When a star strays too close to a black hole, intense tides break it apart into a stream of gas. The tail of the stream escapes the system, while the rest of it swings back around, surrounding the black hole with a disk of debris. This video includes images of a tidal disruption event called ASASSN-19bt taken by NASA’s Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS) and Swift missions, as well as an animation showing how the event unfolded.
Earlier this year, NASA’s TESS spacecraft watched a black hole tear apart a star from start to finish, a cataclysmic phenomenon called a tidal disruption event. On September 26, 2019, NASA released this video of the event.
The blast, named ASASSN-19bt, was found on January 29, 2019 by the All-Sky Automated Survey for Supernovae, a worldwide network of 20 robotic telescopes. The disruption occurred in TESS’s continuous viewing zone, which is always in sight of one of the satellite’s four cameras. This allowed astronomers to view the explosion from beginning to end.
Thomas Holoien, of the Carnegie Observatories is lead author of a paper describing the findings, published in September 27, 2019 in The Astrophysical Journal. Holoien said in a statement:
TESS data let us see exactly when this destructive event, named ASASSN-19bt, started to get brighter, which we’ve never been able to do before. Because we identified the tidal disruption quickly with the ground-based All-Sky Automated Survey for Supernovae (ASAS-SN), we were able to trigger multiwavelength follow-up observations in the first few days. The early data will be incredibly helpful for modeling the physics of these outbursts.
Astronomers think the supermassive black hole that generated ASASSN-19bt weighs around 6 million times the sun’s mass. According to a NASA statement:
TESS monitors large swaths of the sky, called sectors, for 27 days at a time. This lengthy view allows TESS to observe transits, periodic dips in a star’s brightness that may indicate orbiting planets.
Bottom line: TESS watched a black hole tear apart a star from start to finish, a cataclysmic phenomenon called a tidal disruption event. Watch a video.
When a star strays too close to a black hole, intense tides break it apart into a stream of gas. The tail of the stream escapes the system, while the rest of it swings back around, surrounding the black hole with a disk of debris. This video includes images of a tidal disruption event called ASASSN-19bt taken by NASA’s Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS) and Swift missions, as well as an animation showing how the event unfolded.
Earlier this year, NASA’s TESS spacecraft watched a black hole tear apart a star from start to finish, a cataclysmic phenomenon called a tidal disruption event. On September 26, 2019, NASA released this video of the event.
The blast, named ASASSN-19bt, was found on January 29, 2019 by the All-Sky Automated Survey for Supernovae, a worldwide network of 20 robotic telescopes. The disruption occurred in TESS’s continuous viewing zone, which is always in sight of one of the satellite’s four cameras. This allowed astronomers to view the explosion from beginning to end.
Thomas Holoien, of the Carnegie Observatories is lead author of a paper describing the findings, published in September 27, 2019 in The Astrophysical Journal. Holoien said in a statement:
TESS data let us see exactly when this destructive event, named ASASSN-19bt, started to get brighter, which we’ve never been able to do before. Because we identified the tidal disruption quickly with the ground-based All-Sky Automated Survey for Supernovae (ASAS-SN), we were able to trigger multiwavelength follow-up observations in the first few days. The early data will be incredibly helpful for modeling the physics of these outbursts.
Astronomers think the supermassive black hole that generated ASASSN-19bt weighs around 6 million times the sun’s mass. According to a NASA statement:
TESS monitors large swaths of the sky, called sectors, for 27 days at a time. This lengthy view allows TESS to observe transits, periodic dips in a star’s brightness that may indicate orbiting planets.
Bottom line: TESS watched a black hole tear apart a star from start to finish, a cataclysmic phenomenon called a tidal disruption event. Watch a video.
Within just 50 light-years from Earth, there are about 1,560 stars, likely orbited by several thousand planets. About a thousand of these extrasolar planets – known as exoplanets – may be rocky and have a composition similar to Earth’s. Some may even harbor life. Over 99% of these alien worlds remain undiscovered — but this is about to change.
With NASA’s new exoplanet-hunter space telescope TESS, the all-sky search is on for possibly habitable planets close to our solar system. TESS — orbiting Earth every 13.7 days — and ground-based telescopes are poised to find hundreds of planets over the next few years. This could transform astronomers’ understanding of alien worlds around us and provide targets to scan with next-generation telescopes for signatures of life. In just over a year, TESS has identified more than 1,200 planetary candidates, 29 of which astronomers have already confirmed as planets. Given TESS’s unique ability to simultaneously search tens of thousands of stars for planets, the mission is expected to yield over 10,000 new worlds.
This artist’s impression shows a view of the planet Proxima b orbiting the red dwarf star Proxima Centauri, the closest star to the solar system. Image via NASA/ESO/M. Kornmesser.
These are exciting times for astronomers and, especially, for those of us exploring exoplanets. Weare members of the planet-hunting Project EDEN, which also supports TESS’s work. We use telescopes on the ground and in space to find exoplanets to understand their properties and potential for harboring life.
Undiscovered worlds all around us
Worlds around us await discovery. Take, for example, Proxima Centauri, an unassuming, faint red star, invisible without a telescope. It is one of over a hundred billion or so such stars within our galaxy, unremarkable except for its status as our next-door neighbor. Orbiting Proxima is a fascinating but mysterious world, called Proxmia b, discovered only in 2016.
And that is what makes this planet so exciting: It lies in the “habitable” zone and just might have properties similar to Earth’s, like a surface, liquid water, and — who knows? — maybe even an atmosphere bearing the telltale chemical signs of life.
NASA’s TESS mission launched in April 2018 to hunt for other broadly Earth-sized planets, but with a different method. TESS is looking for rare dimming events that happen when planets pass in front of their host stars, blocking some starlight. These transit events indicate not only the presence of the planets, but also their sizes and orbits.
Finding a new transiting exoplanet is a big deal for astronomers like us because, unlike those found through stellar wobbles, worlds seen transiting can be studied further to determine their densities and atmospheric compositions.
By measuring the depth of the dip in brightness and knowing the size of the star, scientists can determine the size or radius of the planet. Image via NASA Ames.
Red dwarf suns
For us, the most exciting exoplanets are the smallest ones, which TESS can detect when they orbit small stars called red dwarfs – stars with masses less than half the mass of our sun.
Each of these systems is unique. For example, LP 791-18 is a red dwarf star 86 light-years from Earth around which TESS found two worlds. The first is a “super-Earth,” a planet larger than Earth but probably still mostly rocky, and the second is a “mini-Neptune,” a planet smaller than Neptune but gas- and ice-rich. Neither of these planets have counterparts in our solar system.
