Nature's Month-Long Sky Show Wednesday, January 20, 2016 Through February 20, 2016

[From article]
For the first time since 2005, the planets Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter and Saturn will all be visible at the same time.
According to EarthSky.org , the 5 planets will be visible just before dawn starting Wednesday, January 20, 2016.
Set your alarms early as Mercury, which is the fifth planet to join the group, is set to rise just before 6:50 a.m. on Wednesday.
Our sunrise that day happens at 7:32 a.m.
If you don’t get to see them this week, don’t worry, these five planets will be visible each day before dawn through February 20, 2016.
All five planets will be visible to the naked eye so you don’t need a telescope, but EarthSky.org recommends binoculars to help you spot Mercury.
Jupiter will be the first planet to rise each evening followed by Mars, Saturn, Venus and Mercury which rise overnight and early morning.
Venus will likely be the easiest to spot as it is the brightest object in the sky behind the moon and the sun. You can spot Venus by looking toward the southeast.

http://www.abc15.com/news/state/starting-wednesday-mercury-venus-mars-jupiter-saturn-to-align-in-night-sky

STARTING WEDNESDAY: Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn to align in night sky
Iris Hermosillo
8:37 AM, Jan 18, 2016

Astronomers Study Internal Changes In Saturn

Images of the rings taken by Nasa's Cassini spacecraft are helping to reveal patterns within the rings, which are giving scientists clues about what could be going on inside the planet. Saturn's rings captured using an ultraviolet imager by Cassini are shown above.

Perhaps one of Al Gore's many legal climate change experts can file a lawsuit compelling Saturn to behave according to desirable computer modeling.

[From article]
Strange ripples in the rings around Saturn have suggested there may be something moving deep inside the gas giant.
Astronomers have found unusual wave like patterns in the rock and ice that make up Saturn's rings which appear to be travelling towards the centre of the planet.
Most of these 'waves' in Saturn's rings move outwards as a result of the gravitational pull by the planet's 62 moons drawing material in the rings towards them.
[. . .]
Dr Phillip Nicholson, a planetary scientist at Cornell University in New York who has been leading the analysis, told Space.com: 'Even dropping a probe into the atmosphere would not necessarily help a lot, because the probe will only get down to a pressure of five or 10 atmospheres before it gets cooked or squashed.
'We need to go much deeper to understand this.'
They are using data being beamed back by Nasa's Cassini spacecraft which has been carefully measuring the light passing through each of the rings.
This is allowing scientists to build up a picture of their density and look for subtle changes in the waves, which give clues about the oscillations going on inside Saturn.
Similar techniques are used to study distant stars to understand more about their internal structure.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-3253680/What-stirring-deep-inside-Saturn-Strange-spiralling-ripples-gas-giant-s-rings-revealing-planet-s-internal-structure.html

What is stirring deep inside Saturn? Strange spiralling ripples in gas giant's rings are revealing the planet's internal structure
Scientists are studying strange waves moving through Saturn's rings
The unusual patterns suggest something is spinning deep inside the planet
They may help to unravel what lies beneath the planet's dense atompshere
By Richard Gray for MailOnline
Published: 10:50 EST, 29 September 2015 | Updated: 11:31 EST, 29 September 2015

NASA Flies By Pluto, Captures Images

[From article]
After close-up studies of Pluto, its primary moon, Charon, and entourage of at least four smaller moons, New Horizons will continue speeding out into the Kuiper Belt, a region peppered with what are believed to be frozen remnants from the formation of the solar system some 4.6 billion years ago.
The team plans to petition NASA for additional funds for a flyby of a second Kuiper Belt object in 2019.
In addition to its cameras, the spacecraft is outfitted with six scientific instruments, including light-splitting spectrometers, and plasma and dust detectors, to study the geology of Pluto and Charon, map their surface compositions and temperatures and look for an atmosphere, ring system and other moons.

https://ca.news.yahoo.com/nasa-probe-nearing-close-encounter-unexplored-pluto-181601994.html

NASA probe nearing close encounter with unexplored Pluto
By By Irene and Klotz

Reuters
April 15, 2015

Johns Hopkins Spacecraft Speeding To Pluto For Images

ASA's New Horizons spacecraft is the first probe sent to Pluto and it'scheduled to arrive in July 2015. This is an artist's concept of the spacecraft flying past Pluto.
[From article]
Traveling at 1,000,000 miles per day, one of the fastest space vehicles ever made is extending human sight to Pluto and beyond to spy out details the Hubble Space Telescope hasn't been able to see.
Even at that speed, it took more than nine years to get this close. New Horizons launched in January 2006.
[. . .]
New Horizons, built and operated by John Hopkins University, will make its closest pass in July. Eye popping images will come. The on-board camera is powerful enough to recognize objects the size of buildings on Pluto's surface.
[. . .]
Maybe Pluto has rings like Saturn, Uranus and Neptune. Multiple other instruments will inspect Pluto's atmosphere.
By approaching Pluto, which NASA classifies as a dwarf planet, New Horizons will also reach a new region of our solar system, which astronomers divide into classes of planet make-up.
Earth and its neighbors are rocky, earthy planets. Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune are gas planets.
Pluto and its partner Charon, called by some its moon, are covered in ice.

