy of 1.2%. Just a few weeks ago, Pan-STARRS released the largest astronomy survey results of all-time: 2 Petabytes of data. It quadruples the accuracy of every calibration we’ve ever had, and that’s before you even get into the phenomenal science it’s uncovered.

Come learn how it’s solved the biggest problem facing every astronomer, and why observational astronomy will never be the same!

https://www.facebook.com/drunkscience4u/videos/1418162364863308/

We all know this struggle, Cylinder. We all know. March 4, we make their dreams come true on YouTube! Tune in!

Chemistry Valentine’s Cards by Nick Uhlig.

What’s Up for February?

What’s Up for February? Look to the night sky for a brighter Venus, Comet 45P, asteroid Vesta and more. 

Tonight, you can see Venus along with a crescent moon, Mars and Uranus just after sunset. No binoculars needed! 

While there are no meteor showers this month, behold the zodiacal light!

This phenomenon is caused when sunlight reflects off dust particles in the plane of our solar system. Use Venus and Mars as a cone-shaped guide on the western horizon in late February and March.

Comet 45P will be visible using binoculars and telescope and will make its closest approach to Earth on February 11.

Finally, bright asteroid Vesta can be found in the constellation Pisces.

Follow us on Tumblr for your regular dose of space: http://nasa.tumblr.com

a galactic rainbow