A new atlas of nearby binary stars plots more than a million pairs and reveals a profusion of identical twins. Source: https://earthsky.org/space/3d-map-million-binary-stars…
Tag: The Sun
Mercury-Saturn quasi-conjunction on February 23, 2021
Will you see Saturn and Mercury in the east before sunup these next few mornings? It won’t be easy. They’re near the sunrise. Their quasi-conjunction comes on February 23. Source: https://earthsky.org/tonight/mercury-saturn-quasi-conjunction-feb-23-2021…
James Webb Space Telescope – Hubble’s successor – to launch in October
The James Webb Space Telescope is the world’s most complex infrared telescope, built for a wide range of research projects. NASA is now targeting October 31 for its launch on an Ariane 5 rocket from French Guiana. Source: https://earthsky.org/space/james-webb-telescope-hubble-successor-to-launch…
Images of shadows cast by jet contrails
Jet contrail shadows may appear to be cast by a low-altitude bright light shining upwards. In fact, this shadow is normally cast on clouds below the jet and its contrail. Source: https://earthsky.org/todays-image/jet-contrail-casts-a-shadow…
Sun’s bumpy magnetic fields might explain why its atmosphere is so hot
The best measurements yet of the magnetic fields in the upper layers of the sun have revealed a landscape of lumps and bumps that may help us predict solar flares Source: https://www.newscientist.com/article/2268544-suns-bumpy-magnetic-fields-might-explain-why-its-atmosphere-is-so-hot/?utm_campaign=RSS%7CNSNS&utm_source=NSNS&utm_medium=RSS&utm_content=home…
Sounding rocket CLASP2 elucidates solar magnetic field
Cooperative operations between a solar observation satellite and a sounding-rocket telescope have measured the magnetic field strength in the photosphere and chromosphere above an active solar plage region. This is the first time that the magnetic field in the chromosphere has been charted all the way up its top. This finding brings us closer to understanding how energy is transferred between…
Cold dust cores in the central zone of the Milky Way
The Milky Way’s central molecular zone (CMZ) spans the innermost 1600 light-years of the galaxy (for comparison, the Sun is 26,600 light-years away from the galactic center) and includes a vast complex of molecular clouds containing about sixty million solar-masses of molecular gas. The gas in these clouds exists under more extreme physical conditions than elsewhere in the galaxy on average,…
Has Earth been visited by an alien spaceship? Harvard Professor Avi Loeb vs. everybody else
A highly unusual object was spotted traveling through the solar system in 2017. Given a Hawaiian name,ʻOumuamua, it was small and elongated—a few hundred meters by a few tens of meters, traveling at a speed fast enough to escape the Sun’s gravity and move into interstellar space. Source: https://phys.org/news/2021-02-earth-alien-spaceship-harvard-professor.html…
Moon skims past Mars and Aldebaran February 17-19, 2021
The waxing crescent moon pairs up with the faint planet Uranus on February 17, flits by the red planet Mars on February 18, and then joins up with the red star Aldebaran on February 19. Source: https://earthsky.org/tonight/moon-mars-aldebaran-feb-17-18-19-2021…
Farthest known object in the solar system identified
Astronomers have confirmed that an object with the nickname of Farfarout is, to date, the farthest object we’ve seen in the solar system. Source: https://earthsky.org/space/farthest-known-object-solar-system-farfarout…