#gemini north telescope

[spacewonder19]

Planet Jupiter © Juno, Gemini North, Hubble

[nature-godsgardenofeden]

The Gemini North telescope turned its gaze toward the Pinwheel Galaxy, offering a crystal-clear view of a new supernova discovered in May 2023 ♥ https://www.space.com/new-supernova-photo-pinwheel-galaxy-noirlab?

[detailedart]

Clearest picture of Jupiter, from Earth. Isn't she beautiful? Actually hundreds of photos taken by the Gemini North Telescope in Hawaii, compiled to produce the infrared snap in order to see beyond Jupiter’s hazy atmosphere.

[mysticstronomy]

HOW ARE BLACK HOLES CREATED, AND HOW DO THEY GROW??

Blog#461

Wednesday, December 11th, 2024

Welcome back,

In 2017, astronomers started finding monster black holes in the very early universe. Containing roughly a billion times the mass of our Sun, these black holes were surrounded by disks of infalling matter shining so intensely that we can detect them across immense stretches of space and time.

These gravitational giants existed when the universe was only 700 million years old, or 5 percent its current age. At that point in cosmic history, the universe was still a toddler. Gravity was just beginning to rein in clouds of gas and dark matter to form structures that would later evolve into mature spiral and elliptical galaxies. Stars were beginning to pop into being, but they do today.

According to the traditional picture of black hole formation and growth, the universe at this time simply had not existed long enough for black holes to bulk up to a billion solar masses.

So, based on our general understanding of how black holes form and grow, these black holes should not exist.

And yet they do — posing a major challenge that astrophysicists have yet to unravel.

Quasars are brightly shining beacons of light and energy generated by the accretion of material onto supermassive black holes. In the 1990s, astronomers using a combination of ground- and space-based telescopes started to find extremely distant quasars powered by black holes of a billion or more solar masses.

By the mid-2010s, it was no longer a big deal to find quasars dating back to 1 billion or 2 billion years after the Big Bang. But theorists had a difficult time explaining how such massive black holes could have arisen so soon in the universe’s history.

For quasars and other objects that existed many billions of years ago, it’s meaningless to express their distances in terms of light-years. The universe has expanded so much between then and now that astronomers instead refer to an object’s redshift, which is a measurement of how much cosmic expansion has stretched the object’s light toward redder (longer) wavelengths.

For years, astronomers such as the University of Arizona’s Xiaohui Fan have been identifying quasars at redshifts as high as 6, when the universe was about 900 million years old. They’ve even found a few around redshift 7, which corresponds to an era when the universe was about 735 million years old. But in late 2017, an international team led by Eduardo Bañados of the Carnegie Institution for Science announced a quasar at a record-shattering redshift of 7.54. This quasar, designated J1342+0928 (J1342 for short), based on its sky coordinates in Boötes, was radiating 40 trillion Suns’ worth of energy at a time when the universe was only 690 million years old.

The team found J1342 by mining data from NASA’s Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer satellite, the United Kingdom Infrared Telescope Deep Sky Survey Large Area Survey, and the DECam Legacy Survey. They used the 6.5-meter Magellan Telescope in Chile to measure the quasar’s redshift, while observations with the 8-meter Gemini North Telescope in Hawaii enabled the team to estimate the black hole’s mass: around 800 million Suns.

Originally published on https://www.astronomy.com

COMING UP!!

(Saturday, December 14th, 2024)

"HOW BIG CAN 'SUPER MASSIVE BLACK HOLES' GET??"

[talonabraxas]

Goddess Venus in Her Chariot Talon Abraxas The Sky This Week from January 17 to 24: A conjunction of Venus and Saturn Sunday, January 19 Venus passes 3° north of Saturn at midnight EST. The pair shine together in the early-evening sky, still 30° high in the southwest an hour after sunset and lingering for several hours, finally setting around 11 P.M. local time. 

