Category: Weekly Update

Interesting Astronomy & Astrophysics news from the week of 3/7/2021

Next week’s night sky: At 5:21 a.m. EST, or 10:21 GMT, on Saturday, March 13, the moon will officially reach its new moon phase. While new, the moon is travelling between Earth and the sun. Since sunlight can only reach the far side of the moon, and the moon is in the same region of the sky as the sun, the moon becomes completely hidden from view for about a day. After the new moon phase Earth’s celestial night-light will return to shine in the western evening […]

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

Next week’s night sky: When the moon reaches its third-quarter phase at 8:30 p.m. EST on Friday, March 5 (or 1:30 GMT on Saturday, March 6), it will rise in the middle of the night, and then remain visible in the southern sky all morning. At this phase, the moon is half-illuminated, on its western side – towards the pre-dawn sun. Third-quarter moons are positioned ahead of the Earth in our trip around the Sun. About 3½ hours later, Earth will occupy that same location in space. […]

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Interesting Astronomy & Astrophysics news from the week of 2/21/2021

Next Week’s Night Sky: With the full moon nearly completely gone from Friday’s night sky, this is a great time to get some stargazing in! Bring your favorite pair of binoculars, and feast you eyes on the many beautiful objects in the night sky. My Own Research I found eight blue E+A galaxies in a galactic filament in the Coma cluster of galaxies. An E+A galaxy is a galaxy that has just transformed from its “young” stage to its “old stage.” A galactic filament is simply a […]

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Interesting Astronomy & Astrophysics news from the week of 2/7/2021

Next Week’s Night Sky: When the moon completes the first quarter of its orbit around Earth at 1:47 p.m. EST (or 18:47 GMT) on Friday, Feb. 19, the relative positions of the Earth, sun, and moon will cause us to see it half-illuminated — on its eastern side. In the first quarter, the moon always rises around noon and sets around midnight, so it is also visible in the afternoon daytime sky. The evenings surrounding the first quarter are the best for seeing the lunar terrain when […]

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Interesting Astronomy & Astrophysics news from the week of 1/31/2021

Next Week’s Night Sky: At 19:05 GMT on Thursday, Feb. 11, the moon will officially reach its new moon phase. While new, the moon is travelling between Earth and the sun. Since sunlight can only reach the far side of the moon, and the moon is in the same region of the sky as the sun, the moon becomes completely hidden from view for about a day. After the new moon Earth’s celestial night-light will return to shine in the western evening sky. A Black Widow Pulsar […]

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Interesting Astronomy & Astrophysics news from the week of 1/24/2021

Next Week’s Night Sky: When the moon reaches its third quarter phase at 17:37 GMT (or 12:37 p.m. EST) on Thursday, Feb. 4, it will rise in the middle of the night, and then remain visible in the southern sky all morning. At this phase the moon is illuminated on its western side, towards the pre-dawn Sun. Third quarter moons are positioned ahead of the Earth in our trip around the Sun. About 3½ hours later, Earth will occupy that same location in space. The week of […]

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Interesting Astronomy & Astrophysics news from the week of 1/17/2021

Next Week’s Night Sky: January 28th is the full moon. This is a wonderful time to take a good look at the moon through binoculars —  you should be able to make out many fine and beautiful details! Youngest Magnetar Astronomers discovered the youngest member of a bizarre group of stars, known as magnetars, using NASA’s Neil Gehrels Swift Telescope in March of 2020. And now, further observations shed even more light on the exotic beast. Magnetars are a special breed of already strange neutron stars. Remnants […]

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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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