#comet

[aleiasanova]

I bet if the hedgehog genes won, Shadow would say something like "Your baby is even less baked than mine was" XD

Since Comet is half hedgehog what did he look like as a newborn?

the hairy kitten genes managed to win so they had a bouncing baby hairball

[sennamaticart]

Been drawing lots of reindeer at work these days

[huariqueje]

Earthbound - Greg Mort , 1993.

American, b. 1952 -

Watercolour on paper ,

[kosher-martian]

Golly I miss when Syfy was Sci-Fi Channel and also had decent programming. Comet has filled the void Sci-Fi Channel left in our hearts.

Btw in terms of remarkable internet resources, a site called Inner Mind has an archive of almost EVERY schedule the Sci-Fi Channel/SyFy has ever had

Full listings from July 1994 on, and a few from 1992, 1993 & earlier in 1994. It's updated through this month.

You can just go look up what the Sci-Fi Channel was playing on a random night in 1997 or 2003 if you want.

What amazes me is that they're still keeping it up and updating it, even though SyFy is, like all cable networks bar TCM, a shadow of its former self. According to the schedule for this month, they're straight-up showing reruns of NCIS: Los Angeles and marathons of Harry Potter. Meanwhile the same time in 1999 they were showing a dozen different shows a day and airing The People Under the Stairs & anime at 2 AM. Anyway it's really cool this guy has documented the channel so thoroughly we can make comparisons like that

[weepingwidar]

Konstantin Korobov (Russian, 1985) - Star (2024)

[peitalo]

Meteor / 10.30.24 colored pencil + black paper

[the-wolf-and-moon]

Comet Leonard

[without-ado]

Three Together via NASA APOD

[spacewonder19]

Comet Leonard © Lionel Majzik

[wonders-of-the-cosmos]

Comet Tsuchinshan-ATLAS over Mexico Image Credit: Daniel Korona

[nasa]

5 Unpredictable Things Swift Has Studied (and 1 It’s Still Looking For)

Our Neil Gehrels Swift Observatory — Swift for short — is celebrating its 20th anniversary! The satellite studies cosmic objects and events using visible, ultraviolet, X-ray, and gamma-ray light. Swift plays a key role in our efforts to observe our ever-changing universe. Here are a few cosmic surprises Swift has caught over the years — plus one scientists hope to see.

#BOAT

Swift was designed to detect and study gamma-ray bursts, the most powerful explosions in the universe. These bursts occur all over the sky without warning, with about one a day detected on average. They also usually last less than a minute – sometimes less than a few seconds – so you need a telescope like Swift that can quickly spot and precisely locate these new events.

In the fall of 2022, for example, Swift helped study a gamma-ray burst nicknamed the BOAT, or brightest of all time. The image above depicts X-rays Swift detected for 12 days after the initial flash. Dust in our galaxy scattered the X-ray light back to us, creating an extraordinary set of expanding rings.

Star meets black hole

Tidal disruptions happen when an unlucky star strays too close to a black hole. Gravitational forces break the star apart into a stream of gas, as seen above. Some of the gas escapes, but some swings back around the black hole and creates a disk of debris that orbits around it.

These events are rare. They only occur once every 10,000 to 100,000 years in a galaxy the size of our Milky Way. Astronomers can’t predict when or where they’ll pop up, but Swift’s quick reflexes have helped it observe several tidal disruption events in other galaxies over its 20-year career.

Active galaxies

Usually, we think of galaxies – and most other things in the universe – as changing so slowly that we can’t see the changes. But about 10% of the universe’s galaxies are active, which means their black hole-powered centers are very bright and have a lot going on. They can produce high-speed particle jets or flares of light. Sometimes scientists can catch and watch these real-time changes.

For example, for several years starting in 2018, Swift and other telescopes observed changes in a galaxy’s X-ray and ultraviolet light that led them to think the galaxy’s magnetic field had flipped 180 degrees.

Magnetic star remnants

Magnetars are a type of neutron star, a very dense leftover of a massive star that exploded in a supernova. Magnetars have the strongest magnetic fields we know of — up to 10 trillion times more intense than a refrigerator magnet and a thousand times stronger than a typical neutron star’s.

Occasionally, magnetars experience outbursts related to sudden changes in their magnetic fields that can last for months or even years. Swift detected such an outburst from a magnetar in 2020. The satellite’s X-ray observations helped scientists determine that the city-sized object was rotating once every 10.4 seconds.

Comets

Swift has also studied comets in our own solar system. Comets are town-sized snowballs of frozen gases, rock, and dust. When one gets close to our Sun, it heats up and spews dust and gases into a giant glowing halo.

In 2019, Swift watched a comet called 2I/Borisov. Using ultraviolet light, scientists calculated that Borisov lost enough water to fill 92 Olympic-size swimming pools! (Another interesting fact about Borisov: Astronomers think it came from outside our solar system.)

What's next for Swift?

Swift has studied a lot of cool events and objects over its two decades, but there are still a few events scientists are hoping it’ll see.

Swift is an important part of a new era of astrophysics called multimessenger astronomy, which is where scientists use light, particles, and space-time ripples called gravitational waves to study different aspects of cosmic events.

In 2017, Swift and other observatories detected light and gravitational waves from the same event, a gamma-ray burst, for the first time. But what astronomers really want is to detect all three messengers from the same event.

As Swift enters its 20th year, it’ll keep watching the ever-changing sky.

Keep up with Swift through NASA Universe on X, Facebook, and Instagram. And make sure to follow us on Tumblr for your regular dose of space!

[maureen2musings]

Comet Thrower pictograph, Hell Roaring Canyon, Utah

Astrophotographer Tom Rae

[moldspace]

okay this is embarrassingly overdue because i think i made polls asking about what pin designs to make in, like, the summer and after some manufacturing delays and getting really busy i forgot to get these up until i looked at the calendar and realized it was DECEMBER and these would make perfect stocking stuffers but uh yeah turns out i decided to get ALL OF THE DESIGNS and also theyre up in the shop now and will be shipping in time for christmas!!!

and also they turned out SO GOOD!! they're so hard to photograph because they're all very shiny metal but it really makes the designs pop and they're just so pretty i'm delighted with how they turned out!

[dame-de-pique]

Glass plate slide of a comet, n.d.

[clara-scintilla]

The hunter gets hunted