Venus is much brighter at magnitude –4.6, sitting just to the upper right of 1st-magnitude Saturn. Both are in Aquarius, near that constellation’s border with Pisces and hanging below the Circlet asterism. 

Make sure to pull out your telescope and take a look at the two, although you’ll need to do so one at a time. (To see both at once, peer through your telescope’s finder scope or use a pair of binoculars.) Venus’ disk is larger — 27” — and it shows off a crescent phase that is nearly half-lit at 45 percent illuminated. Saturn’s disk, meanwhile, appears just 16” wide due to its greater distance from Earth, although its rings stretch nearly 37” across, bumping its overall size over that of Venus. Those rings are tilted some 3.4° toward us, with the northern side illuminated. 

Saturn’s largest and brightest moon, 8th-magnitude Titan, lies a little over 2.5’ east of the planet tonight. But there’s a rarer sight on display: Saturn’s moon Iapetus, now roughly 11th magnitude and about 1’ southwest of the planet. Tomorrow, Iapetus will be less than an arcminute due south of the ringed world, so make sure to come back and take a look then.  Sunrise: 7:18 A.M. Sunset: 5:04 P.M. Moonrise: 11:07 P.M. Moonset: 10:14 A.M. Moon Phase: Waning gibbous (69%)

[lonestarflight]

Apollo Program: Lunar Module (LM) production and names

The Grumman Aerospace Corporation was awarded the contract on November 7, 1962. Originally designated Lunar Excursion Module (LEM), NASA ordered 25 lunar modules (10 test articles and 15 production models) for testing and landing on the moon. This was to go with the 15 Saturn Vs and Apollo CSMs. They were assembled in Grumman's factory in Bethpage, New York.

"There were initially four major subcontractors: Bell Aerosystems (ascent engine), Hamilton Standard (environmental control systems), Marquardt (reaction control system) and Rocketdyne (descent engine).

The Primary Guidance, Navigation and Control System (PGNCS) was developed by the MIT Instrumentation Laboratory; the Apollo Guidance Computer was manufactured by Raytheon (a similar guidance system was used in the command module). A backup navigation tool, the Abort Guidance System (AGS), was developed by TRW."

-Information from Wikipedia: link

After the Gemini 3 spacecraft was dubbed Molly Brown by Gus Grissom, NASA forbade naming spacecraft. For Apollo 9, this changed due to mission controllers in Houston needing a way to differentiate between the two spacecraft.

Between 1969 and 1972, Grumman produced a series of insignias for their Lunar Modules which were distributed in limited quantities to their employees in the form of decals and prints.

Apollo 5 (LM-1): none

Apollo 3 (and later 2) (LM-2): Never used, intended for a mission similar to Apollo 5. The success of LM-1 led to the cancellation.

Apollo 9 (LM-3): Spider

Apollo 10 (LM-4): Snoopy. The LM ascent stage in heliocentric orbit and is the only known one to have survived intact

Apollo 11 (LM-5): Eagle (originally named haystack)

Apollo 12 (LM-6): Intrepid

Apollo 13 (LM-7): Aquarius

Humorously, Grumman sent North American (the manufacturer of the Apollo Command and Service Module) a tow bill sometime after the crew returned. North American retorted back saying they've never sent them a tow bill for the previous missions.

Apollo 14 (LM-8): Antares.

Apollo 15 (originally) (LM-9): never used, on display the Kennedy Space Center.

Intended for Apollo 15 and was the last H-type mission. When Apollo 18 was cancelled, it was decided to make Apollo 15 the first J-type mission.

Apollo 15 (LM-10): Falcon, originally intended for Apollo 16. First of the extended stay series.

Apollo 16 (LM-11): Orion, originally intended for Apollo 17

Apollo 17 (LM-12): Challenger, originally intended for Apollo 18.

Note: this name was reused for the second operational Space Shuttle Orbiter. After the Challenger Disaster, NASA officially retired the name.

Apollo 18 (LM-13): never used, originally intended for 19. It was partially completed when Apollo 18 and 19 were cancelled. Later restored by Grumman workers and is on display at the Cradle of Aviation History and Education Center.

