Earth & Space

The waning crescent moon and the planet Mars will put on a show Feb. 18, appearing quite close to each other in the southeastern sky. The moon will pass in front of Mars, blocking the planet from view, but for the eastern half of the U.S., this will occur during daylight and will not be visible without a telescope. #eclipse

The Galactic Center visualization is a 360-degree movie that immerses the viewer into a simulation of the center of our Galaxy. The viewer is at the location of Sgr A* and is able to see about 25 Wolf-Rayet stars (white, twinkling objects) orbiting Sgr A* as they continuously eject stellar winds (black to red to yellow color scale). #milkyway

As neat as it sounds, the Aurora Station space hotel is still a concept. If it becomes a reality, however, Orion Span will likely partner with private companies for transportation, such as Virgin Galactic. “That will be through partnerships with SpaceX, Blue Origin or a space agency,” said Orion Span’s CEO, Frank Bunger. As of yet, no partnerships have been announced. #spacehotel

One possibility to explain the speed in which the universe is expanding – is that dark energy, already known to be accelerating the cosmos, maybe shoving galaxies away from each other with even greater — or growing — strength. This means that the acceleration itself might not have a constant value in the universe but changes over time in the universe. #theuniverse