Among astronomers’ current favorites of the new broadly Earth-sized planets is LHS 3884b, a scorching “hot Earth” that orbits its sun so quickly that on it you could celebrate your birthday every 11 hours.
Artist’s concept of an exoplanet transiting a red dwarf star. Image via ESO/L. Calçada.
No Earth-like worlds yet
But how Earth-like are Earth-sized planets? The promise of finding nearby worlds for detailed studies is already paying off. A team of astronomers observed the hot super-Earth LHS 3884b with the Hubble Space Telescope and found the planet to be a horrible vacation spot, without even an atmosphere. It is just a bare rock with temperatures ranging from over 700 C (1300 Fahrenheit) at noon to near absolute zero (-460 Fahrenheit) at midnight.
The TESS mission was initially funded for two years. But the spacecraft is in excellent shape and NASA recently extended the mission through 2022, doubling the time TESS will have to scan nearby, bright stars for transits.
However, finding exoplanets around the coolest stars — those with temperatures less than about 2,700 C (4,900 F) — will still be a challenge due to their extreme faintness. Since ultracool dwarfs provide our best opportunity to find and study exoplanets with sizes and temperatures similar to Earth’s, other focused planet searches are picking up where TESS leaves off.
Illustration of TESS, NASA’s Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite. Image via NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center
It also demonstrated how small telescopes — relative to the powerful behemoths of our age — can still make transformational discoveries. With patience and persistence, the TRAPPIST telescope scanned nearby faint, red dwarf stars from its high-mountain perch in the Atacama desert for small, telltale dips in their brightnesses. Eventually, it spotted transits in the data for the red dwarf TRAPPIST-1, which — although just 41 light-years away — is too faint for TESS’s four 10-cm (4-inch) diameter lenses. Its Earth-sized worlds would have remained undiscovered had the TRAPPIST team’s larger telescope not found them.
Two projects have upped up the game in the search for exo-Earth candidates around nearby red dwarfs. The SPECULOOS team installed four robotic telescopes – also in the Atacama desert – and one in the Northern Hemisphere. Our Exoearth Discovery and Exploration Network – Project EDEN – uses nine telescopes in Arizona, Italy, Spain and Taiwan to observe red dwarf stars continuously.
The SPECULOOS and EDEN telescopes are much larger than TESS’s small lenses and can find planets around stars too faint for TESS to study, including some of the transiting Earth-sized planets closest to us.
Artist’s concept of the TRAPPIST-1 planetary system, based on available data about the planets’ diameters, masses and distances from the host star. Image via NASA/JPL-Caltech.
The decade of new worlds
The next decade is likely to be remembered as the time when we opened our eyes to the incredible diversity of other worlds. TESS is likely to find between 10,000 and 15,000 exoplanet candidates by 2025. By 2030, the European Space Agency’s GAIA and PLATO missions are expected to find another 20,000-35,000 planets. GAIA will look for stellar wobbles introduced by planets, while PLATO will search for planetary transits as TESS does.
However, even among the thousands of planets that will soon be found, the exoplanets closest to our solar system will remain special. Many of these worlds can be studied in great detail – including the search for signs of life. Discoveries of the nearest worlds also represent major steps in humanity’s progress in exploring the universe we live in. After mapping our own planet and then the solar system, we now turn to nearby planetary systems. Perhaps one day Proxima b or another nearby world astronomers have yet to find will be the target for interstellar probes, like Project Starshot, or even crewed starships. But first we’ve got to put these worlds on the map.
Within just 50 light-years from Earth, there are about 1,560 stars, likely orbited by several thousand planets. About a thousand of these extrasolar planets – known as exoplanets – may be rocky and have a composition similar to Earth’s. Some may even harbor life. Over 99% of these alien worlds remain undiscovered — but this is about to change.
With NASA’s new exoplanet-hunter space telescope TESS, the all-sky search is on for possibly habitable planets close to our solar system. TESS — orbiting Earth every 13.7 days — and ground-based telescopes are poised to find hundreds of planets over the next few years. This could transform astronomers’ understanding of alien worlds around us and provide targets to scan with next-generation telescopes for signatures of life. In just over a year, TESS has identified more than 1,200 planetary candidates, 29 of which astronomers have already confirmed as planets. Given TESS’s unique ability to simultaneously search tens of thousands of stars for planets, the mission is expected to yield over 10,000 new worlds.
This artist’s impression shows a view of the planet Proxima b orbiting the red dwarf star Proxima Centauri, the closest star to the solar system. Image via NASA/ESO/M. Kornmesser.
These are exciting times for astronomers and, especially, for those of us exploring exoplanets. Weare members of the planet-hunting Project EDEN, which also supports TESS’s work. We use telescopes on the ground and in space to find exoplanets to understand their properties and potential for harboring life.
Undiscovered worlds all around us
Worlds around us await discovery. Take, for example, Proxima Centauri, an unassuming, faint red star, invisible without a telescope. It is one of over a hundred billion or so such stars within our galaxy, unremarkable except for its status as our next-door neighbor. Orbiting Proxima is a fascinating but mysterious world, called Proxmia b, discovered only in 2016.
And that is what makes this planet so exciting: It lies in the “habitable” zone and just might have properties similar to Earth’s, like a surface, liquid water, and — who knows? — maybe even an atmosphere bearing the telltale chemical signs of life.
NASA’s TESS mission launched in April 2018 to hunt for other broadly Earth-sized planets, but with a different method. TESS is looking for rare dimming events that happen when planets pass in front of their host stars, blocking some starlight. These transit events indicate not only the presence of the planets, but also their sizes and orbits.
Finding a new transiting exoplanet is a big deal for astronomers like us because, unlike those found through stellar wobbles, worlds seen transiting can be studied further to determine their densities and atmospheric compositions.
By measuring the depth of the dip in brightness and knowing the size of the star, scientists can determine the size or radius of the planet. Image via NASA Ames.
Red dwarf suns
For us, the most exciting exoplanets are the smallest ones, which TESS can detect when they orbit small stars called red dwarfs – stars with masses less than half the mass of our sun.
Each of these systems is unique. For example, LP 791-18 is a red dwarf star 86 light-years from Earth around which TESS found two worlds. The first is a “super-Earth,” a planet larger than Earth but probably still mostly rocky, and the second is a “mini-Neptune,” a planet smaller than Neptune but gas- and ice-rich. Neither of these planets have counterparts in our solar system.
