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Our New Horizons spacecraft is making its final approach to #UltimaThule, an icy object located ~1 billion miles past Pluto! Get the latest updates and find out where and when to watch the most distant planetary flyby ever this #NewYearsEve : http://pluto.jhuapl.edu/

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Probably my biggest regret when I made the Hubble Deep Field in 3D video is saying the phrase “these galaxies are racing away from us, in some cases faster than light”.

I had originally thought I was being clever and the comment would spur discussion. instead there was no discussion, only name calling and I mightily regretted putting it in there.

Anyway, this video was a long time coming, I had been meaning to make this for some time to illustrate what I was talking about.

Music used:

http://www.archive.org/details/kpu107

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A newly discovered pink-colored object is the most-distant body ever observed in the solar system—and the first object ever found orbiting at more than 100 times the distance from Earth to the sun.


The pink-colored object is nearly four times more distant from the sun than Pluto, and hints at the possibility of an as-yet-undiscovered giant planet farther out.


The Space Force would constitute the sixth branch of the US armed forces.

The news: During a meeting with the National Space Council today, President Donald Trump directed the Department of Defense and the Pentagon to begin work on the creation of the Space Force. He stated, “‘We are going to have the Air Force and we’re going to have the Space Force, separate but equal.”

Some background: This isn’t the first time Trump has brought up this idea. He has continued to express interest in the idea during visits to West Point and in speeches to military members.


This particular region is located over 66,000 light years from Earth and at on opposite side of the Milky Way, relative to our Solar System. The previous record for a parallax measurement was about 36,000 light-years, roughly 11,000 light years farther than the distance between our Solar System and the center of our galaxy. As Sanna explained, this accomplishment in radio astronomy will enable surveys that reach much farther than previous ones:

“Most of the stars and gas in our Galaxy are within this newly-measured distance from the Sun. With the VLBA, we now have the capability to measure enough distances to accurately trace the Galaxy’s spiral arms and learn their true shapes.”

Hundreds of star-forming regions exist within the Milky Way. But as Karl Menten – a member of the MPIfR and a co-author on the study – explained, this study was significant because of where this one is located. “So we have plenty of ‘mileposts’ to use for our mapping project,” he said. “But this one is special: Looking all the way through the Milky Way, past its center, way out into the other side.”

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