Tag: Black Holes

Interesting Astronomy & Astrophysics news from the week of 9/20/2020

Next week’s night sky: On Tuesday, September 9, Saturn will appear to stand still. Usually, planets appear to move across the night sky and change places in reference to other stars. However, on this day, Saturn will move with the stars. This will make the planet a lot easier to find! Just look for the bright planet in the southern sky, then remember the pattern the stars make around it. Anytime during the night, you will be able to find that pattern and find Saturn!October 1 is […]

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Interesting Astronomy & Astrophysics news from the week of 8/30/2020

Next week’s night sky: Wednesday marks the end of Mars’s forward retrograde motion. If you train a camera on Mars all night, you will notice that it stops moving forward and starts going backward! This effect happens because Mars’s orbit is slower than ours. You can observe this effect when you are neck to neck with another car on the highway, and then pull ahead. Next Thursday is a third-quarter moon. Look extremely closely at the terminator between night and day to see the fine details in […]

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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. […]

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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 […]

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Top Astronomy and Astrophysics research from the week of 7/12/2020

Next week’s night sky If you have a telescope or binoculars, next week will be full of awesome things to see! Monday is the new moon, This means that the sky will be extra dark, making the stars look more luminous in the sky! Also on Monday, Saturn is at apposition! This means that it will be the brightest it will be all year. Coupled with the new moon, this should make for a spectacular sight! On Friday, from 05:20 -08:00 GMT, Europa’s shadow will pass through […]

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Top Astronomy and Astrophysics research from the week of 7/5/2020

Next week’s night sky A lot of cool things are happening early  this week! On Sunday 7/12, the moon will be in its last quarter. On Monday, July 13, ceres will reverse direction! If you have a telescope, this is an incredibly cool thing to watch. To find ceres, navigate to this website: Stellarium Web Online Star Map, and then look up ceres. On Tuesday, July 14th, Jupiter will be at apposition! This means that it will be brightest and closest it will be all year! You […]

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All about black holes

You might have seen black holes referenced as wormholes, portals, or inescapable balls of doom. But what really are they? The NASA definition of a black hole is “A black hole is a place in space where gravity pulls so much that even light can not get out.” What does this mean? Gravity and black holes Gravity is a force that interacts between every object, pulling them together. Your body exerts gravity on your phone, and vice versa. It is just that these forces are too small […]

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Interesting Astronomy & Astrophysics news from the week of 6/21/2020

Next week’s night sky: The  Boötid meteor shower is active! This shower only rarely produces significant numbers of meteors, usually only at most 1-2 per hour. However, on those rare occasions, when it is extremely active, viewers can see up to one hundred meteors per hour! For observers in the middle of the United States, the best time to watch will be right after nightfall. Because most meteor showers occur at around 2 in the morning, this is an amazing opportunity for most casual watchers to try […]

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