Among astronomers’ current favorites of the new broadly Earth-sized planets is LHS 3884b, a scorching “hot Earth” that orbits its sun so quickly that on it you could celebrate your birthday every 11 hours.
Artist’s concept of an exoplanet transiting a red dwarf star. Image via ESO/L. Calçada.
No Earth-like worlds yet
But how Earth-like are Earth-sized planets? The promise of finding nearby worlds for detailed studies is already paying off. A team of astronomers observed the hot super-Earth LHS 3884b with the Hubble Space Telescope and found the planet to be a horrible vacation spot, without even an atmosphere. It is just a bare rock with temperatures ranging from over 700 C (1300 Fahrenheit) at noon to near absolute zero (-460 Fahrenheit) at midnight.
The TESS mission was initially funded for two years. But the spacecraft is in excellent shape and NASA recently extended the mission through 2022, doubling the time TESS will have to scan nearby, bright stars for transits.
However, finding exoplanets around the coolest stars — those with temperatures less than about 2,700 C (4,900 F) — will still be a challenge due to their extreme faintness. Since ultracool dwarfs provide our best opportunity to find and study exoplanets with sizes and temperatures similar to Earth’s, other focused planet searches are picking up where TESS leaves off.
Illustration of TESS, NASA’s Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite. Image via NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center
It also demonstrated how small telescopes — relative to the powerful behemoths of our age — can still make transformational discoveries. With patience and persistence, the TRAPPIST telescope scanned nearby faint, red dwarf stars from its high-mountain perch in the Atacama desert for small, telltale dips in their brightnesses. Eventually, it spotted transits in the data for the red dwarf TRAPPIST-1, which — although just 41 light-years away — is too faint for TESS’s four 10-cm (4-inch) diameter lenses. Its Earth-sized worlds would have remained undiscovered had the TRAPPIST team’s larger telescope not found them.
Two projects have upped up the game in the search for exo-Earth candidates around nearby red dwarfs. The SPECULOOS team installed four robotic telescopes – also in the Atacama desert – and one in the Northern Hemisphere. Our Exoearth Discovery and Exploration Network – Project EDEN – uses nine telescopes in Arizona, Italy, Spain and Taiwan to observe red dwarf stars continuously.
The SPECULOOS and EDEN telescopes are much larger than TESS’s small lenses and can find planets around stars too faint for TESS to study, including some of the transiting Earth-sized planets closest to us.
Artist’s concept of the TRAPPIST-1 planetary system, based on available data about the planets’ diameters, masses and distances from the host star. Image via NASA/JPL-Caltech.
The decade of new worlds
The next decade is likely to be remembered as the time when we opened our eyes to the incredible diversity of other worlds. TESS is likely to find between 10,000 and 15,000 exoplanet candidates by 2025. By 2030, the European Space Agency’s GAIA and PLATO missions are expected to find another 20,000-35,000 planets. GAIA will look for stellar wobbles introduced by planets, while PLATO will search for planetary transits as TESS does.
However, even among the thousands of planets that will soon be found, the exoplanets closest to our solar system will remain special. Many of these worlds can be studied in great detail – including the search for signs of life. Discoveries of the nearest worlds also represent major steps in humanity’s progress in exploring the universe we live in. After mapping our own planet and then the solar system, we now turn to nearby planetary systems. Perhaps one day Proxima b or another nearby world astronomers have yet to find will be the target for interstellar probes, like Project Starshot, or even crewed starships. But first we’ve got to put these worlds on the map.
It’s already been a busy year for politics. But with six weeks of campaigning before the General Election on 12th December, the noise from political parties is only set to increase. And the NHS and health are becoming key areas of debate.
To help sort the hard facts from the political point-scoring, we’ll be keeping an eye out for any claims about cancer. We’ve started by looking through last week’s Prime Minister’s Questions.
Are more people waiting longer for urgent cancer treatment?
One claim you may have heard is that the number of people waiting longer for urgent cancer treatment has tripled over the past 9 years.
Let’s start with what it means to ‘wait longer’. If a GP suspects someone has cancer and urgently refers them to a specialist, the NHS aims to make sure they see that specialist within two weeks and, if needed, begin treatment within 62 days.
Over the past 9 years, the number of people in England who have waited longer than 62 days hasn’t quite tripled, but it has gone up: from around 13,400 people in 2009-2010 to around 34,200 people in 2018-19.
But, the number of people who did start treatment within 62 days has also gone up. Around 84,200 people in 2009-2010 were treated within the timeframe, which went up to around 130,000 people in 2018-19.
The rise in both numbers is because more people are being referred by their GPs. And that’s why it’s more useful to look at the proportion of people who’ve been treated on time, which has fallen from about 86% in 2009-10, to about 79% in 2018-19.
This shows that the NHS can’t keep up with rising demand, and this is partly because it doesn’t have enough staff to diagnose and treat cancer.
Are survival rates improving in England?
The short answer is that, on the whole, survival rates have been improving. In England and Wales, the number of people who survive their cancer for one, five and 10 years has been going up since the early 1970s.
But while the figures are moving in the right direction, it’s important to put them into context. We recently published analysis showing that overall, UK cancer survival still lags behind comparable countries like Australia, Canada, and Ireland, with late diagnosis being a key reason.
Does waiting longer affect how likely someone is to survive their cancer?
It’s been said that the longer people wait, the less chance they have of surviving their cancer.
It’s hard to say that waiting longer always means a lower chance of survival, because there are so many factors involved. What kind of cancer someone has, or how well their cancer responds to treatment are just two things that affect whether waiting longer lowers someone’s chance of survival.
That said, we know that being diagnosed and treated early gives people the best possible chance of survival, and in that sense the claim is spot on. Late diagnosis in the UK is a major reason we fall behind comparable countries for cancer survival – around 115,000 people in England are diagnosed at a late stage each year.
Are Wales missing cancer treatment waiting time targets?
Another claim to come out of Prime Minister’s Questions was that the cancer treatment waiting time in Wales has not been met since June 2008.
Until recently, Wales has missed the target of having 95% of patients start treatment within 62 days of urgent referral for cancer since around November 2008, with the exception of a few months in 2010. Currently only around 80% of patients in Wales are starting treatment within 62 days of their urgent referral.
But, to add some context, none of the UK nations are meeting their respective waiting time targets at the minute.
And Wales has just introduced new, single cancer waiting time for all patients, which says all patients should start treatment within 62 days of the first suspicion of cancer. It hasn’t set a figure for this target yet, but it’s the first UK nation to try this approach and others will be watching with interest to see if it has an impact.
