Two rocky worlds and a gas giant form a triangle at dusk at the end of May, low to your north west. From Saturday the 25th to Wednesday the 29th, Earth’s evil twin Venus, the gas planet Jupiter, and the solar system’s first world Mercury are in conjunction.
But spotting this early summer dance of the planets is definitely not going to be a piece of cake, as you’ll need Read more →
“A coronal mass ejection is a billion tonne cloud of magnetised gas launched into space by an explosion on the Sun, caused by magnetic fields breaking apart under high stress. When headed for Earth CME’s cause colourful auroras as the charged particles slam into Earth’s magnetic field”
The Soviet lander’s parachute in the Martian dust?
Mars’ craters, plains, and valleys are littered with the metallic skeletons of various chunks of hardware sent from Earth over the decades. The red planet has earned the nickname ‘the spacecrafts graveyard’, its thin atmosphere being one reason for this low success rate.
But this image taken by the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter in April 2013 shows what may be the parachute from one of the first attempts at a landing on our neighbouring planet. Decades of dust storms, wind, and the shifting sands of Mars have nearly concealed the Read more →
The rock named “Sutton_Inlier” split apart by Curiosity’s wheel, image credit NASA
Scratch the surface of Mars the red planet and beneath its thin rusty coloured surface you might find something else entirely.
Well that’s according to one of the latest images sent back from the successful Nasa Mars Curiosity Rover, or the Mars Science Laboratory. This razor sharp image, stunning high quality shots that we’ve become used to from Curiosity, shows a rock called “Sutton_Inlier” that has been split apart when the 899 kilogram rover drove over it. It also reveals just how big and hefty this Martian Read more →
PANSTARRS as seen from Mount Dale, Western Australia. Image credit: Astronomy Education Services/Gingin Observatory
Comet PANSTARRS is just the latest vistor to our skies, after some exciting and unexpected visitors from space. It was the meteor that hit Russia on the 15th of February that caused panic, injuries, and so much damage to buildings. Then on the evening of that same day an olympic swimming pool size asteroid called 2012 DA14 skimmed Earth, actually passing inside the orbit of TV satellites at 17,100 miles above your head. Now it’s the turn of a real nice naked eye comet called Comet PANSTARRS to grace your skies. PANSTARRS is a non periodic comet discovered in June 2011 with the full name of C/2011
L4 (PANSTARRS) named after the telescopic survey, the Panoramic Survey Telescope and Rapid Response System that spotted it coming our way. Non periodic means it is this comets first passage through the solar system.
That new object in the March skies at dusk with the faint tail has probably taken millions of years to get here. It has Read more →
Moscow’s tentacles of light spread out from the city far below, image credit NASA
Who else gets a view like this out of the office window? Only the astronauts aboard the International Space Station that’s who. The city of Moscow looks stunning traced out by its lights, as the ISS passes 240 miles above. Looking like a giant spider in the darkness Moscow is to be soon lit by the rising Sun. The pre dawn Sun lights the horizon, and the Sun also creates the green aurora by the action of the solar wind on Earth’s magnetic field. This image was photographed by the International Space Station’s Expedition 30 crew.
Venus shines through Saturn’s rings from Cassini
You’ve witnessed the dazzling sight of Venus gracing the morning or evening skies of Earth, it shines bright, it’s actually the brightest object in the sky after the Sun and Moon. Venus is my favourite naked eye planet, it punches through the twilight with its brightness, looking very impressive in the dark blue after sunset, or before sunrise. Venus is our planetary next door neighbour, Mars being our other neighbour in the solar system. Venus is Earth’s sister world, a place of extremes, a vision of Hell, with Read more →
Video by Russia Today
Video from TvNEWS Everr
A large space rock came screaming through Earth’s atmosphere today, the 15th of February 2013. It came down in Russia’s Ural Mountains, over the city of Yekaterinburg. A bright flash of light travelled across the early morning sky as it left a smokey trail in its wake, soon after a loud bang was heard. This type of impact event is very rare, as the last major one happened in Tunguska, Siberia in 1908. Today’s event injured over 500 people, injuries mainly resulting from the bang which could have been the sonic Read more →
In astronomy you’ll often see objects described as being so many degrees apart, or 3 arc minutes wide, or 45 arc seconds or so. What on Earth do all these numbers mean?
The entire sky is divided up into degrees, The whole sky is in fact 360 degrees. If you look from one horizon the opposite horizon, well that’s 180 degrees. The highest point in the sky is called the meridian, now look from the meridian down to the horizon, and…yes you’ve guessed it, 90 degrees. So objects such as the Moon, stars, and planets’ diameters and Read more →
All times are GMT, one hour is added for BST between March 25th and October 28th
The dark star studded nights of winter are far behind us, giving way to the fainter constellations of spring.
Get yourself outside under the stars if it’s clear, pull up a deck chair, and scan the star clusters, nebulae, and even see other galaxies with your binoculars. Their lower power makes them just perfect for objects such as the larger open clusters, giving you great views and of course as you get to use both eyes, providing almost a 3D view. Just
Betelgeuse position in Orion
Red supergiant Betelgeuse sits at Orion’s left shoulder in the northern winter sky. Everyone has probably looked at it, in this striking constellation. But you will never see it again as just a boring point of light. It is a turbulent, volatile monster of a star on a one way trip to destruction in a supernova.
Maybe just a few million years old, Betelgeuse has evolved at a rapid rate due to its large mass, it is a live fast die young star. In fact it is so large that if it was Read more →
This page keeps track of the planets daily, telling you where they are in the sky if visible, with rising/setting times, and highest points. Also information about how long you’ll be able to see them in the night sky, with detailed descriptions of each. Apart from Uranus and Neptune, it’s possible to see all with your unaided eyes. Read more →
From a dark location the Milky Way can be an incredible sight
Our home galaxy the Milky Way, a barred spiral galaxy, a colossal 100,000 light year wide disk of hundreds of billions of stars, planets, dust, gas, and dark matter slowly turning in interstellar space. On a clear night from a location without light pollution, the Milky Way arching overhead is an absolutely astounding and amazing sight. Star clouds, dark nebulae,
and star clusters are packed into a narrow band of light that is the Galaxy of which we are part. If you view the Milky Way with imagination and see
the scene as it actually is, the plane of our Galaxy and not just a band of
stars, Read more →
Times are GMT, one hour is added for British summer time between March 25th and October 28th.
As the Earth travels around in its orbit, it passes through the dusty trails of various comets that orbit the Sun. This is when we can see meteor showers. As comets get nearer the Sun in their orbits, the Sun’s radiation has an effect of vapourising gases from the comets nucleus creating a long tail. Some tails have been measured at over 150 million kilometres long. Comets are frozen balls of dust, ice, and rock, and meteors are the grains of dust in the comet’s tail that burn up as “shooting stars” as they enter Earth’s atmosphere. During a meteor shower peak the bright Moon is an Read more →