-
Planet orbiting 2 stars discovered by TESS
TESS’s planet orbiting 2 stars Astronomers announced this month (November 10, 2021) that the space-based TESS planet-hunter (Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite) has discovered its first exoplanet orbiting two stars. Such planets are said to be circumbinary worlds. The newly found planet is a gas giant, almost exactly the same size as our solar system’s biggest…
-
Tau Herculid meteors: Best images and video
Tau Herculid meteors: Worth watching! The much-anticipated Tau Herculid meteor shower put on a fine display overnight on May 30-31, 2022, although the hoped-for meteor storm did not materialize. Hourly counts ranged from 10 to 25. The peak of the shower appeared around 5 UTC (midnight CT), as predicted. These meteors were generated during the…
-
Lunar eclipse: 4 tips for watchers
1. Check the date and time How to watch the upcoming total lunar eclipse – a supermoon eclipse – on May 15-16, 2022. A total lunar eclipse is dramatic and beautiful, and easy to view. During the eclipse, the sun, Earth and moon form a line in space. Earth’s shadow falls on the moon’s face.…
-
Voyager 1 mystery: Sending random data
Mysterious data from Voyager 1 Voyager 1, which launched in 1977, is some 14.5 billion miles (23 billion km) from Earth. Scientists say it’s beyond our solar system, in interstellar space. The 45-year-old probe has been a model of endurance, continuing to send back data using decades-old technology. But on May 18, 2022, NASA announced…
-
Moon, Jupiter, Saturn, Venus December 6 to December 9
Moon, Jupiter, Saturn, Venus New moon came at 07:43 UTC on December 4, 2021. By the evening of December 6, the young waxing crescent is back in the evening sky. From that evening through at least the evening of December 9, you can see spectacularly beautiful scenes in the sky after sunset, as the moon…
-
Moon, Jupiter, Saturn, Venus December 6 to December 9
Moon, Jupiter, Saturn, Venus New moon came at 07:43 UTC on December 4, 2021. By the evening of December 6, the young waxing crescent is back in the evening sky. From that evening through at least the evening of December 9, you can see spectacularly beautiful scenes in the sky after sunset, as the moon…
-
Rare moon halo photo, captured during lunar eclipse
Rare moon halo photo captured during partial lunar eclipse Eliot Herman in Tucson, Arizona – a veteran sky photographer and EarthSky community member – captured this extraordinary photo during the partial lunar eclipse on November 19, 2021. The photo of the moon shows an all-sky overhead view with one bright ring centered around the moon,…
-
Milky Way core revealed in new radio mosaic
New Milky Way core mosaic The South African Radio Astronomy Observatory (SARAO) released the new mosaic image above this week (January 26, 2022). It reveals, uniquely, the core of our Milky Way galaxy in a way we’ve not seen before. The mosaic – made with images from SARAO’s MeerKAT telescope – shows our galaxy’s core…
-
A total lunar eclipse looks red. Why?
Why a lunar eclipse looks red Coming up … Total lunar eclipse of May 15-16, 2022 During a lunar eclipse, you’ll see the Earth’s shadow creeping across the moon’s face. The shadow appears dark, like a bite out of a cookie, until the shadow completely covers the moon. Then, during the breathtaking time of totality,…
-
51 Eridani b: An exoplanet orbits its star
51 Eridani b in motion Orbiting a star 96 light years away. In these five frames, taken by the @GeminiObs and processed by @semaphore_P, the gas giant 51 Eridani b completes part of its 20-AU orbit around its host star. Credit: Jason Wang/Gemini Planet Imager Exoplanet Survey pic.twitter.com/rqJVLbJRyl — Paul Byrne (@ThePlanetaryGuy) October 11, 2021…