Do we have more or fewer nurses and doctors in the NHS?
Lots of NHS staff numbers get thrown around and it can be confusing. A few recent claims include:
There are 17,300 more doctors and over 17,000 more nurses on wards since 2010
GP numbers are falling and there is a 43,000-nurse shortage in the NHS
It’s hard to say if these exact numbers are correct – though similar figures are quoted by the Nuffield Trust and the NHS. The important point is the overall situation: staff numbers are up in some professions, but there still aren’t enough staff to meet demand.
A lot of this is because our population is ageing and demand on the NHS is rising.
How much funding is the NHS really getting?
Context is key when it comes to NHS figures, perfectly demonstrated by the following two claims, which at first seem contradictory:
‘This Government are investing £34 billion in the NHS.’
‘The NHS has suffered the longest spending squeeze ever in its history.’
First, where has the £34 billion figure come from? The NHS long-term plan was announced in 2018, committing to £20.5 billion of investment for NHS England by 2024. And Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland will get about £14 billion between them to mirror the increase in funding in England. All in all, that’s about £34 billion.
That said, NHS funding has been rising at a slower rate than ever before. Before 2010, NHS funding went up every year by about 3.4%. But since 2010, it’s only gone up by about 1.5% a year.
When it comes to cancer, it’s crucial the NHS has what it needs to diagnose and treat cancer early – from a full-strength workforce to top-quality equipment. The ambition in the NHS long-term plan to diagnose more cancer is fantastic, but it won’t be possible unless we have enough staff.
Joseph Ewing is a public affairs officer at Cancer Research UK
Want more facts? Have a read of our recent report ‘Cancer in the UK – 2019’, which gives an overview of prevention, early Diagnosis, treatment, data and research across the nation.
from Cancer Research UK – Science blog https://ift.tt/2NLt1hJ
It’s already been a busy year for politics. But with six weeks of campaigning before the General Election on 12th December, the noise from political parties is only set to increase. And the NHS and health are becoming key areas of debate.
To help sort the hard facts from the political point-scoring, we’ll be keeping an eye out for any claims about cancer. We’ve started by looking through last week’s Prime Minister’s Questions.
Are more people waiting longer for urgent cancer treatment?
One claim you may have heard is that the number of people waiting longer for urgent cancer treatment has tripled over the past 9 years.
Let’s start with what it means to ‘wait longer’. If a GP suspects someone has cancer and urgently refers them to a specialist, the NHS aims to make sure they see that specialist within two weeks and, if needed, begin treatment within 62 days.
Over the past 9 years, the number of people in England who have waited longer than 62 days hasn’t quite tripled, but it has gone up: from around 13,400 people in 2009-2010 to around 34,200 people in 2018-19.
But, the number of people who did start treatment within 62 days has also gone up. Around 84,200 people in 2009-2010 were treated within the timeframe, which went up to around 130,000 people in 2018-19.
The rise in both numbers is because more people are being referred by their GPs. And that’s why it’s more useful to look at the proportion of people who’ve been treated on time, which has fallen from about 86% in 2009-10, to about 79% in 2018-19.
This shows that the NHS can’t keep up with rising demand, and this is partly because it doesn’t have enough staff to diagnose and treat cancer.
Are survival rates improving in England?
The short answer is that, on the whole, survival rates have been improving. In England and Wales, the number of people who survive their cancer for one, five and 10 years has been going up since the early 1970s.
But while the figures are moving in the right direction, it’s important to put them into context. We recently published analysis showing that overall, UK cancer survival still lags behind comparable countries like Australia, Canada, and Ireland, with late diagnosis being a key reason.
Does waiting longer affect how likely someone is to survive their cancer?
It’s been said that the longer people wait, the less chance they have of surviving their cancer.
It’s hard to say that waiting longer always means a lower chance of survival, because there are so many factors involved. What kind of cancer someone has, or how well their cancer responds to treatment are just two things that affect whether waiting longer lowers someone’s chance of survival.
That said, we know that being diagnosed and treated early gives people the best possible chance of survival, and in that sense the claim is spot on. Late diagnosis in the UK is a major reason we fall behind comparable countries for cancer survival – around 115,000 people in England are diagnosed at a late stage each year.
Are Wales missing cancer treatment waiting time targets?
Another claim to come out of Prime Minister’s Questions was that the cancer treatment waiting time in Wales has not been met since June 2008.
Until recently, Wales has missed the target of having 95% of patients start treatment within 62 days of urgent referral for cancer since around November 2008, with the exception of a few months in 2010. Currently only around 80% of patients in Wales are starting treatment within 62 days of their urgent referral.
But, to add some context, none of the UK nations are meeting their respective waiting time targets at the minute.
And Wales has just introduced new, single cancer waiting time for all patients, which says all patients should start treatment within 62 days of the first suspicion of cancer. It hasn’t set a figure for this target yet, but it’s the first UK nation to try this approach and others will be watching with interest to see if it has an impact.
Do we have more or fewer nurses and doctors in the NHS?
Lots of NHS staff numbers get thrown around and it can be confusing. A few recent claims include:
There are 17,300 more doctors and over 17,000 more nurses on wards since 2010
GP numbers are falling and there is a 43,000-nurse shortage in the NHS
It’s hard to say if these exact numbers are correct – though similar figures are quoted by the Nuffield Trust and the NHS. The important point is the overall situation: staff numbers are up in some professions, but there still aren’t enough staff to meet demand.
A lot of this is because our population is ageing and demand on the NHS is rising.
How much funding is the NHS really getting?
Context is key when it comes to NHS figures, perfectly demonstrated by the following two claims, which at first seem contradictory:
‘This Government are investing £34 billion in the NHS.’
‘The NHS has suffered the longest spending squeeze ever in its history.’
First, where has the £34 billion figure come from? The NHS long-term plan was announced in 2018, committing to £20.5 billion of investment for NHS England by 2024. And Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland will get about £14 billion between them to mirror the increase in funding in England. All in all, that’s about £34 billion.
That said, NHS funding has been rising at a slower rate than ever before. Before 2010, NHS funding went up every year by about 3.4%. But since 2010, it’s only gone up by about 1.5% a year.
When it comes to cancer, it’s crucial the NHS has what it needs to diagnose and treat cancer early – from a full-strength workforce to top-quality equipment. The ambition in the NHS long-term plan to diagnose more cancer is fantastic, but it won’t be possible unless we have enough staff.
