Basic astronomy and night sky information
Does understanding more about astronomy make the night sky less beautiful? Does science take the mystery and beauty of nature and make it dull and joyless? The great physicist and teacher Richard Feynman thought not. In a famous BBC interview, Feynman explained, using a flower as an example, why understanding something makes it more beautiful, more interesting, not less. Not convinced? Take a look at this short video clip of Feynman’s “Ode to a Flower” and decide for yourself.
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Within the Summer Triangle, in the constellation Vulpecula, the Fox, lies a fairly new star cluster NGC 6823 embedded within the glowing gas cloud of its birthplace, the nebula NGC 6820. The image above by astrophotographer Jeff Johnson of New Mexico shows cluster and emission nebula along with a dark nebula within the brighter emission nebula that shrouds yet another round of star formation [Read more…] about A View of New Star Cluster and Nebula
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With less than 6 days to go before New Horizons makes its closest approach to Pluto, the dwarf planet is proving to be an interesting little world. Just released by NASA this morning, this image of Pluto shows the regions of the planet that will be inspected in next week’s close flyby. The dark region along the equator, at bottom, has been dubbed ” the whale”. The lighter heart-shaped region at right is about 1,200 miles across. The polar region is in the upper part of the image.
The probe had a little trouble over the weekend when a software glitch caused the probe to go into safe mode and halt all science operations. But engineers have tidied up the problem and full operations have resumed on July 7. The closest flyby comes next week on July 14, 2015 at 11:50 UTC.
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NASA’s New Horizons spacecraft received a final “all clear” as it approaches Pluto at nearly 50,000 km/hr on its way to an historic flyby on July 14, 2015. Mission scientists have been using the spacecraft’s most powerful telescopic camera, the Long Range Reconnaissance Imager (LORRI), to look for potential hazards such as small moons, rings, or dust, since mid-May. But the path looks clear, and the craft will continue on its present course towards Pluto and its five moons.
New color images released July 1 show two very different faces of the dwarf planet. One side of the planet revealed a series of intriguing and evenly-spaced dark spots along the equator. Each spot is about 480 kilometers in diameter with a surface area roughly equal to that of Missouri [Read more…] about The Two Faces of Pluto
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Early risers can spot the planet Mercury low on the eastern horizon before sunrise in early July 2015. The planet shines at an impressive magnitude -1.5, brighter than any star, but it’s low on the horizon and somewhat diminished by the brightening predawn sky. The bright orange-giant star Aldebaran is nearby Mercury, as are the Hyades and Pleiades star clusters. A pair of binoculars will help pull these stars out of the sky glow.
Mercury moves back towards the horizon for most of July and gets even harder to see. If you’re up for a challenge, have a look for the planet Mars, which will be much fainter than Mercury, just 0.1º to the north on July 16. You will need binoculars or a small scope and a clear view down to the eastern horizon to see these two small worlds.
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