Top Astronomy & Astrophysics research from the week of 8/23/2020

Next week’s night sky The moon reaches its full stage, halfway through its rotation around Earth, on Tuesday. This is a great time to look more closely at the moon! With a good set of binoculars, you should be able to make out the detail of the craters and planes of the lunar surface. On Saturday, the moon and Jupiter will be only around 1 degree apart. Just wait about half an hour after sunset, and then look for a reddish brown-object shining right near the moon. […]

Read more

Theoretical Vs. Observational Astronomy

Astronomy is one of the oldest existing sciences, started when humans first looked at the night sky. The study of the sky is split into two main parts, observational astronomy and theoretical astronomy. Observational astronomy deals with the study of electromagnetic radiation from space. This simply means taking photos of the sky and then analyzing these photos. Theoretical astronomy uses tools of physics and chemistry to create analytical models. This branch tries to explain why things happen. How do these branches work together? The two branches complement […]

Read more

Top Astronomy & Astrophysics research from the week of 8/16/2020

Next week’s night sky Tuesday this week is the first quarter moon. It will be in the sky all evening, making for some great casual observing. If you have a camera attached to a high powered telescope, you may be able to catch a time-lapse of the terminator (the line dividing day and night) sweeping across the surface of the moon! On Friday about 45 minutes after sunset, Jupiter is just a few degrees away from the moon. If you look around the moon for a big […]

Read more

The key differences between a space and ground telescope.

Astronomy hinges on that ability to observe the sky, and to do that we need telescopes. Astronomers have telescopes nearly everywhere on Earth and many more telescopes in orbit.  But why do we need telescopes both on the Earth and in space? Why not just figure out which location is better, and just put all our telescopes there? The answer is much more complicated than it seems. There are numerous arguments for space telescopes and numerous arguments for ground telescopes. Advantages of space telescopes The biggest advantage […]

Read more

Top Astronomy & Astrophysics research from the week of 8/9/2020

Next week’s night sky: There is an exciting planet-related event happening this week! On Saturday, August 22, there will be a rare double shadow transit over Jupiter! A shadow transit occurs when the shadow of a moon passes over a planet. Shadow transits quite regularly to Jupiter, which has a lot of moons. However, these shadow transits last only minutes, making a dual shadow transit extremely rare. This shadow transit will happen at 06:32 GMT on Saturday, August 22. The moon becomes a new moon on August […]

Read more

Top Astronomy and Astrophysics research from the week of 7/26/2020

Next week’s night sky: On Monday, August 3rd, the moon will be a green corn full moon. This means that the moon is near the Aquarius or Capricorn stars, which always happens in August. On Thursday, August 6th, NEOWISE will pass Messier 53. This is a great photo opportunity if you have a good telescope! A destroyed cluster Scientists have recently discovered the long-lost remnants of a globular cluster ripped apart by the Milky Way! A globular cluster is a huge, spherical collection of more than a […]

Read more

Top Astronomy and Astrophysics research from the week of 7/19/2020

Next week’s night sky The moon will reach its first quarter on July 27. Under some magnification, the sunlight striking the craters and the valleys along the terminator that separates the light and dark sides will be quite interesting! On Tuesday, July 28, the Southern Delta Aquariids meteor shower peaks at around 3 in the morning! This shower commonly drops around 15-20 meteor per hour, so 15 minutes of looking should get you to see at least 5 meteors! Meteors usually come in clouds, so they will […]

Read more

The top ten coolest things in space

This is a list of what I consider to be the top ten coolest things in space! 1. Thorne-Zytkow object First is a Thorne-Zytkow object. These objects form when a pulsar worms its way into the body of a different star. Although these objects would appear to be almost normal, they would house all sorts of strange elements that would never appear in a regular star. The only one that we know of in the entire universe is called HV 2112. 2. The Fermi Bubbles Second, the […]

Read more

My photos of the comet NEOWISE

Last night was a very very clear night, and so I was able to get some good photos of comet Neowise! Here they are: I was able to get these images by looking right under the big dipper. Neowise is getting dimmer, so I may be hard to see. It is a good idea to get your eyes used to the dark before trying to find it. Look for a streak in the sky that seems out of place. That will be the comet!

Read more

All about exoplanets

An exoplanet is a planet that is not orbiting our star. An exoplanet could look like Earth, Mars, or even Jupiter.  To be classified as an exoplanet, a body must fulfill almost all of the requirements to be a planet: it must be rounded by its own gravity and have cleared its own orbit. Exoplanets are interesting for several reasons. First, they give researchers insights into how other planets might interact with stars. We only have seven planets to study in our solar system. But by looking […]

Read more