Interesting Astronomy & Astrophysics news from the week of 8/15/2021

Next week’s night sky: From Saturday onward, the night is prime milky-way viewing. Go out at around 2 hours after sunset to look at the beautiful band of bright stars snaking across the sky! Martian Images Images of knobbly rocks and rounded hills are delighting scientists as NASA’s Curiosity rover climbs Mount Sharp, a 5-mile-tall mountain within the 96-mile-wide basin of Mars’ Gale Crater. The rover’s Mast Camera, or Mastcam, highlights those features in a panorama captured on the 3,167th Martian day,. This location is particularly exciting: […]

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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 11/22/2020

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 11/1/2020

Next week’s night sky: On Thursday, the Northern Taurids meteor shower peaks! Look at the sky just after midnight to catch a glimpse of up to 15 meteorites per hour! Sunday is the new moon. This is a great time to stargaze, as the moon will not block any of the dimmer stars. If you have a telescope, consider looking at mars on Sunday. It will stay in almost the same place the whole night, making it easy to find! Mountains on Mars How did Olympus Mons […]

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Interesting Astronomy & Astrophysics news from the week of 10/18/2020

Next week’s night sky: This week, Mars will be extraordinarily easy to stop. From October 28-30, about an hour after sunset, simply locate the moon. The reddish dot above it will be Mars! Halloween is a full moon! This is the perfect time to look at the moon for a great socially distanced holiday. Are non-spherical planets possible? Some of the planetary systems researchers have found experience extreme conditions. These large, gassy planets orbiting very close to their stars are called hot Jupiters. One of these hot […]

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Interesting Astronomy & Astrophysics news from the week of 9/27/2020

Next week’s night sky: On Monday, October 5, Mars is the closest it will get to earth. This won’t happen again until 2035! The Draconids Meteor Shower will peak overnight on Wednesday, October 7. This shower can deliver up to 15 meteors per hour, or a meteor every 4 minutes. Check out the map below to see where to look. Salty Lakes under the surface of Mars Two years ago, researchers discovered a possible lake on Mars, buried under the surface of Mars. Now, new research adds […]

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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 […]

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