Space and astronomy news
Greetings, fellow SkyWatchers! Are you ready for a great dark sky weekend? Then it’s time to walk into the galaxy field of dreams as we take a closer look at part of Markarian’s Chain. Even smaller telescopes and larger binoculars will be happy with this weekend’s globular clusters! Need more or something totally unusual? Then …
Continue reading “What’s Up – The Weekend SkyWatcher’s Forecast – May 2-4, 2008”
In everything but the largest telescopes, Pluto appears as a tiny dot. And determining mass from so little information is incredibly hard to do. Astronomers could only try and work out its mass by knowing how bright it was – its albedo. They could detect that it had large quantities of methane ice on its …
When Pluto was first discovered back in 1930, astronomers thought it was just a single, solitary planet orbiting the Sun. Almost 50 years later, astronomers discovered that it actually had a very large moon. And then in 2005, astronomers working with the Hubble Space Telescope announced that they had found two more moons of Pluto, …
The Solar System: Solar System Guide The Sun Mercury Venus Earth The Moon Near-Earth Objects (NEOs) Mars Phobos and Deimos The Asteroid Belt Ceres Vesta Jupiter Jupiter’s Moons Galilean Moons Saturn Saturn’s Moons Uranus Uranus’ Moons Neptune Neptune’s Moons Dwarf Planets The Kuiper Belt The Oort Cloud Comets, Asteroids, and KBOs Outer Space: Stars Magnetars …
59 new images from the Hubble Space Telescope show some very unusual but incredibly spectacular colliding galaxies. Colliding or interacting galaxies are found throughout the Universe, and sometimes these collisions trigger bursts of star formation, or the mergers form new galaxies. The image above shows the aftermath of an encounter between two galaxies, resulting in …
Continue reading “New Hubble Images Reveal Plethora of Interacting Galaxies”
Last week we gave you advice on how to choose a pair of binoculars for astronomy. This week we help you put them to use by viewing some great binocular astronomy targets. Now that the Moon is quickly leaving the early evening skies, we’re ready to begin. Just give yourself ample time to allow your …
If southern skies stargazers thought there was nothing to the north to be interested in, then think again. There’s a surprising number of galaxies both close to home and towards the farthest reaches of our Universe in the constellation of Ursa Major. It you think the larger of this 42 million light year distant galactic …
Continue reading “Astrophotography: NGC 3718 by Dietmar Hager”
Hold on to your hats… It’s happening again. According to AAVSO Special Notice #105 released on April 19, another possible nova event is now occurring in Sagittarius. Through their quick actions, Macedon Ranges Observatory in Central Victoria, Australia was on top the alert and imaging. AAVSO Special Notice #105 Possible Nova in Sgr April 19, …
Continue reading “Australian Observatory Captures New Nova In Sagittarius”
Question: Why aren’t astronomers looking for planets around nearby stars like Alpha Centauri? Answer: That’s a great question. Since Alpha Centauri is only a little over 4 light-years away, why aren’t astronomers studying it for planets, instead of the more distant stars. Astronomers have included stars like Alpha Centauri in their search for extrasolar planets, …
Continue reading “Why Haven’t Planets Been Detected Around Alpha Centauri?”
This just in from the pretty pictures department at NASA. NASA’s Galaxy Evolution Explorer (GALEX) shows young stars sprouting up in a relatively desolate region of space more than 100,000 light-years from the galaxy’s bustling center. This striking image is a composite of ultraviolet data from GALEX and radio data from the Very Large Array …