NASA has released a photo of the “Greater Pumpkin” galaxies and it is the perfect timing in regards to Halloween. The two galaxies, named NGC 2292 and NGC 2293, are located approximately 120 million light-years away from us in the constellation Canis Major and are beginning to collide.

The picture that was captured by the Hubble Space Telescope looks like a gigantic pumpkin with glowing eyes and a crooked smile. The “eyes” are actually a bunch of stars that are surrounding two supermassive black holes, while the faint blue-colored “smile” is a cluster of newborn stars. The “pumpkin’s” orangish color is a result of red stars.

In a statement, NASA further described the picture, “Hubble’s holiday offering is a pair of colliding galaxies that resemble the cartoon Peanuts character Linus’ imagining of the elusive Great Pumpkin,” adding, “’Great’ is an understatement in this case because the galaxy pair spans 100,000 light-years.”

Interestingly, when the two galaxies finish merging, they could form a gigantic spiral galaxy. In fact, while the “smile” is made up of a cluster of newly formed stars, it is actually the beginning of the formation of a spiral galaxy. The “smile” stretches from one galaxy to the next and was probably created from compressed interstellar gas when the collision began.

William Keel, who is an astronomer from the University of Alabama in Tuscaloosa, has speculated that when the two merge together, it could turn out to be quite similar to the spiral galaxy known as UGC 2885 (or Rubin’s Galaxy) which is absolutely massive as it is two and a half times wider than the Milky Way and has ten times the amount of stars. It is located about 232 million light-years away from us in the constellation Perseus.

A picture of the “Greater Pumpkin” galaxies can be seen on NASA’s Hubblesite page.

This photo comes a year after NASA posted an image to their Facebook page of our sun also looking like a giant pumpkin. In their description, they stated that the photo was taken by an ultraviolet light on their Solar Dynamics Observatory satellite back in October of 2014. The “jack-o-lantern face” was caused by increased activity of sun spots. That picture can be seen on NASA’s Facebook page as well as on their website.

Happy Halloween!

They’ve only been seen on Earth and possibly on the Moon, but not on any other planets … until now. Human footprints? American flags? Aliens?

A Hubble Space Telescope photo of Jupiter taken on June 27, 2019, reveals the planet's Great Red Spot. 

NASA, ESA, A. Simon (Goddard Space Flight Center) and M.H. Wong (University of California, Berkeley)

“11 transient bright flashes were detected in Jupiter’s atmosphere using the UVS instrument on the Juno spacecraft. These bright flashes are only observed in a single spin of the spacecraft and their brightness decays exponentially with time, with a duration of ∼1.4 ms.”

As described in a new study published in the Journal of Geophysical Research: Planets, astronomers working on the Juno project – NASA’s tiny spacecraft that’s been orbiting Jupiter since 2016 – were looking at new data collected by its ultraviolet spectrograph instrument (UVS) when they spotted never-before-seen flashing lights. They had expected to see auroras but not flashes, according to the press release. They could be ‘sprites’ – tall, sinewy transient luminous events (TLEs) that occur in Earth’s upper atmosphere and are triggered by lightning discharges from thunderstorms below them – or ‘elves’, which are flat Emission of Light and Very Low Frequency due to Electromagnetic Pulse Sources, or sprite halos, which are flat sprites caused by weak ionization. Sprites, elves and sprite halos are generally red due to interaction with nitrogen, but the lights on Jupiter are blue or pink from the hydrogen in the gas giant’s upper atmosphere.

This illustration shows what a sprite could look like in Jupiter’s atmosphere. 

(Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/SwRI)

Wait a minute, you say … the Moon has flashes too, but doesn’t have much of an atmosphere and no thunderstorms.

Good observation. The flashes on the Moon are referred to as Transient Lunar Phenomena which, although they’ve been reported for a thousand years, are irreproducible on Earth and doubted by many scientists. They could be caused by gas escaping from underground cavities, meteor showers, electrostatic discharge from the surface cracking or just reflections or distortions in observation lenses.