http://www.cnn.com/2015/02/19/tech/new-horizons-vastness-pluto/index.html

Photos of two small Pluto moons open the door to a new vastness
By Ben Brumfield, CNN
Updated 2:31 PM ET, Thu February 19, 2015

Astronomers Found Thousands of More Galaxies

[From article]

Four unknown galaxy clusters, each potentially containing thousands of individual galaxies, have been discovered some 10 billion light years from Earth.
Astronomers used a new way of combining data from the two European Space Agency satellites, Planck and Herschel, to identify more distant galaxy clusters than has previously been possible.
The researchers believe up to 2,000 further clusters could be identified using this technique, helping to build a more detailed timeline of how clusters are formed.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2556972/A-peak-early-universe-Four-galaxy-clusters-10-BILLION-light-years-away-farthest-2-000-more.html

A peek into the early universe: Four galaxy clusters 10 BILLION light years away are the farthest ever found - and there could be 2,000 more
Clusters were found by combining data from Planck and Herschel satellites
Each cluster contains hundreds of thousands of galaxies bound by gravity
They reveal what the universe looked like when it was just three billion years old
Up to now, the most distant clusters found by astronomers date back to when the universe was 4.5 billion years old
Daily Mail (UK)
By ELLIE ZOLFAGHARIFARD
PUBLISHED: 01:03 EST, 12 February 2014 | UPDATED: 05:30 EST, 12 February 2014

Hubble Telescope Captures Space "Caterpillar"

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2406611/Cosmic-caterpillar-spotted-Hubble-telescope-thats-6-TRILLION-miles-long.html

Hubble telescope spots 'cosmic caterpillar' that's six TRILLION miles long, formed  by harsh winds from some of our hottest stars
The protostar is located 4,500 light-years away in the constellation Cygnus
It is currently collecting material from an envelope of gas surrounding it
The gas, however, is also being eroded by surrounding stellar radiation
By ELLIE ZOLFAGHARIFARD
PUBLISHED: 05:22 EST, 30 August 2013 | UPDATED: 05:33 EST, 30 August 2013

Published on Aug 29, 2013

Zooming Into A Protostar.
August 29, 2013.
This video begins with a view of the stars in the constellation Cygnus. We zoom into the Cygnus OB2 association region, and then into a Hubble view of protostar IRAS 20234+4057. This light-year-long knot of interstellar gas and dust resembles a caterpillar on its way to a feast.

Credit: NASA, ESA, and G. Bacon (STScI)

Image of Two Galaxies Colliding

This striking image of two galaxies colliding, taken with the NASA Hubble Space Telescope, shows what looks like the profile of a celestial bird, hovering protectively over an egg

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2347493/Incredible-Nasa-image-shows-happens-galaxies-collide-looks-like-penguin-playing-egg.html

Incredible Nasa image shows what happens when two galaxies collide (and it looks like a penguin playing with an egg)
Striking image of galaxies colliding, taken with NASA Hubble Telescope
Astronomers compare it to a bird, hovering protectively over an egg
Unusual shape is caused by galaxies 'exchanging matter and causing havoc'
By AMANDA WILLIAMS
Daily Mail (UK)
PUBLISHED: 10:57 EST, 24 June 2013 | UPDATED: 10:57 EST, 24 June 2013

Galaxy Ten Times Size of Milky Way Found

The image shows a close-up view, with the merging galaxies circled. The red data are from the Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory's Submillimeter Array (SMA) atop Mauna Kea, Hawaii, and show dust-enshrouded regions of star formation. The green data, taken by the National Radio Astronomy Observatory's Very Large Array (JVLA), near Socorro, New Mexico, show carbon monoxide gas in the galaxies. In addition, the blue shows starlight. A bridge of material connects the two galaxies, showing they are interacting. The blue blobs outside of the circle are galaxies located much closer to us.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2329173/Astronomers-spot-missing-link-galaxy-collision-creating-supermassive-galaxy-times-size-Milky-Way.html

Astronomers spot 'missing link' collision creating a supermassive galaxy ten times the size of the Milky Way
Two galaxies collided 11 billion years ago and are rapidly forming a massive new mega-galaxy
Discovery sheds new light on how the Universe formed
Described as 'the equivalent of discovering a missing link between winged dinosaurs and early birds'
Daily Mail (UK)
PUBLISHED: 12:49 EST, 22 May 2013 | UPDATED: 13:09 EST, 22 May 2013

Planet Without A Star Found

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2232778/The-homeless-planet-floating-space-star-orbit.html

Lost in space: The 'homeless planet' found floating without a star to orbit
Planet is first to be found not tied by gravity to a star
Believed to be between 50 and 120 million years old, with a
temperature of approximately 400 degrees celsius, and weighing four to
seven times that of Jupiter
By MARK PRIGG
Daily Mail (UK)
PUBLISHED: 06:37 EST, 14 November 2012 | UPDATED: 12:36 EST, 14 November 2012

Photos From Outer Space

http://www.thedailybeast.com/blogs-and-stories/2010-07-24/amazing-photos-of-outer-space/?cid=hp:mainpromo9

New Photos From Outer Space

by The Daily Beast