Apollo 19 (LM-14): never used, originally intended for Apollo 20. It was partially completed when Apollo 18 and 19 were cancelled. What was completed, was later scrapped.

Apollo 20 (LM-15): never used, partially completed, scrapped. When Apollo 20 was cancelled, it was intended for modification into the Apollo Telescope Mount. Later the Telescope Mount was integrated into Skylab and this dedicated mission was cancelled.

source, source, source, source, source

NASA ID: MSFC-69-MS-G-1300-27, S67-50927, AS09-21-3183, AS10-34-5087, AS11-40-5946, AS12-46-6726, AS13-59-8566, AS14-66-9306, AS15-88-11866, AS16-113-18339, AS17-140-21370

[spacetimewithstuartgary]

Gemini North Captures Galactic Archipelago Entangled In a Web Of Dark Matter

One century after astronomers proved the existence of galaxies beyond the Milky Way, enormous galaxy clusters are offering clues to today’s cosmic questions

100 years ago Edwin Hubble discovered decisive evidence that other galaxies existed far beyond the Milky Way. This image, captured by the Gemini North telescope, one half of the International Gemini Observatory, features a portion of the enormous Perseus Cluster, showcasing its ‘island Universes’ in awe-inspiring detail. Observations of these objects continue to shed light not only on their individual characteristics, but also on cosmic mysteries such as dark matter.

Among the many views of the Universe that modern telescopes offer, some of the most breathtaking are images like this. Dotted with countless galaxies — each one of incomprehensible size — they make apparent the tremendous scale and richness of the cosmos. Taking center stage here, beguiling in its seeming simplicity, the elliptical galaxy NGC 1270 radiates an ethereal glow into the surrounding darkness. And although it may seem like an island adrift in the deep ocean of space, this object is part of something much larger than itself.

NGC 1270 is just one member of the Perseus Cluster, a group of thousands of galaxies that lies around 240 million light-years from Earth in the constellation Perseus. This image, taken with the Gemini Multi-Object Spectrograph (GMOS) on the Gemini North telescope, one half of the International Gemini Observatory — supported in part by the U.S. National Science Foundation and operated by NSF NOIRLab — captures a dazzling collection of galaxies in the central region of this enormous cluster.

Looking at such a diverse array, shown here in spectacular clarity, it’s astonishing to think that when NGC 1270 was first discovered in 1863 it was not widely accepted that other galaxies even existed. Many of the objects that are now known to be galaxies were initially described as nebulae, owing to their cloudy, amorphous appearance. The idea that they are entities of a similar size to our own Milky Way, or ‘island Universes’ as Immanuel Kant called them, was speculated on by several astronomers throughout history, but was not proven. Instead, many thought they were smaller objects on the outskirts of the Milky Way, which many believed to comprise most or all of the Universe.

The nature of these mysterious objects and the size of the Universe were the subjects of astronomy’s famous Great Debate, held in 1920 between astronomers Heber Curtis and Harlow Shapley. The debate remained unsettled until 1924 when Edwin Hubble, using the Hooker Telescope at Mount Wilson Observatory, observed stars within some of the nebulae to calculate how far they were from Earth. The results were decisive; they were far beyond the Milky Way. Astronomers’ notion of the cosmos underwent a dramatic shift, now populated with innumerable strange, far-off galaxies as large and complex as our own.

As imaging techniques have improved, piercing ever more deeply into space, astronomers have been able to look closer and closer at these ‘island Universes’ to deduce what they might be like. For instance, researchers have observed powerful electromagnetic energy emanating from the heart of NGC 1270, suggesting that it harbors a frantically feeding supermassive black hole. This characteristic is seen in around 10% of galaxies and is detectable via the presence of an accretion disk — an intense vortex of matter swirling around and gradually being devoured by the central black hole.

