A view into the black hole of Andromeda by researchers at Clemson University. Click for a close up of the inset. Credit: Clemson University.

Hey check this out!!  This is an outstanding bit of work.  Getting a decent image of the Andromeda galaxy has always been kind of a bug-a-boo for me.  It’s very large for one thing and for another it’s so bright at the core the image always washes out and no amount of processing seems to help much.

You can easily see Andromeda with a pair of binoculars in case you didn’t know.  Actually you can see it without any aids but binoculars do help. Here’s a finders chart based on 21:00 (9 pm) your local time and centered on the northwest sky.

A few particulars (taken from The Sky 6):

Object name: NGC 224
Other ID: M31
Magnitude: 3.5
Equatorial: RA: 00h 43m 24s   Dec: +41°20’15″(current)
Equatorial 2000: RA: 00h 42m 44s   Dec: +41°16’08″
Horizon: Azim: 310°47’23″   Alt: +17°44’58″
Size: 189.1 x 61.7
Visibility: Rise 04:14,  Set 00:08
Transit time: 14:09
Object type: Spiral Galaxy

A really large version of the image is available with the press release at the Clemson website.

CLEMSON — A study of X-rays emitted a long time ago in a galaxy far, far away has unmasked a stellar mass black hole in Andromeda, a spiral galaxy about 2.6 million light-years from Earth.

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The Kennedy Space Center hosted several events to celebrate 50 years of Americans in orbit. John Glenn, the first to achieve the goal, made his three-orbit flight in Friendship 7 on February 20, 1962. Three months later, fellow Mercury astronaut Scott Carpenter followed Glenn with his flight aboard Aurora 7 on May 24, 1962. Glenn and Carpenter spoke to employees and met with the media sharing stories about their adventures. Glenn also received a congratulatory message from the crew aboard The International Space Station during an in-flight call at the NASA Future Forum at the Ohio State University. Also, NASA Administrator Charles Bolden and Deputy Administrator Lori Garver visit field centers to speak with employees about the 2013 budget, testing of a future aircraft concept model, a Reduced Gravity Flight for Educators and Students, Movement on the Moon, Rockets to Race Cars and more.

Source

UPDATE:  Solved by Hugo at 12:10 CDT

Yay!  Another Saturday to play.  I hope you have your cup of caffeine close; not that today’s riddle is all that difficult, but you know me…

I’ve been leading you through the real world for the last few weeks, and I’m going to keep you there today.  Don’t despair, SciFi fans, we’ll revisit that arena soon enough.  For today, however…

This gorgeous image of the Milky Way Arch was created by Bruno Gilli (ESO)

You are looking for a small part of something much larger.

Many people view this object’s namesake with horror.

In cases like this, you should bet on the dark horse to win the race.

It's all about the dance, you know

Come to the dark side; we have cookies.

A lot is happening in this object’s neighborhood.

Early humans very probably could see this.

Put THAT in your pipe and smoke it

There aren’t many clues today, so consider each one carefully.  As always, don’t discount the image clues.  You may think of 30 objects to fit the written clues, but when you add the images, there is only one correct answer.

You know where to find me.

How could you not love this face? Look at how alert she is; she is staring straight into the camera. Jumping spiders, while tiny members of their huge family, are known to be very alert, curious, and intelligent.

Vesta's Cornelia Crater from the Dawn spacecraft. Click for larger with scale. Image Credit: NASA/ JPL-Caltech/ UCLA/ MPS/ DLR/ IDA

Cool picture and busy too. Got me daydreaming about how slow something would slide down a crater wall on Vesta. I guess I’ll have to see if I can figure it out to some approximation of accurate. Maybe later, busy-busy a good project though.

Click the image above for a larger version with a scale and if you want to see the full size image click here (links to JPL).

The image description from JPL:

This Dawn FC (framing camera) image shows Cornelia crater, a roughly 15-kilometer-diameter (9-mile-diameter) crater with a sharp, fresh rim. Cornelia crater has a spectacular internal structure, which consists of bright and dark material. This bright and dark material slumps from the rim and the sides of the crater towards the center of the crater. The top rim of Cornelia crater has partly collapsed and is also slumping towards the center of the crater. This crater has some dark rays, emanating from its rim, which extend for up to 10 kilometers (6 miles). The area immediately surrounding Cornelia crater is relatively smoother than the adjacent terrain. This indicates that there is a layer of fine-grained ejecta, which was ejected from the crater during its formation, surrounding it.