Joseph Ewing is a public affairs officer at Cancer Research UK
Want more facts? Have a read of our recent report ‘Cancer in the UK – 2019’, which gives an overview of prevention, early Diagnosis, treatment, data and research across the nation.
from Cancer Research UK – Science blog https://ift.tt/2NLt1hJ
NASA released this new mosaic from its planet-hunting Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS) on November 5, 2019. It’s a gorgeous mosaic of the southern sky, consisting of 208 TESS images acquired during the mission’s first year of science operations, which was completed on July 18, 2019. NASA said in a statement:
Within this scene, TESS has discovered 29 exoplanets, or worlds beyond our solar system, and more than 1,000 candidate planets astronomers are now investigating.
Ethan Kruse of NASA, who assembled the mosaic at the Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, added:
Analysis of TESS data focuses on individual stars and planets one at a time, but I wanted to step back and highlight everything at once, really emphasizing the spectacular view TESS gives us of the entire sky.
View larger. | A new mosaic of the southern sky via NASA’s TESS planet-hunter. You can see the glowing band of the Milky Way (left), the Orion Nebula (top), and the Large Magellanic Cloud (center). The prominent dark lines are gaps between the detectors in TESS’s camera system. Image via NASA/ MIT/ TESS/ Ethan Kruse (USRA).
NASA explained:
TESS divided the southern sky into 13 sectors and imaged each one of them for nearly a month using four cameras. The TESS cameras capture a full sector of the sky every 30 minutes as part of its search for exoplanet transits. Transits occur when a planet passes in front of its host star from our perspective, briefly and regularly dimming its light.
During TESS’s first year of operations, each of its CCDs captured 15,347 30-minute science images. These images are just a part of more than 20 terabytes of southern sky data TESS has returned, comparable to streaming nearly 6,000 high-definition movies.
In addition to its planet discoveries, TESS has imaged a comet in our solar system, followed the progress of numerous stellar explosions called supernovae, and even caught the flare from a star ripped apart by a supermassive black hole.
After completing its southern survey, TESS turned north to begin a year-long study of the northern sky.
Bottom line: A new mosaic of the southern sky, from NASA’s TESS planet-hunter.
NASA released this new mosaic from its planet-hunting Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS) on November 5, 2019. It’s a gorgeous mosaic of the southern sky, consisting of 208 TESS images acquired during the mission’s first year of science operations, which was completed on July 18, 2019. NASA said in a statement:
Within this scene, TESS has discovered 29 exoplanets, or worlds beyond our solar system, and more than 1,000 candidate planets astronomers are now investigating.
Ethan Kruse of NASA, who assembled the mosaic at the Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, added:
Analysis of TESS data focuses on individual stars and planets one at a time, but I wanted to step back and highlight everything at once, really emphasizing the spectacular view TESS gives us of the entire sky.
View larger. | A new mosaic of the southern sky via NASA’s TESS planet-hunter. You can see the glowing band of the Milky Way (left), the Orion Nebula (top), and the Large Magellanic Cloud (center). The prominent dark lines are gaps between the detectors in TESS’s camera system. Image via NASA/ MIT/ TESS/ Ethan Kruse (USRA).
NASA explained:
TESS divided the southern sky into 13 sectors and imaged each one of them for nearly a month using four cameras. The TESS cameras capture a full sector of the sky every 30 minutes as part of its search for exoplanet transits. Transits occur when a planet passes in front of its host star from our perspective, briefly and regularly dimming its light.
During TESS’s first year of operations, each of its CCDs captured 15,347 30-minute science images. These images are just a part of more than 20 terabytes of southern sky data TESS has returned, comparable to streaming nearly 6,000 high-definition movies.
In addition to its planet discoveries, TESS has imaged a comet in our solar system, followed the progress of numerous stellar explosions called supernovae, and even caught the flare from a star ripped apart by a supermassive black hole.
After completing its southern survey, TESS turned north to begin a year-long study of the northern sky.
Bottom line: A new mosaic of the southern sky, from NASA’s TESS planet-hunter.
Tonight, or any clear November evening, try using the Great Square of Pegasus to star-hop your way to a view out our galaxy’s south window. In other words, you’ll be looking away from the flat plane of our Milky Way – where most of our galaxy’s stars reside – and toward intergalactic space. You can do this no matter what part of Earth you’re standing on.
From the Northern Hemisphere: The Great Square of Pegasus appears high in the south to overhead by around 9 p.m. local time in early November, 8 p.m. local time in mid-November and 7 p.m. local time in late November. This large asterism really does look like a large square pattern, with four medium-bright stars marking the corners. Draw a line through the Great Square’s two westernmost (or right-hand) stars, and extend that line southward to land on the bright star Fomalhaut in the constellation Piscis Austrinus the Southern Fish.
From the Southern Hemisphere: Follow the directions above, but – instead of looking southward to overhead for the Great Square – you’ll be looking low in the north. You’ll still draw your line southward, but, in your sky – starting at the Great Square – that means you’ll draw the line upwards to Fomalhaut. Just take the chart at the top of this post, and turn it upside-down!
Why find Fomalhaut? When you look at this star – sometimes called the Loneliest Star – you are looking some 90 degrees from the plane of our galaxy’s equator.
Our Milky Way galaxy is round and flat, like a pancake. When you look toward Fomalhaut, you’re looking away from the pancake, and out the south window of the galaxy. In other words, we’re looking away from the star-packed disk of the galaxy, into extragalactic space and the realm of galaxies.
Want the exact location of the south galactic pole? It lies east of Fomalhaut, in the faint constellation Sculptor.
The south galactic pole lies in the direction of the constellation Sculptor.
Bottom line: Tonight, try using the Great Square of Pegasus to find the star Fomalhaut. Once you’ve found Fomalhaut, you’re on your way to visualizing looking out the south window of our Milky Way galaxy.
Tonight, or any clear November evening, try using the Great Square of Pegasus to star-hop your way to a view out our galaxy’s south window. In other words, you’ll be looking away from the flat plane of our Milky Way – where most of our galaxy’s stars reside – and toward intergalactic space. You can do this no matter what part of Earth you’re standing on.
From the Northern Hemisphere: The Great Square of Pegasus appears high in the south to overhead by around 9 p.m. local time in early November, 8 p.m. local time in mid-November and 7 p.m. local time in late November. This large asterism really does look like a large square pattern, with four medium-bright stars marking the corners. Draw a line through the Great Square’s two westernmost (or right-hand) stars, and extend that line southward to land on the bright star Fomalhaut in the constellation Piscis Austrinus the Southern Fish.