It’s not only the individual galaxies that astronomers are interested in; hints at many ongoing mysteries lie in their relationship to and interactions with one another. For example, the fact that huge groups like the Perseus Cluster exist at all points to the presence of the enigmatic substance we call dark matter [1]. If there were no such invisible, gravitationally interactive material, then astronomers believe galaxies would be spread more or less evenly across space rather than collecting into densely populated clusters. Current theories suggest that an invisible web of dark matter draws galaxies together at the intersections between its colossal tendrils, where its gravitational pull is strongest.

Although dark matter is invoked to explain observed cosmic structures, the nature of the substance itself remains elusive. As we look at images like this one, and consider the strides made in our understanding over the past century, we can sense a tantalizing hint of just how much more might be discovered in the decades to come. Perhaps hidden in images like this are clues to the next big breakthrough. How much more will we know about our Universe in another century?

Notes

[1] The discovery of dark matter in galaxies is in-part attributed to American astronomer Vera C. Rubin, who used the rotation of galaxies to infer the presence of an invisible, yet gravitationally interactive, material holding them together. She is also the name inspiration for NSF–DOE Vera C. Rubin Observatory, currently under construction in Chile, which will begin operations in 2025.

TOP IMAGE: NGC 1270 is just one member of the Perseus Cluster, a group of thousands of galaxies that lies around 240 million light-years from Earth in the constellation Perseus. This image, taken with the Gemini Multi-Object Spectrograph (GMOS) on the Gemini North telescope, one half of the International Gemini Observatory, which is supported in part by the U.S. National Science Foundation and operated by NSF NOIRLab, captures a dazzling collection of galaxies in the central region of this enormous cluster. Credit: International Gemini Observatory/NOIRLab/NSF/AURA/ Image Processing: J. Miller & M. Rodriguez (International Gemini Observatory/NSF NOIRLab), T.A. Rector (University of Alaska Anchorage/NSF NOIRLab), M. Zamani (NSF NOIRLab) Acknowledgements: PI: Jisu Kang (Seoul National University)

[netmassimo]

An article published in the journal "The Astrophysical Journal Letters" reports the discovery of the most distant pair of merging quasars known. A team of researchers combined observations from the Subaru Telescope with the Gemini North Telescope to find traces of this pair of quasars that we see as they were about 900 million years after the Big Bang.

[andromeda1023]

In this panorama, the Milky Way galaxy curves over the summit of Maunakea in Hawai‘i like an arched gateway to the cosmos. The 8.1-meter Gemini North, one half of the International Gemini Observatory, operated by NSF’s NOIRLab, is visible at the center of the image, and the 3.8-meter United Kingdom Infrared Telescope is to its right. From atop the long-dormant volcano, in the dry air of the Pacific, Gemini North and its neighboring telescopes are superbly located for infrared observations.

The infrared capabilities of Gemini North — and its twin telescope Gemini South in the southern hemisphere — allow astronomers to see through the cosmic dust that blocks visible light from stars and galaxies. They are also optimal for peering into the cold corners of the Universe. Gemini North has detected the potential first traces of the Universe’s earliest stars, confirmed the presence of an ultra-faint fossil galaxy, and detected two black holes within distant merging galaxies.

This photo was taken as part of the recent NOIRLab 2022 Photo Expedition to all the NOIRLab sites.Credit:

International Gemini Observatory/NOIRLab/NSF/AURA/T. Slovinský

[orallech]

Gemini North telescope super nova IMAGE

[rauthschild]

Are your eyes on the skies.... something is brewing

It's Black Mother Universe and her Black Alien Posse that looks like so-called African Americans, and Governments are Scared of Her.

Plausible Deniability.

Lots of people from all over the world, regardless if you're ass is White, Black, Brown and Yellow are going to be sent to the "Black Hole."

Astronomers Uncover Black Hole Closer to Earth Than Ever Before

Gemini North Telescope on Hawaii Reveals First Dormant, Stellar–Mass Black Hole

Astronomers have discovered the closest black hole to Earth, the first unambiguous detection of a dormant stellar-mass black hole in the Milky Way. Its close proximity to Earth, a mere 1,600 light-years away, offers an intriguing target of study to advance understanding of the evolution of binary systems.

