Environment & Outdoors

Smiling man next to a large home telescope

After a little break (of 25 years or so) Bob King is celebrating his retirement with a return to The North 103.3's airwaves!After almost 40 years with the Duluth News Tribune, Bob is now retired. But scratch a print guy and you'll find a radio guy; King and then-UMD Planetarium Director Glen Langhorst hosted Startalk on KUMD for several years in the early '90s.Listen for Astro Bob every other Tuesday at 8am on Northland Morning.

Astro Bob's Backyard Almanac: The Commonalities of the Cosmos

The North 103.3 | By Luke Moravec

Published August 23, 2022 at 9:45 AM CDT

This is a composite image of Jupiter from three filters — red, yellow-green and cyan. The large white oval is the Great Red Spot, the centuries-old storm in the planet's southern hemisphere that's about one-and-a-half times the size of the Earth. Bright auroras (red here) light up Jupiter's polar regions.

Today's takeaway; we're more alike than we are different.

The James Webb Space Telescope continues to widen our knowledge of the universe. Recent images of Jupiter highlight some similarities that the giant planet shares with earth.

Though the thought of northern and southern lights might feel like a uniquely "earth" phenomenon, several planets in our solar system - including Jupiter - also experience the polar light show.

In a wide-field view, Webb sees Jupiter with its faint rings, which are a million times fainter than the planet, and two tiny moons called Amalthea and Adrastea. The fuzzy spots in the lower background are likely galaxies “photobombing” this Jovian view.

This is, of course, just one similarity. But if you ask Bob King, looking deeper into space continues to reveal commonalities more than it does differences. "The more you look, the more similarities you find across the entire universe," says King. "We are all related. We're all part of the same stuff."