From the Southern Hemisphere: Follow the directions above, but – instead of looking southward to overhead for the Great Square – you’ll be looking low in the north. You’ll still draw your line southward, but, in your sky – starting at the Great Square – that means you’ll draw the line upwards to Fomalhaut. Just take the chart at the top of this post, and turn it upside-down!
Why find Fomalhaut? When you look at this star – sometimes called the Loneliest Star – you are looking some 90 degrees from the plane of our galaxy’s equator.
Our Milky Way galaxy is round and flat, like a pancake. When you look toward Fomalhaut, you’re looking away from the pancake, and out the south window of the galaxy. In other words, we’re looking away from the star-packed disk of the galaxy, into extragalactic space and the realm of galaxies.
Want the exact location of the south galactic pole? It lies east of Fomalhaut, in the faint constellation Sculptor.
The south galactic pole lies in the direction of the constellation Sculptor.
Bottom line: Tonight, try using the Great Square of Pegasus to find the star Fomalhaut. Once you’ve found Fomalhaut, you’re on your way to visualizing looking out the south window of our Milky Way galaxy.
An artist’s imagining of an ancient relative of today’s rhinoceroses splashing through a stream next to turtles and fish in the Yukon. Image via Julius Csotonyi.
A new study suggests that fossil tooth fragments, discovered more than 40 years ago, belonged to a long-extinct cousin of today’s rhinoceroses. This hefty animal may have tromped through the forests of what’s now Northwest Canada roughly 8 to 9 million years ago, when the area was warmer and wetter than it is today.
The fossil fragments were collected in 1973, when a teacher hiking with her students through a defunct copper mine near Whitehorse in Canada’s Yukon Territory, stumbled across a few fragments of fossils — bits and pieces of what seemed to be teeth alongside pieces of bone.
Now, a study published October 21, 2019 by the American Museum of Natural History, reports that the fossil tooth fragments likely came from the jaw of an extinct cousin of today’s rhinos.
A quarry where schoolteacher Joan Hodgins discovered 8-9 million year old fossils from the Yukon. Image via John Meikle.
Before the rhino discovery, paleontologists had not found a single fossil vertebrate dating back to this time period in the Yukon. Yukon Government paleontologist Grant Zazula is a study coauthor. He said in a statement:
In the Yukon, we have truckloads of fossils from ice age mammals like woolly mammoths, ancient horses and ferocious lions. But this is the first time we have any evidence for ancient mammals, like rhinos, that pre-date the ice age.
During what’s called the Tertiary Period, a span of time that in Earth’s history that began after the dinosaurs went extinct and ended about 2.6 million years ago, a narrow land bridge called Beringia connected what are today Russia and Alaska.
Paleontologists believe that animals of all sorts, including mammoths and rhinos, poured over that bridge. But the geology and environment of the Yukon, which sat at the center of that mass migration route, isn’t conducive to preserving fossils from land animals. University of Colorado paleontologist Jaelyn Eberle is lead author of the study. She said:
We know that a land bridge must have been in operation throughout much of the last 66 million years. The catch is finding fossils in the right place at the right time.
Enamel from a fragment of an ancient rhinoceros tooth as seen under increasing levels of magnification. Image via Jaelyn Eberle.
For the study, Eberle and her team examined the fossil teeth, now housed in the Yukon Government’s fossil collections in Whitehorse, under a tool called a scanning electron microscope that can reveal the structure of tooth enamel in incredible detail.
Eberle explained that mammal teeth aren’t all built alike. The crystals that make up enamel can grow following different patterns in different types of animals, a bit like a dental fingerprint. The Yukon tooth enamel, the team found, carried the tell-tale signs of coming from a rhinoceros relative. Eberle said:
I hadn’t thought that enamel could be so beautiful.
The method isn’t detailed enough to determine the precise species of rhino, Eberle said, but if this animal was anything like its contemporaries to the south, it may have been about the same size or smaller than today’s black rhinos and browsed on leaves for sustenance. It also probably didn’t have a horn on its snout, she said.
Series of fossils recovered from the Yukon. They are pieces of shells from two different species of turtle (top), a fossil from a relative of a modern pike fish (middle) and fragment of ancient rhino teeth (bottom). Image via Grant Zazula.
The group also looked at a collection of fossils found alongside the rhino’s tooth chips. They belonged to two species of turtle, an ancient deer relative and a pike fish. The discovery of the turtles, in particular, indicated that the Yukon had a warmer and wetter climate than it does today.
Bottom line: Scientists have identified fossil teeth found in the Yukon as belonging to an extinct rhino.
An artist’s imagining of an ancient relative of today’s rhinoceroses splashing through a stream next to turtles and fish in the Yukon. Image via Julius Csotonyi.
A new study suggests that fossil tooth fragments, discovered more than 40 years ago, belonged to a long-extinct cousin of today’s rhinoceroses. This hefty animal may have tromped through the forests of what’s now Northwest Canada roughly 8 to 9 million years ago, when the area was warmer and wetter than it is today.
The fossil fragments were collected in 1973, when a teacher hiking with her students through a defunct copper mine near Whitehorse in Canada’s Yukon Territory, stumbled across a few fragments of fossils — bits and pieces of what seemed to be teeth alongside pieces of bone.
Now, a study published October 21, 2019 by the American Museum of Natural History, reports that the fossil tooth fragments likely came from the jaw of an extinct cousin of today’s rhinos.
A quarry where schoolteacher Joan Hodgins discovered 8-9 million year old fossils from the Yukon. Image via John Meikle.
Before the rhino discovery, paleontologists had not found a single fossil vertebrate dating back to this time period in the Yukon. Yukon Government paleontologist Grant Zazula is a study coauthor. He said in a statement:
In the Yukon, we have truckloads of fossils from ice age mammals like woolly mammoths, ancient horses and ferocious lions. But this is the first time we have any evidence for ancient mammals, like rhinos, that pre-date the ice age.
During what’s called the Tertiary Period, a span of time that in Earth’s history that began after the dinosaurs went extinct and ended about 2.6 million years ago, a narrow land bridge called Beringia connected what are today Russia and Alaska.
Paleontologists believe that animals of all sorts, including mammoths and rhinos, poured over that bridge. But the geology and environment of the Yukon, which sat at the center of that mass migration route, isn’t conducive to preserving fossils from land animals. University of Colorado paleontologist Jaelyn Eberle is lead author of the study. She said:
We know that a land bridge must have been in operation throughout much of the last 66 million years. The catch is finding fossils in the right place at the right time.