[cavenewstimes]

Astronomers Measure Heaviest Pair of Supermassive Black Holes Ever Found

Astronomers using archival data from the Gemini North telescope have measured a binary supermassive black hole located within the elliptical galaxy B2 0402+379. An artist’s impression of a supermassive black hole binary in the elliptical galaxy B2 0402+379. Image credit: NOIRLab / NSF / AURA / J. daSilva / M. Zamani. The pair of compact objects in the center of B2 0402+379 is the only…

[spacenutspod]

The elliptical galaxy NGC 1270 lies about 240 million light-years away. But it’s not alone. It’s part of the Perseus Cluster (Abell 426), the brightest X-ray object in the sky and one of the most massive objects in the Universe. NGC 1270 plays a starring role in a new image from the Gemini North telescope. However, the image doesn’t show the dark matter that has a firm grip on the galaxy and the rest of the galaxies in the Perseus Cluster. Ancient astronomers would be astounded by what we’ve learned about the Universe. Even astronomers like Edwin Hubble from the 20th would be amazed at the power of our modern telescopes and what they’ve shown us. At that time, distant galaxies appeared fuzzy and were called nebulae. Even the nature of Andromeda, our closest galactic neighbour, was uncertain. In 1920, Hubble and others were debating whether Andromeda and other objects they were seeing were small objects in the Milky Way’s outer regions, nebulae, or other galaxies. German philosopher and Enlightenment thinker Immanuel Kant coined the term ‘island Universes’ to describe all these fuzzy objects, hinting at their true nature. The idea of other galaxies beyond our own dates back a long way, but there was no way to test it. Then, in 1924, Edwin Hubble ended the debate. He was able to show that individual stars in some of these so-called “nebulae” were actually far beyond the Milky Way. The discovery was decisive, and we now know that the Universe is populated by hundreds of billions or even trillions of other galaxies like our own Milky Way. Now, astronomers use powerful telescopes to examine other galaxies in great detail. They’ve even used the James Webb Space Telescope to peer back in time at the Universe’s earliest galaxies. Anyone can quickly examine hundreds of amazing images of other galaxies of all types. Enormous objects like the Perseus Cluster alert us to the presence of something even more mysterious and challenging to understand than the nature of galaxies. Something binds these individual galaxies together into a coherent group, and we call that dark matter. There’s a growing chorus of scientific voices suggesting we stop calling it dark matter and instead use the more accurate term invisible matter. But whatever we decide to call it, dark matter makes up most of the matter in the Universe and dwarfs the “normal” matter that interacts with light and makes up stars, planets, and us. As cosmology has progressed, scientists have mapped the universe’s large-scale structure. These maps show how galaxies and their groups are organized along filaments of dark matter that act as scaffolds. The Perseus Cluster is associated with the Perseus-Pegasus Filament, a long, thin structure of galaxies that stretches over a billion light-years. A computer model of the large-scale structure of the universe using the Illustris simulator. This image depicts the dark matter and gas involved in forming galaxies and galaxy clusters, as well as the filaments connecting them. Image Credit: Illustris TNG If there were no dark matter, scientists think that the Universe would be far more homogenous. The galaxies would be spread more evenly throughout space. But that’s not what we see, and NGC 1270 and the rest of the Perseus Cluster show it clearly. Currently, scientific theory suggests that a web of invisible dark matter draws galaxies together. They’re situated where dark matter’s massive tendrils intersect. That’s where its gravitational pull is strongest. In short, the Perseus Cluster and NGC 1270 wouldn’t be where they are and wouldn’t be grouped together without dark matter. The cluster, and all other groups, clusters, and super-clusters, are firmly in dark matter’s grip. American astronomer Vera Rubin played a huge role in our modern understanding of dark matter. She observed that stars and gas at a galaxy’s outer edge were moving much faster than predicted by the visible mass of the galaxy. Newtonian physics suggests they should be moving slower. Rubin and her colleagues thought that there must be a large amount of invisible matter beyond the visible edges of galaxies. Eventually, she figured out that there must be six times more dark matter than visible matter in galaxies. Rubin faced many obstacles in getting her results accepted. As a woman, she wasn’t part of the male-dominated world of 1970s astronomy. She was denied access to some facilities early in her career, which slowed her progress. Now, she’s given full credit and mentioned alongside Hubble and other influential figures in astronomy. One of the most powerful and unique observatories ever conceived is named after her. Regardless of what we call it and who discovered it, our Universe is dominated by something we don’t fully understand. It’s remarkable that scientists can map invisible matter by its inference alone, without knowing what it is. The most widely accepted understanding of dark matter is in the Lambda Cold Dark Matter (Lambda-CDM) model of cosmology, also called the Standard Model of Big Bang Cosmology. It successfully recreates many things that we observe in the Universe, including how galaxies form, how the Universe expands, and, of course, the large-scale structure of the Universe. But even Lambda-CDM can’t tell us what dark matter is. Most think it’s some type of particle, but if it is, it’s extremely elusive. That doesn’t stop us from seeing its effect when we observe objects like NGC 1270 and the Perseus Cluster. The post Dark Matter Has a Firm Grip on These Galaxies appeared first on Universe Today.

