Wednesday, August 10, 2011

Thursday, July 21, 2011

Pluto... really...


Hubble telescope has just confirmed that Pluto has 4 moons... Huh! Who knew! (And NO, Pluto is NOT a planet).

Hubble Discovers a New Moon Around Pluto

July 20, 2011: Astronomers using the Hubble Space Telescope have discovered a fourth moon orbiting the icy dwarf planet Pluto. The tiny, new satellite – temporarily designated P4 -- popped up in a Hubble survey searching for rings around the dwarf planet.

"I find it remarkable that Hubble's cameras enabled us to see such a tiny object so clearly from a distance of more than 3 billion miles (5 billion km)," said Mark Showalter of the SETI Institute in Mountain View, Calif., who led this observing program with Hubble.

The finding is a result of ongoing work to support NASA's New Horizons mission, scheduled to fly through the Pluto system in 2015. The mission is designed to provide new insights about worlds at the edge of our solar system. Hubble's mapping of Pluto's surface and discovery of its satellites have been invaluable to planning for New Horizons' close encounter.

"This is a fantastic discovery," said New Horizons’ principal investigator Alan Stern of the Southwest Research Institute in Boulder, Colo. "Now that we know there's another moon in the Pluto system, we can plan close-up observations of it during our flyby."

The new moon is located between the orbits of Nix and Hydra, which Hubble discovered in 2005. Charon was discovered in 1978 at the U.S. Naval Observatory and first resolved using Hubble in 1990 as a separate body from Pluto.

The dwarf planet’s entire moon system is believed to have formed by a collision between Pluto and another planet-sized body early in the history of the solar system. The smashup flung material that coalesced into the family of satellites observed around Pluto.

Pluto's New Moon (orbit, 200px)
An artist's concept of Pluto's satellite system with newly discovered moon P4 highlighted. Credit: NASA, ESA, and A. Feild (STScI) [more]

Lunar rocks returned to Earth from the Apollo missions led to the theory that our moon was the result of a similar collision between Earth and a Mars-sized body 4.4 billion years ago. Scientists believe material blasted off Pluto's moons by micrometeoroid impacts may form rings around the dwarf planet, but the Hubble photographs have not detected any so far.

"This surprising observation is a powerful reminder of Hubble's ability as a general purpose astronomical observatory to make astounding, unintended discoveries," said Jon Morse, astrophysics division director at NASA Headquarters in Washington.

P4 was first seen in a photo taken with Hubble's Wide Field Camera 3 on June 28. It was confirmed in subsequent Hubble pictures taken on July 3 and July 18. The moon was not seen in earlier Hubble images because the exposure times were shorter. There is a chance it appeared as a very faint smudge in 2006 images, but was overlooked because it was obscured.


Monday, June 20, 2011

Loïc and Naomi


Our two grandchildren taken 4 hours after Loïc's birth. I love that photo.


Loïc is born


On June 20th, at 1:11 pm... new life is here. Loïc is our first grandson and second grandchild. Life is beautiful.

Phil
Grandfather

PS - Loïc was 11 days "late", born at 1:11 pm. Cool.

Thursday, April 14, 2011

Presenting Naomi

Here is the subject of my desktop from iPhone to Computer screen. What a beauty. I am happy to present to you Naomi our first grand child.

The sunshine of our lives.

If you have FACEBOOK and want to see more photos of our darling, you need to login Face Book and then click on: http://www.facebook.com/media/set/fbx/?set=a.10150154446082050.290587.564432049

Phil

Monday, April 11, 2011

Pray for Japan from Ottawa

Ck out the links. I am proud to say that the photos on both sites are all taken by Luc, my son. Also, visit his own photo website www.lapart.ca Most of these events included my children as support and organizers, help, etc... I am proud. (I love Japan).






Photos of this video can also be found here




Photos of this video can also be found here

Thursday, March 10, 2011

Hello...

Today, I received an email regarding my Blog. It came from someone I don't know and from Europe. That person wrote that my Blog was enjoyed and useful, not only for that person but for others that read it... Wow...

Encouraging indeed.

I will attempt to return somehow. Thank you for the kind words.

P