This image is located in Vesta’s Numisia quadrangle and the center of the image is 11.5 degrees south latitude, 224.6 degrees east longitude. NASA’s Dawn spacecraft obtained this image with its framing camera on Oct. 21, 2011. This image was taken through the camera’s clear filter. The distance to the surface of Vesta is 700 kilometers (435 miles) and the image has a resolution of about 70 meters (230 feet) per pixel. This image was acquired during the HAMO (high-altitude mapping orbit) phase of the mission.

American students are among the regional winners in the YouTube Space Lab Student Science Competition, co-sponsored by ESA. The ultimate winners will have their experiment performed on the International Space Station, live-streamed to a global audience.

Entries from Spain, Egypt, India, New Zealand and the US are among the six regional winners selected today in the YouTube Space Lab science competition.

Sponsored by YouTube, Lenovo and Space Adventures together with ESA, NASA and the Japanese space agency, the international student contest is now in the final round of judging.

I am SO pleased the US (The Americas region) entries are so strong, in particular the entries by Dorothy Chen & Sara Ma. I watched the video and there is NO doubt about why they got this far.  The amazing part is they are finalists in the 14- to 16-year-old category.  VERY impressive indeed and hopefully this will help to put to rest the nonsense about females lagging behind in the sciences.

Bravo Dorothy and Sara!!!!!

The other regional finalists in the 14- to 16-year-old category are:

Patrick Zeng & Derek Chan, New Zealand (Asia Pacific region)
Laura Calvo & Maria Vilas, Spain (Europe, Middle East and Africa region)

The finalist in the 17- to 18-year-old category for The Americas region is also from the US and her name is Emerald Bresnahan.  Her entry is quite innovative.

The other regional finalists in the 17- to 18-year-old category are:

Sachin Kukke, India (Asia Pacific region)
Amr Mohamed, Egypt (Europe, Middle East and Africa region)

ALL of the finalists deserve a hearty well done and they get more than that:

These six regional winners will visit Washington, DC, in March for a series of events to honour their achievement, with the participation of ESA.

These will include a zero-g parabolic flight, a Lenovo IdeaPad laptop, a tour and dinner at the Udvar-Hazy Air & Space Museum, and an awards ceremony at the innovative interactive Newseum museum on 22 March.

At the awards ceremony, the two global winners – one selected from each of the two age groups – will be announced. Their experiments will be performed later this year 400 km above Earth on the International Space Station and live-streamed on YouTube as part of a global event celebrating science and space.

“The ‘YouTube Space Lab’ campaign is an excellent, creative way of reaching out to future generations of scientists, on the ground and in orbit,” says Thomas Reiter, ESA’s Director for Human Spaceflight and Operations.

“Today, numerous fundamental and applied research experiments in life and physical sciences, Earth and space monitoring as well as technology and education are performed on our Columbus laboratory on the ISS, closely coupled to terrestrial research programmes and issues.”

In addition to the awards in Washington, the regional winners from Europe, the Middle East and Africa will be invited to ESA’s European Astronaut Centre, Cologne, later this year for a hands-on guided tour of the training facilities by ESA astronauts.

The two global winners will get to choose a unique space experience: a trip to Japan to watch their experiment lift off in a rocket bound for the Space Station, or, once they are 18 years old, a one-of-a-kind astronaut training experience in Star City, Russia, the training centre for Russian cosmonauts.

“This grand project demonstrates that math and science matter,” said Zahaan Bharmal, Google’s Head of Marketing Operations, Europe, Middle East, and Africa, and the person behind the idea of Space Lab.

“These six winners represent the next generation of scientists and even space explorers. Their families, schools, local communities and countries should be very proud.”

Mimas under the rings. Click for larger. Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/Space Science Institute

Here’s a Cassini image of the Saturn moon Mimas taken on December 21, 2011.  Mimas is a small moon only 246 miles (396 km) in diameter.

I really like this view, if you click the one above to get the larger version, take a look at the rings.  The perspective is quite good.

Saturn is to the left, Mimas is the moon below the rings.  The object above the rings is a star and not another one of the planets many other moons.

The Cassini to Mimas distance is about 1.7 million miles (2.7 million km).

To see the original version from JPL click here.