Interesting Developments

MSNBC.COM has a nice write up with a bunch of great photos on Jupiter. The title of the article is: Jupiter and the Moon take over the Night. Of course I had to go out and see if that is so, and tonight was just the perfect night to do it. Clear, no clouds, but boy was it cold here at the coast. OK, I did not dress right, but it is summer, it's supposed to be hot, even at night. The article is right, the view is spectacular.

What else is happening in Astronomy? I have read a bunch of interesting news. The Swiss (they are so clever) discovered a bunch of exoplanets. According to the article, the planetary system has some similarities to our own system, including one planet that is only 1.4 times the mass of Earth, and very close to the star. This is it! Time to pack your bag and explore a new planet. Travel time is only 127 years assuming we can travel at the speed of light. At a more conventional speed it will take a bit longer… Check out the article, it features an interesting video.

There was another interesting news article, this time published by the BBC, "Supercomputer clue to black holes". What grabbed my attention in this article was the speculation that gas with a mass of millions of Suns could accumulate and collapse directly into a black hole, without forming a star first. Now that is some interesting stuff. This idea certainly challenges the conventional thinking of how the super massive black holes have formed in the center of the Galaxies. 

This is so great, just when we thought we understood something, some new theory comes along and challenges everything. Let's see how long this latest idea about the forming of the massive black holes in the center of the galaxies will survive.