Jupiter Season, Hawaiian Sky

Volcanic activity on the Big Island of Hawaii has increased since this Hawaiian night skyscape was recorded earlier this year. Recent vents and lava flows are about 30 kilometers to the east, the direction of the blowing smoke and steam in the panoramic view of the Kilauea caldera with Halemaumau crater taken from Volcanoes National Park. Still, this year Jupiter is bright in late spring to early summer skies. High in the south it is easily the brightest celestial beacon in the scene where the central bulge of the Milky Way seems to rise above vapors and clouds. Yellowish Antares is the bright star near the end of the dark rivers of dust seen toward the center of our galaxy. Near the horizon, stars Alpha and Beta Centauri and the compact Southern Cross shine through the almost too bright volcanic smoke. via NASA https://ift.tt/2JaxfMv

Jovian Jet Stream

See a jet stream speeding through Jupiter’s atmosphere in this new view taken by NASA’s Juno spacecraft. via NASA https://ift.tt/2Lb4CPM

The Case of the Backwards Orbiting Asteroid

Why does asteroid 2015 BZ509 orbit the Sun the backwards? As shown in the featured animation, Jupiter’s trojan asteroids orbit the Sun in two major groups — one just ahead of Jupiter, and one just behind — but all orbit the Sun in the same direction as Jupiter. Asteroid BZ509 however, discovered in 2015 and currently unnamed, orbits the Sun in retrograde and in a more complex gravitational dance with Jupiter. The reason why is currently unknown and a topic of research — but if resolved might tell us about the early Solar System. A recently popular hypothesis holds that BZ509 was captured by Jupiter from interstellar space billions of years ago, while a competing conjecture posits that BZ509 came from our Solar System’s own distant Oort cloud of comets, perhaps more recently. The answer may only become known after more detailed models of the likelihood and stability of orbits near Jupiter are studied, or, possibly, by observing direct properties of the unusual object. via NASA https://ift.tt/2L64roZ

NASA Previews Mission to Study Frontier of Space

NASA will host a media briefing at 1 p.m. EDT Monday, June 4, on the agency’s mission to explore Earth’s ionosphere and the processes there that impact life on Earth’s surface. The event will air live on NASA Television, the agency’s website and Facebook Live.

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