Interesting Astronomy & Astrophysics news from the week of 1/10/2021

Next Week’s Night Sky: Wednesday is the first quarter moon.  The evenings surrounding the first quarter are the best for seeing the lunar terrain when it is dramatically lit by low-angle sunlight.  Planet Nine An exoplanet circling two stars 336 light-years away may provide clues about where a long-sought world may be hiding in our own solar system. This strange exoplanet, HD106906 b, was first discovered in 2013 with the Magellan Telescopes at the Las Campanas Observatory in Chile’s Atacama Desert. But in order to determine its […]

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Interesting Astronomy & Astrophysics news from the week of 1/3/2021

Next week’s night sky: Wednesday marks the new moon. This is a great time for stargazing because the moon will not blot out any stars! Look out for the Pleiades high in the sky, one of the most beautiful star clusters of the night sky. Hubble’s Beautiful Galaxy collisions To celebrate a new year, the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope has published a montage of six beautiful galaxy mergers. Each of these merging systems was studied as part of the recent HiPEEC survey to investigate the rate of […]

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Interesting Astronomy & Astrophysics news from the week of 12/27/2020

Next week’s night sky: Named for a now-defunct constellation called the Mural Quadrant, the annual Quadrantids meteor shower runs from December 30 to January 12. This shower’s most intense period, when 50 to 100 meteors per hour can occur, lasts only about 6 hours surrounding the peak, which is predicted to occur on Sunday, January 3 at 10:00 GMT (or 5 a.m. Eastern time). Ripples in Space-time There’s something a ittle off about our theory of the universe. Almost everything fits, but there’s a fly in the […]

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Interesting Astronomy & Astrophysics news from the week of 12/20/2020

Next week’s night sky: The December full moon, traditionally known as the Oak Moon, Cold Moon, and Long Nights Moon, always shines in or near the stars of Gemini. Since it’s opposite the sun on this day of the lunar month, the moon is fully illuminated and rises at sunset and sets at sunrise. Full moons during the winter months reach as high in the sky as the summer noonday sun, and cast similar shadows. This is a great time to get a good look at the […]

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Interesting Astronomy & Astrophysics news from the week of 12/13/2020

Next week’s night sky: Tomorrow, one of the most interesting and rare astronomy events happens! Jupiter and Saturn will be closer together than they ever have been since 1683. This event will not happen again until 2080!. Tomorrow, look towards the southwestern sky just after sunset. You should see a huge dot, brighter than any star in the sky. It should even be visible through clouds to the naked eye! With binoculars, you should be able to see the individual planets, Jupiter being the larger one.  The […]

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Interesting Astronomy & Astrophysics news from the week of 12/6/2020

Next week’s night sky: On Monday, December 14, the Geminids meteor shower peaks! This is usually the most spectacular meteor shower in December. Meteor rates can reach up to 120 meteors an hour! Combined with the new moon, this shower should be a terrific finishing point for the astronomy of 2020. Two young planetary systems Using NASA’s Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS), astronomers have discovered two new young planetary systems. They found that two stars not older than 320 million years, namely TOI-251 and TOI-942, are orbited […]

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Interesting Astronomy & Astrophysics news from the week of 11/29/2020

Next week’s night sky: Tuesday is the last quarter moon. This is a great time to focus on the terminator to see minuscule detail in the surface of the moon. The terminator is the line that divides light from dark. On Monday, December 14, the Geminids meteor shower peaks! This is usually the most spectacular meteor shower in December. Meteor rates can reach up to 120 meteors an hour! Combined with the new moon, this whoer should be a terrific finishing point for the astronomy of 2020. […]

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Interesting Astronomy & Astrophysics news from the week of 11/22/2020

Next week’s night sky: Monday marks the beaver moon, the last full moon of November. This beaver moon will be particularly special, as the moon will also undergo a penumbral eclipse! Although the difference may not be apparent at first, careful study of the moon will reveal that part of the moon is darker than the other. This is because the moon will actually be passing through Earth’s shadow! If you get up early in the morning of Friday (around 3 hours before sunrise), you can find […]

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Interesting Astronomy & Astrophysics news from the week of 11/15/2020

Next week’s night sky: On Thursday, the golden handle appears on the moon. The “Golden Handle” effect is produced by the way the slanted sunlight lights up the prominent mountains of the moon. Best seen through some sort of magnification, the golden handle will appear as a small line trailing from the light side of the moon to the dark side. How do we detect invisible dark matter? Dark matter neither absorbs nor gives off light, which is why astronomers have named it dark. But because dark […]

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Interesting Astronomy & Astrophysics news from the week of 11/8/2020

Next week’s night sky: On Monday the 16th, the Leonids Meteor shower peaks! The shower’s peak will occur at 6 PM, and will reach up to 20 meteors per hour!Also, the moon will be just a faint sliver, leaving the sky nicely dark for the meteors. Saturday the 21st is the first quarter moon. Observe the terminator (the line separating dark and light) to find details on the surface of the moon! Smoother Dark matter Analysis of a giant new galaxy survey by VLT suggests that dark […]

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