Archive
07/18/2016 – Ephemeris – A second gravitational wave detection and new thoughts about dark matter
Ephemeris for Monday, July 18th. Today the Sun will be up for 15 hours and 8 minutes, setting at 9:22, and it will rise tomorrow at 6:15. The Moon, 1 day before full, will set at 6:04 tomorrow morning.
A couple of weeks ago a second gravitational wave event was reported. This one was detected on December 26th last year. Scientists determined that it came from the collision of a 14 and a 8 solar mass black holes resulting in a 21 solar mass black hole with one solar mass loss as gravitational wave energy. The event happened 1.5 billion light years away. Some scientists at NASA are speculating that, since no particles with the exotic properties of dark matter have been discovered that this matter might be primordial black holes, created at the time of the Big Bang itself. These primordial black holes can also help solve some other problems of the evolving early universe.
Times are for the Traverse City/Interlochen area of Michigan. They may be different for your location.
Addendum
Gravitational wave signal in blue of the December 26, 2015 detection of the second gravitational wave event.
01/06/2012 – Ephemeris – GTAS meeting and viewing night tonight
Friday, January 6th. The sun will rise at 8:19. It’ll be up for 8 hours and 58 minutes, setting at 5:17. The moon, 3 days before full, will set at 6:50 tomorrow morning.
The Grand Traverse Astronomical Society will have its first meeting of the year tonight at 8 p.m. at the Northwestern Michigan College’s Rogers Observatory. Following will be a public viewing night featuring the moon and Jupiter. This year the first viewing night of the month will come at the end of the society meeting at 9 o’clock. Come for both. The presentation for the meeting will be NMC Astronomy Club member Storm Strausheim and her topic will be those mysterious stellar cannibals – Black Holes. The observatory is located on Birmley Road between Keystone and Garfield roads. April through October this year there will be a second viewing night at the observatory later in the month.
* Times, as always are for the Traverse City/Interlochen area of Michigan.
Bob Moler's Ephemeris Blog 