[icarusthelunarguard]

This Week’s Horrible-Scopes

It’s time for this week’s Horrible-Scopes! So for those of you that know your Astrological Signs, cool! If not, just pick one, roll a D12, or just make it up as you go along. It really doesn’t matter. Better yet! Check out “Heart of the Game, Fredonia” and see if they can sell you those D12’s with the symbols on them. Tell them “Shujin Tribble” sentcha. And “Hail, Hail, Fredonia!” Home of the Blue Devil!

Now that the clocks have all switched back to what we’d like to call “CORRECT TIMES”, let’s give you all some Night-Themed ‘Scopes. And yes, there was a suggestion for a theme this week… but that’s requiring more research than we had time for. Don’t worry, we’re getting to it.

Aries 

At 5pm local time, face the west coast of North America and say “Goodnight” to Hollywood. Not just because of the Billy Joel song of the same name, but because that’s where the Sun goes to die every day. Sure, sure, people in Hawai’i CLAIM to see the Sun long after it’s gone down for us all over on the mainland, but come on. Who you gunna believe? Us or people who say they live on an island where the weather’s always perfect? This Week… Trust Nobody! Not… Even… Us.

Taurus 

One of the best parts of this season is the cold wintery nights. Get yourself some hot chocolate, a warm blanket, a comfortable beach chair, and some good quality binoculars. Looking up at the night sky is so much better now when there’s so little atmospheric turbulence getting in the way. This Week… Imagine what it was like for Galileo, looking up at the moons of Jupiter for the first time… and his telescopes were NOTHING compared to what you can use today for under $100!  

Gemini  

You need to get out more, and what better time than now? It’s still cold at night to wake you up before you drive home, and there’s less snow on the ground than there will be soon. This Week… get your Lyft and Uber accounts setup and pre-paid so you can get sloshed in public like you promised God you’d never do again.

Cancer Moon-Child 

When was the last time you got to the Opthomologists? We’re guessing it’s been a while. Now’s the time, since your astigmatism is going to be getting worse. No, that headlight streaking you see isn’t from your windshield wipers, it’s your cornea. This Week… send your parents the bill for the corrective lenses you’ll need. It’s ultimately a genetic issue and they’re the cause. Hold Them Accountable!

Leo 

Your search for The Ultimate Truth is going to bring you into a disastrous realization… that you’re the LAST person alien civilizations should make first contact with. Not that you’re a bad person, but that your scope of mathematics, geometry, and chemistry knowledge are… and let’s be generous here… “Lacking”. This Week… Learn how to make a Three Dimensional Object with only TWO PHYSICAL SIDES!