Enamel from a fragment of an ancient rhinoceros tooth as seen under increasing levels of magnification. Image via Jaelyn Eberle.
For the study, Eberle and her team examined the fossil teeth, now housed in the Yukon Government’s fossil collections in Whitehorse, under a tool called a scanning electron microscope that can reveal the structure of tooth enamel in incredible detail.
Eberle explained that mammal teeth aren’t all built alike. The crystals that make up enamel can grow following different patterns in different types of animals, a bit like a dental fingerprint. The Yukon tooth enamel, the team found, carried the tell-tale signs of coming from a rhinoceros relative. Eberle said:
I hadn’t thought that enamel could be so beautiful.
The method isn’t detailed enough to determine the precise species of rhino, Eberle said, but if this animal was anything like its contemporaries to the south, it may have been about the same size or smaller than today’s black rhinos and browsed on leaves for sustenance. It also probably didn’t have a horn on its snout, she said.
Series of fossils recovered from the Yukon. They are pieces of shells from two different species of turtle (top), a fossil from a relative of a modern pike fish (middle) and fragment of ancient rhino teeth (bottom). Image via Grant Zazula.
The group also looked at a collection of fossils found alongside the rhino’s tooth chips. They belonged to two species of turtle, an ancient deer relative and a pike fish. The discovery of the turtles, in particular, indicated that the Yukon had a warmer and wetter climate than it does today.
Bottom line: Scientists have identified fossil teeth found in the Yukon as belonging to an extinct rhino.
Steve Paukin captured this image in his back yard in Winslow, Arizona on November 3, 2019.
The Pleiades star cluster – also known as the Seven Sisters or M45 – is visible from virtually every part of the globe. It can be seen from as far north as the North Pole, and farther south than the southernmost tip of South America. It looks like a tiny misty dipper of stars.
If you’re familiar with the famous constellation Orion, it can help you be sure you’ve found the Pleiades. See the three stars in a row in Orion? That’s Orion’s Belt. Draw a line through these stars to the V-shaped pattern of stars with a bright star in its midst. The V-shaped pattern is the Face of Taurus the Bull. The bright star in the V – called Aldebaran – depicts the Bull’s Eye. A bit past Aldebaran, you’ll see the Pleiades cluster, which marks the Bull’s Shoulder.
If you can find the prominent constellation Orion, you can find the Pleiades. Orion’s Belt points to the bright reddish star Aldebaran … then generally toward the Pleiades.
The Pleiades and Aldebaran. The star name Aldebaran comes from an Arabic word for follower. It’s thought to be a reference to this star’s forever chasing the Pleiades across the heavens. As a general rule, the Pleiades cluster rises into the eastern sky before Aldebaran rises, and sets in the west before Aldebaran sets.
The only exception to this rule happens at far southern latitudes – for example, at South America’s Tierra del Fuego – where the Pleiades rise a short while after Aldebaran rises.
In our Northern Hemispheres skies, the Pleiades cluster is associated with the winter season. It’s easy to imagine this misty patch of icy-blue suns as hoarfrost clinging to the dome of night. Frosty November is often called the month of the Pleiades, because it’s at this time that the Pleiades shine from dusk until dawn. But you can see the Pleiades cluster in the evening sky well into April.
View larger. | Claire L. Shickora wrote from Delight’s Hot Springs Resort in California, in early November, 2018: “The Pleiades was outstanding, even with the local light pollution!”
Fred Espenak – aka Mr. Eclipse – posted this image at EarthSky Facebook on November 18, 2018. He wrote: “M45, the Pleiades star cluster. It’s visible on November nights in the eastern sky as a tiny dipper-shaped clump of stars. Definitely one of the most beautiful open star clusters in the sky. This image is a stack of 20 individual 5-minute exposures through a Takahashi Epsilon 180ED Hyperbolic Astrograph using a Canon 6D DSLR.” Thanks, Fred!
Tom Wildoner in Weatherly, Pennsylvania, captured this image on October 31, 2016. He wrote: “It shows the Seven Sisters, Pleiades star cluster, rising in the east behind some maple trees still sporting some late leaves.”
Legend of the Lost Pleiad. Most people see six, not seven, Pleiades stars in a dark country sky.
However, the story about the lost seventh Pleiad harbors a universal theme. The astronomer Robert Burnham Jr. found the lost Pleaid myth prevalent in the star lore of European, African, Asian, Indonesian, Native American and Aboriginal Australian populations.
Moreover, Burnham suggested that the “lost Pleiad” may have basis in fact. After all, modern astronomy has found that the seventh-brightest Pleiades star – Pleione – is a complicated and hard-to-understand “shell star” that goes through numerous permutations. These changes cause this star to vary in brightness.
Plus people with exceptional eyesight have been known to see many more stars in the Pleiades cluster. Claims go up as high as 20 stars. Agnes Clerke, an astronomer and writer in the late 1800s, reported that Michael Maestlin, the mentor of Johannes Kepler, mapped out 11 Pleiades stars before the invention of the telescope.
To see more than six or seven Pleaides stars, you must have very good eyesight (or a pair of binoculars). And you must be willing to spend time under a dark, moonless sky. Stephen O’Meara, a dark-sky connoisseur, claims that eyes dark-adapted for 30 minutes are six times more sensitive to light than eyes dark-adapted for 15 minutes. The surest way to see additional Pleiades stars is to look at this cluster through binoculars or low power in a telescope.
The Lost Pleiad, a painting by French artist William-Adolphe Bouguereau (1825-1905). Image via Wikimedia Commons.
Pleiades as calendar, in history and in modern science. Historically, the Pleiades have served as a calendar for many civilizations. The Greek name “Pleiades” probably comes from a word meaning “to sail.” In the ancient Mediterranean world, the day that the Pleaides cluster first appeared in the morning sky before sunrise announced the opening of the navigation season.
The modern-day festival of Halloween originates from an old Druid rite that coincided with the midnight culmination of the Pleiades cluster. It was believed that the veil dividing the living from the dead is at its thinnest when the Pleaides culminates – reaches its highest point in the sky – at midnight.
On a lighter note, the Zuni of New Mexico call the Pleiades the “Seed Stars,” because this cluster’s disappearance in the evening sky every spring signals the seed-planting season.
