Space and astronomy news
One of the best bright star lunar occultations for 2024 occurs this week, as the Moon covers Spica.
Have you ever seen the Moon blot out a star? If the weather cooperates, early morning viewers across eastern North America have a chance to see a rare spectacle, as the crescent Moon occults (covers) the bright star Spica.
Continue reading “Watch the Crescent Moon Occult Spica for North America Early Wednesday Morning”
There are good reasons to keep an eye on the Leonid meteors this year.
It’s still one of the coolest things I ever saw. I was in the U.S. Air Force in the 90s, and November 1998 saw me deployed to the dark skies of Kuwait. That trip provided an unexpected treat, as the Leonid meteors hit dramatic storm levels on the morning of the 17th. Meteor came fast and furious towards local sunrise, often lighting up the desert floor like celestial photoflashes in the sky.
Once every 33 years or so, the ‘lion roars,’ as Leonid meteors seem to rain down from the Sickle asterism of the constellation Leo. And while the last outbreak was centered around the years surrounding 1999, there’s some interesting discussion about possible encounters with past Leonid streams in 2024.
Continue reading “Is an ‘Off-Year’ Leonid Outburst in the Cards For November?”
The time to catch Comet T4 Lemmon is now, before it vanishes for another 36,000 years.
Often, icy interlopers creep up on the inner solar system, only to once again vanish into the abyss. Such is the case with long-period comet C/2021 T4 Lemmon, headed towards perihelion early next week.
Continue reading “A Fine Southern Apparition for Comet T4 Lemmon”
What does the ancient coin found recently off the shores of Israel depict?
You never know what discoveries are waiting to be found in old records or artwork. A recent archaeological find sent us down just such an astronomical rabbit-hole, leading us to ideas that are fun and interesting to consider.
Continue reading “Ancient Coin Discovery With An Astronomical Mystery”
The night sky is a part of humanity’s natural heritage. Gazing up at the heavens is a unifying act, performed by almost every human that’s ever lived. Haven’t you looked up at the night sky and felt it ignite your sense of wonder?
But you can’t see much night sky in a modern city. And the majority of humans live in cities now. How can we regain our heritage? Can quiet contemplation make a comeback?
Continue reading “How Could we Light our Cities and Still See the Night Sky?”
In this series we are exploring the weird and wonderful world of astronomy jargon! It’s easy to measure your interest in today’s topic: the astronomical unit!
Continue reading “Astronomy Jargon 101: Astronomical Unit”
In this series we are exploring the weird and wonderful world of astronomy jargon! You probably don’t know how close you are to today’s topic: parallax!
Continue reading “Astronomy Jargon 101: Parallax”
How about that Total Lunar Eclipse this past July 13th? It has been a busy year for astronomy for sure, with two total lunar eclipses, a comet fading out from an unexpected burst of glory, and Saturn, Jupiter and Mars reaching opposition in quick succession.
Now, watch for a rare event this weekend, with the final eclipse for 2018 coming up on Saturday, August 11th, with a partial solar eclipse spanning northern Europe and the Arctic.
What’s so unique about this eclipse? Well, not only is it the last one for 2018, but it’s part of three eclipses in the second eclipse season of the year. Most seasons only feature two eclipses (one lunar and one solar) but every few years or so, it is possible to have a season with three: either lunar-solar-lunar (such as occurred in 2013) or solar-lunar-solar.
This is only possible when the middle eclipse occurs very near ascending or descending node along the ecliptic. The nodes are where the path of the Moon, inclined 5.1 degrees relative to the ecliptic plane intersect it—when these nodes are occupied by an alignment of the Earth, Sun and Moon (known as a syzygy, a fine word in Scrabble to land on a triple word score, though you’ll need a blank tile for the third ‘y’) a solar or lunar eclipse occurs. For an eclipse triple play, the middle eclipse needs to happen very near a node crossing, producing a fairly long eclipse. That’s exactly what happened on July 28th, when the Moon crossed through descending node just over an hour after crossing out of the Earth’s umbral shadow after the longest lunar eclipse for the 21st century.
This also leaves the Moon close enough to the opposite ascending node two weeks post and prior to July 28th on July 13th and August 11th to just nick the Sun for a partial solar eclipse, one over the Antarctic and one over the Arctic.
Eclipse Circumstances
Saturday’s partial eclipse touches down over the eastern coast of Canada at sunrise. From there, it sweeps eastward over Greenland, Iceland and the North Atlantic, with the Moon’s penumbra just grazing the northern United Kingdom before crossing over Scandinavia. Then, the shadow crosses over Asia, with a photogenic partial solar eclipse wrapping up at sunset over eastern China, the Koreas and the Russian far east.
Note that this eclipse is also a relative newcomer for its particular saros 155, as it is member 6 of a series of 71 eclipses. The saros just began less than a century ago on June 17th, 1928, and won’t produce its first total solar eclipse until September 12th, 2072 AD.