Virgo 

You need to combat your seasonal depression any way you can. Changing your diet will only go so far, so here’s an idea for you; change your visual stimulus! Step one - wear sunglasses with yellow lenses to brighten up everything. Second, listen to soothing sounds - like the water lapping at the beach as seagulls wheel overhead. And third This Week… Go out and buy Simulated Sunlight Light Bulbs. Or just get the remote-controlled colour-changing LED light bulbs. And find the right temperature setting that helps you. 

Libra 

Get your snow tires out NOW! You need to get your oil changed, so you might as well trade out the tires while you’re at it. And before you say it’s too early, remember how you ended up going down the highway sideways because you hit that black ice and a gust of wind? This Week… double-check you have the tires on the correct way. Remember, they have arrows on the sidewalls to remind you which way they’re supposed to spin. 

Scorpio 

Two words for you this week: Smooth Jazz. Turn down the lights, sip some liquor, and enjoy some Dave Brubeck or Nat “King” Cole in your ears. It’ll be a great way to relax after the week ahead. This Week… Well… we just told you. Liquor, assuming you know her. If not, do some poker.

Sagittarius 

You want to do some photography, right? How about something sorta complicated, requiring you to do some math? If you hook up your digital SLR camera to your computer you can setup time-lapse photos through your window at the sky. But you’ll need to do the math to see how long you want the final video to be, how many frames per second, how many photos per minute to take… So This Week… check how much hard drive space you have left. And empty your Fax Directory. We all know you don’t have any Faxes stored there.

Capricorn 

With Autumn here it’s time to enjoy fresh-pressed apple cider. Yes you could do it yourself, but it’s more fun to go out to an orchard and watch them smash bushels of apples and run them through a hydraulic press. If you want to do it at home you’ll need about 6 apples, a decent knife, a lot of cheese cloth… and something to press-out the juices. This Week… Buy a gallon at the store and watch some Hydraulic Press videos on YouTube instead. You’ll be amazed at how much pressure LEGOs can take

Aquarius 

You get to enjoy the season best. There are all kinds of stories or videos to keep you entertained through the early night. Let’s start off with the Pet-Themed “You Laugh You Lose” playlists. Find the video where a woman makes snow angels and her horse joins her on the ground to do it too, and follow that rabbit hole down until you can't stop smiling. This Week… Enjoy yourself! You earned it!

Pisces  

Paranoia is your friend this week. Christmas is closing in on you faster than you know. If you don’t get all the things you need you’ll never get your Santa Clause Capture Machine built, tested, and deployed in time. And remember - you DON’T need a building variance for it if you keep it inside your house this time. This Week… watch “The Nightmare Before Christmas” for ideas on how to catch Sandy Claws.

And THOSE are your Horrible-Scopes for this week! Remember if you liked what you got, we’re obviously not working hard enough at these. BUT! If you want a better or nastier one for your own sign or someone else’s, all you need to do to bribe me is just Let Me Know! These will be posted online at the end of each week via Tumblr, Twitter, Facebook, Discord and BLUESKY.

[merelygifted]

Hackers attack 2 of the world's most advanced telescopes, forcing shutdown | Live Science

Some of the world's leading astronomical observatories have reported cyberattacks that have resulted in temporary shutdowns.

The National Science Foundation's National Optical-Infrared Astronomy Research Laboratory, or NOIRLab, reported that a cybersecurity incident that occurred on Aug. 1 has prompted the lab to temporarily halt operations at its Gemini North Telescope in Hawaii and Gemini South Telescope in Chile. Other, smaller telescopes on Cerro Tololo in Chile were also affected.

"Our staff are working with cybersecurity experts to get all the impacted telescopes and our website back online as soon as possible and are encouraged by the progress made thus far," NOIRLab wrote in a statement on its website on Aug. 24.  ...

[ravnlghtft]