In both myth and science, the Pleiades are considered to be sibling stars. Modern astronomers say the Pleiades stars were born from the same cloud of gas and dust some 100 million years ago. This gravitationally bound cluster of several hundred stars looms some 430 light-years distant, and these sibling stars drift through space together at about 25 miles per second (40 km/sec). Many of these Pleiades stars shine hundreds of times more brightly than our sun.
The Pleiades – aka the Seven Sisters – captured by Greg Hogan in Kathleen, Georgia, on October 31, 2016.
The Pleiades star cluster by Ernie Rossi in Florida. Russ Drum submitted it and wrote: “The Pleiades (aka the Seven Sisters) is an open star cluster located in the constellation Taurus the Bull. It’s also known as the Halloween Cluster because it’s almost overhead in the sky at midnight on Halloween, October 31.”
Bottom line: How to see the Pleiades – or Seven Sisters – star cluster.
from EarthSky https://ift.tt/2SgTchN
Steve Paukin captured this image in his back yard in Winslow, Arizona on November 3, 2019.
The Pleiades star cluster – also known as the Seven Sisters or M45 – is visible from virtually every part of the globe. It can be seen from as far north as the North Pole, and farther south than the southernmost tip of South America. It looks like a tiny misty dipper of stars.
If you’re familiar with the famous constellation Orion, it can help you be sure you’ve found the Pleiades. See the three stars in a row in Orion? That’s Orion’s Belt. Draw a line through these stars to the V-shaped pattern of stars with a bright star in its midst. The V-shaped pattern is the Face of Taurus the Bull. The bright star in the V – called Aldebaran – depicts the Bull’s Eye. A bit past Aldebaran, you’ll see the Pleiades cluster, which marks the Bull’s Shoulder.
If you can find the prominent constellation Orion, you can find the Pleiades. Orion’s Belt points to the bright reddish star Aldebaran … then generally toward the Pleiades.
The Pleiades and Aldebaran. The star name Aldebaran comes from an Arabic word for follower. It’s thought to be a reference to this star’s forever chasing the Pleiades across the heavens. As a general rule, the Pleiades cluster rises into the eastern sky before Aldebaran rises, and sets in the west before Aldebaran sets.
The only exception to this rule happens at far southern latitudes – for example, at South America’s Tierra del Fuego – where the Pleiades rise a short while after Aldebaran rises.
In our Northern Hemispheres skies, the Pleiades cluster is associated with the winter season. It’s easy to imagine this misty patch of icy-blue suns as hoarfrost clinging to the dome of night. Frosty November is often called the month of the Pleiades, because it’s at this time that the Pleiades shine from dusk until dawn. But you can see the Pleiades cluster in the evening sky well into April.
View larger. | Claire L. Shickora wrote from Delight’s Hot Springs Resort in California, in early November, 2018: “The Pleiades was outstanding, even with the local light pollution!”
Fred Espenak – aka Mr. Eclipse – posted this image at EarthSky Facebook on November 18, 2018. He wrote: “M45, the Pleiades star cluster. It’s visible on November nights in the eastern sky as a tiny dipper-shaped clump of stars. Definitely one of the most beautiful open star clusters in the sky. This image is a stack of 20 individual 5-minute exposures through a Takahashi Epsilon 180ED Hyperbolic Astrograph using a Canon 6D DSLR.” Thanks, Fred!
Tom Wildoner in Weatherly, Pennsylvania, captured this image on October 31, 2016. He wrote: “It shows the Seven Sisters, Pleiades star cluster, rising in the east behind some maple trees still sporting some late leaves.”
Legend of the Lost Pleiad. Most people see six, not seven, Pleiades stars in a dark country sky.
However, the story about the lost seventh Pleiad harbors a universal theme. The astronomer Robert Burnham Jr. found the lost Pleaid myth prevalent in the star lore of European, African, Asian, Indonesian, Native American and Aboriginal Australian populations.
Moreover, Burnham suggested that the “lost Pleiad” may have basis in fact. After all, modern astronomy has found that the seventh-brightest Pleiades star – Pleione – is a complicated and hard-to-understand “shell star” that goes through numerous permutations. These changes cause this star to vary in brightness.
Plus people with exceptional eyesight have been known to see many more stars in the Pleiades cluster. Claims go up as high as 20 stars. Agnes Clerke, an astronomer and writer in the late 1800s, reported that Michael Maestlin, the mentor of Johannes Kepler, mapped out 11 Pleiades stars before the invention of the telescope.
To see more than six or seven Pleaides stars, you must have very good eyesight (or a pair of binoculars). And you must be willing to spend time under a dark, moonless sky. Stephen O’Meara, a dark-sky connoisseur, claims that eyes dark-adapted for 30 minutes are six times more sensitive to light than eyes dark-adapted for 15 minutes. The surest way to see additional Pleiades stars is to look at this cluster through binoculars or low power in a telescope.
The Lost Pleiad, a painting by French artist William-Adolphe Bouguereau (1825-1905). Image via Wikimedia Commons.
Pleiades as calendar, in history and in modern science. Historically, the Pleiades have served as a calendar for many civilizations. The Greek name “Pleiades” probably comes from a word meaning “to sail.” In the ancient Mediterranean world, the day that the Pleaides cluster first appeared in the morning sky before sunrise announced the opening of the navigation season.
The modern-day festival of Halloween originates from an old Druid rite that coincided with the midnight culmination of the Pleiades cluster. It was believed that the veil dividing the living from the dead is at its thinnest when the Pleaides culminates – reaches its highest point in the sky – at midnight.
On a lighter note, the Zuni of New Mexico call the Pleiades the “Seed Stars,” because this cluster’s disappearance in the evening sky every spring signals the seed-planting season.
In both myth and science, the Pleiades are considered to be sibling stars. Modern astronomers say the Pleiades stars were born from the same cloud of gas and dust some 100 million years ago. This gravitationally bound cluster of several hundred stars looms some 430 light-years distant, and these sibling stars drift through space together at about 25 miles per second (40 km/sec). Many of these Pleiades stars shine hundreds of times more brightly than our sun.
The Pleiades – aka the Seven Sisters – captured by Greg Hogan in Kathleen, Georgia, on October 31, 2016.
The Pleiades star cluster by Ernie Rossi in Florida. Russ Drum submitted it and wrote: “The Pleiades (aka the Seven Sisters) is an open star cluster located in the constellation Taurus the Bull. It’s also known as the Halloween Cluster because it’s almost overhead in the sky at midnight on Halloween, October 31.”
Bottom line: How to see the Pleiades – or Seven Sisters – star cluster.
