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Say goodbye to Mars! The Red Planet hides behind the sun for 2 weeks
Mars will disappear from the sky over Earth on Saturday (Nov. 18) when the Red Planet is apparently swallowed by the sun. Don’t panic, this disappearance may look dramatic but it is actually the result of Mars passing to the opposite side of the sun to Earth during an event that astronomers call solar conjunction. …
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The Sky This Week from November 17 to 24: Look up for the Leonids
This composite shows five Leonid meteors during the 2020 meteor shower, including a bright trail that lasted some 20 minutes. Credit: Jim Vajda (Flickr) Friday, November 17The Leonid meteor shower, which brings remnants of Comet 55P/Tempel-Tuttle streaking through our skies, peaks overnight tonight and early tomorrow morning. Shower meteors appear to originate from a point…
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Watch the Leonids Meteor Shower Reach Its Peak This Weekend
On any given night, far from bright city lights, there’s a chance that you’ll see a beautiful streak shoot across the sky as a meteor flies overhead. But on special dates scattered throughout the year, skywatchers can catch a multitude of flares as meteor showers burst in the darkness. The next event is the Leonids,…
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Astonishing energy of BOAT gamma rays revealed
Earlier this year, it was reported that the Earth was hit by the brightest gamma-ray bursts seen since the dawn of civilization. Now, a team of astronomers has assigned a value to the energy contained in those blasts and it’s staggering to say the least. The gamma-ray burst (GRB) reported in April of this year…
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Lost astronaut tool bag from ISS shines in new telescope image (photo)
A lost tool bag in space shines brightly in a new image taken from Rome. Two astronauts spacewalking on the International Space Station harmlessly lost grip of a tool bag during a Nov. 1 spacewalk. The shiny object, visible in binoculars, showed up in footage taken by the Virtual Telescope Project on Wednesday (Nov. 15).…
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Astronauts on Mars may see a green sky, eerie new study suggests
Mars might be the Red Planet, but its atmosphere glows green. Using the European Space Agency’s (ESA) ExoMars Trace Gas Orbiter (TGO), scientists have observed Mars’ atmosphere glowing green for the first time ever — in the visible light spectrum, that is. The effect is called airglow (or dayglow or nightglow, depending on the hour), and it occurs on Earth, too. While…
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Gazing into the past and future at historic observatories
At the top of Mount Hamilton, near San Jose, California, Lick Observatory looks out over the dense sprawl of the San Francisco Bay Area. On a clear day from the 4,200-foot summit, you can see San Francisco to the north, as well as the entrance to Yosemite Valley, 120 miles east, as the crow flies.…
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Astromomy is a changing science
Photo: Pixabay It was a clear, sunny day on Mars, with just a few streaks of cirrus cloud. A range of low hills defined the horizon. That was one of the images sent back to us by one of the robots we have exploring the Red Planet. Then we have pictures transmitted back from Titan,…
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Fascinating recent discoveries about comets and meteors in our solar system
As space objects go, comets and meteors are not very big. While a planet like Earth is about 8,000 miles in diameter and a star like our Sun is about 865,000 miles across, the largest asteroid, Ceres, is only about 600 miles wide and the largest comet, Bernardinelli-Bernstein, has a diameter of only 80 miles.…
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Look to the stars as Astrofest 2023 takes off in Perth
Astrofest, Australia’s largest astronomy festival, in Perth this weekend Run by Astronomy WA, the event features telescopes and talks on the universe Free event at Curtin Stadium on Saturday, 18 November Thousands of stargazers are expected to attend the Astrofest festival this weekend to learn more about the universe and use some of Western Australia’s…