As of this writing, we’ve yet to see evidence of anyone carrying the eclipse live, though we’ll note it here if any webcast(s) surface.
When is the next one? Well, the next partial solar eclipse is on January 6th 2019, and the next total solar eclipse occurs on July 2nd, 2019.
Enter the Perseids
This weekend’s eclipse at New Moon also sets us up for a fine display of the Perseid meteors for 2018. This year, the Perseids are expected to peak on the morning of August 12th and August 13th. Watch for a zenithal hourly rate of 100 meteors per hour at the peak. A dependable annual favorite, the Perseids are debris remnants of period comet 109/P Swift-Tuttle.
Astronomer Gianluca Masi and the Virtual Telescope Project 2.0 will host a live webcast for the 2018 Perseids on August 12th starting at 20:30 UT.
Don’t miss the astronomical action worldwide this weekend, either live or online.
There’s nothing an astronomer – whether professional or amateur – loves more than a clear dark night sky away from the city lights. Outside the glare and glow and cloud cover that most of us experience every day, the night sky comes alive with a life of its own.
Thousands upon countless thousands of glittering jewels – each individual star a pinprick of light set against the velvet-smooth blackness of the deeper void. The arching band of the Milky Way, itself host to billions more stars so far away that we can only see their combined light from our vantage point. The familiar constellations, proudly showing their true character, drawing the eye and the mind to the ancient tales spun about them.
There are few places left in the world to see the sky as our ancestors did; to gaze in wonder at the celestial dome and feel the weight of billions of years of cosmic history hanging above us. Thankfully the International Dark Sky Association is working to preserve what’s left of the true night sky, and they’ve rightfully marked northern Chile to preserve for posterity.
I’ve often been asked the question, “Can the astronauts on the Space Station see the stars?” Astronaut Jack Fischer provides an unequivocal answer of “yes!” with a recent post on Twitter of a timelapse he took from the ISS. Fischer captured the arc of the Milky Way in all its glory, saying it “paints the heavens in a thick coat of awesome-sauce!”
Can you see stars from up here? Oh yeah baby! Check out the Milky Way as it spins & paints the heavens in a thick coat of awesome-sauce! pic.twitter.com/MsXeNHPxLF
— Jack Fischer (@Astro2fish) August 16, 2017
But, you might be saying, “how can this be? I thought the astronauts on the Moon couldn’t see any stars, so how can anyone see stars in space?”
It is a common misconception that the Apollo astronauts didn’t see any stars. While stars don’t show up in the pictures from the Apollo missions, that’s because the camera exposures were set to allow for good images of the bright sunlit lunar surface, which included astronauts in bright white space suits and shiny spacecraft. Apollo astronauts reported they could see the brighter stars if they stood in the shadow of the Lunar Module, and also they saw stars while orbiting the far side of the Moon. Al Worden from Apollo 15 has said the sky was “awash with stars” in the view from the far side of the Moon that was not in daylight.
Just like stargazers on Earth need dark skies to see stars, so too when you’re in space.
The cool thing about being in the ISS is that astronauts experience nighttime 16 times a day (in 45 minute intervals) as they orbit the Earth every 90 minutes, and can have extremely dark skies when they are on the “dark” side of Earth. Here’s another recent picture from Fischer where stars can be seen:
Twinkle, twinkle, little star…
Up above the world so high
Like a diamond in the sky… pic.twitter.com/8H7CshyP0p— Jack Fischer (@Astro2fish) August 13, 2017
For stars to show up in any image, its all about the exposure settings. For example, if you are outside (on Earth) on a dark night and can see thousands of stars, if you just take your camera or phone camera and snap a quick picture, you’ll just get a darkness. Earth-bound astrophotographers need long-exposure shots to capture the Milky Way. Same is true with ISS astronauts: if they take long-exposure shots, they can get stunning images like this one:
This image, set to capture the bright solar arrays and the rather bright Earth (even though its in twilight) reveals no stars:
Sometimes you look out the window and it just takes your breath away from how beautiful Earth is. Today is one of those times… #EarthShapes pic.twitter.com/53UqL9BFH1
— Jack Fischer (@Astro2fish) August 2, 2017
In this timelapse of Earth at night, a few stars show up, but again, the main goal here was to have the camera capture the Earth:
Universe Today’s Bob King has a good, detailed explanation of how astronauts on the ISS can see stars on his Astro Bob blog Astrophysicist . Brian Koberlein explains it on his blog, here.
You can check out all the images that NASA astronauts take from the ISS on the “Astronaut Photography of Earth” site, and almost all the ISS astronauts and cosmonauts have social media accounts where they post pictures. Jack Fischer, currently on board, tweets great images and videos frequently here.