While sprites and elves were predicted to be found on Jupiter, Juno had found nothing but lighting until recently. This cause was ruled out for these new lights because they occurred 186 miles (300 km) above the altitude where most of the planet’s lightning forms, and because the colors were different.

Sprite on Earth observed from the International Space Station

Is this big news? Rohini Giles, Juno scientist and lead author, thinks so.

“Now that we know what we are looking for, it will be easier to find them at Jupiter and on other planets. And comparing sprites and elves from Jupiter with those here on Earth will help us better understand electrical activity in planetary atmospheres.”

That’s a good idea for the time when space probes travel at much lower altitudes and could be fried by electrical discharges.

Who would have thought a giant planet could have sprites and elves? This will make for some interesting sci-fi fairy tales.

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On Earth, sprites and elves appear reddish in color due to their interaction with nitrogen in the upper atmosphere

A rotating, solar-powered spacecraft, Juno, arrived at Jupiter in 2016 after making a five-year journey. Since then, it has made 29 science flybys of the gas giant, each orbit taking 53 days

© NASA/JPL-Caltech

Asteroid Apophis is composed of rocky materials with a mix of metallic nickel and iron. The fact that it is gaining speed increases the possibility of it hitting the Earth on April 12, 2068. They call this burst of speed the Yarkovsky effect, which is when sunlight heats up the dayside of a rotating asteroid and as it turns, the night side releases the heat which gives it a push through space.

When it was first discovered back in June of 2004 by astronomers Roy Tucker, David Tholen and Fabrizio Bernardi at the Kitt Peak National Observatory in Tucson, Arizona, experts claimed that there was no chance of it hitting us. Ever since its discovery, the asteroid has been studied as it orbits our sun (it completes a full orbit in less than one Earth year) and the new findings do suggest that there is a chance of it hitting us in 48 years.

(Not the asteroid Apophis)

David Tholen, who is one of the astronomers who first detected the asteroid, explained, “The new observations we obtained with the Subaru telescope earlier this year were good enough to reveal the Yarkovsky acceleration of Apophis, and they show that the asteroid is drifting away from a purely gravitational orbit by about 170 meters per year, which is enough to keep the 2068 impact scenario in play.”

In fact, it has been ranked the third-highest threat on NASA’s Sentry Risk Table, behind asteroid (29075) 1950 DA, and asteroid Bennu. According to the table, Apophis has a 1 in 150,000 chance of hitting us. The first two won’t hit for a long time as asteroid (29075) 1950 DA has a 1 in 8,300 chance of hitting Earth in the year 2880, while Bennu has a 1 in 2,700 probability of impacting us sometime between the years 2175 and 2199.

(Not the asteroid Apophis)

There is a lot more research that needs to be done in regards to Apophis’ orbit to know for sure whether or not it will hit us. Experts have changed their minds on whether or not it will impact us. Back when it was first discovered, they said that an impact was impossible, then there was a 2.7% chance, and now it will pass by us at a distance of just under 20,000 miles from our planet. What is known for sure is that this is the first time that scientists have been able to see and study in advance an asteroid of this gigantic size that may come very close to hitting us.

Researchers have stated that they will “know well before 2068 if there is any chance of an impact”. Let’s hope they’re right. Pictures of the asteroid Apophis can be seen here.

An asteroid named after the God of Chaos is gaining as it travels on a path twoards Earth – and could strike our planet in 48 years. Astronomers confirmed Apophis (circled) has accelerated on its path due to non-uniform radiation, which acts like a tiny thruster

Prior to the discovery, the impact was said to impossible, but the new findings suggest the asteroid has a chance of crashing into Earth on April 12, 2068. An impact would be equivalent to 880 million tons of trinitrotoluene (TNT) exploding all at once. (Pictured are images of the asteroid in 2012)

The asteroid contains nickel and iron and radar images suggest it is elongated with the two lobes, making it look something like a peanut (artist impression). Data estimates that there is a one in 150,000 chance of the asteroid hitting Earth in 48 years

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