NASA announced a new citizen science project called “Planet Patrol” which lets the volunteers help to find exoplanets using TESS Space Telescope (Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite) data. It is similar to another NASA citizen science project, “Backyard Worlds”, where volunteers or the “citizen scientists” are checking telescope images the same way the American astronomer Clyde […]
Category Archives: Astronomy
Moon passing in front of Mars in this spectacular video
On September 6, 2020, French astrophotographer Thierry Legault (@ThierryLegault) went to the South of Lisbon to capture the event of the Moon passing in front of Mars. The result is this spectacular video, titled “Occultation of Mars by the Moon” by Legault himself.
Backyard Worlds: NASA is asking for volunteers to help find the hypothetical Planet 9
Some astronomers think in our outer solar system there’s a giant, undiscovered world hiding and they call it (for obvious reasons) Planet Nine. Whether it exists, it could be 5-10 times the size of the Earth and orbit Sun hundreds of times farther away than Earth orbiting Sun. Now, a NASA citizen science project called […]
Saturn and its rings: Hubble’s spectacular new photo (July 4, 2020)
NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope took this spectacular photo of Saturn and its rings on July 4, 2020, when the ringed gas giant was 839 million miles (1,35 billion kilometers) from Earth.
Most-detailed 3D map of the Universe has been released
On Jul 20, 2020, scientists have released what they call the “most-detailed 3D map of the universe ever produced”. This incredible map shows 11 billion years of the Universe’s history, with galaxies closest to Earth appearing in purple & blue, and distant galaxies in yellow & red.
Comet NEOWISE and noctilucent clouds – something we’ve never seen before
Russian space agency Roscosmos published spectacular photos of Comet NEOWISE (C/2020 F3) and noctilucent clouds or polar mesospheric clouds (PMCs) above our beautiful planet Earth. This is something we’ve never seen before. Forming about 45-55 miles (75-90 km) above polar regions in summer, noctilucent clouds are Earth’s uppermost clouds and only visible around twilight. PMCs […]
Spectacular comet photo from the ISS
Russian cosmonaut Ivan Vagner published a spectacular comet photo on his Twitter account (@ivan_mks63). He tweeted both in Russian and in English and said “During the next revolution I tried to capture the C/2020 F3 (NEOWISE) comet a bit closer, the brightest one over the last 7 years. Its tail is quite clearly visible from […]
How the moon was formed? An epic exploration of lunar origin theories
How the moon was formed? The most widely accepted theory of the Moon’s origin is known as the Giant Impact Hypothesis. The standard giant impact hypothesis, sometimes called the Big Splash, or the Theia Impact suggests the Mars-sized body, called Theia, impacted Earth, creating a large debris ring around Earth, and the Moon formed out […]
44 Closest Stars and How They Compare to Our Sun (infographic)
Humanity has been admiring, studying, following, and musing about stars since the dawn our of existence. When you wish upon a star, it may be bewildering to imagine just how far away that star truly is. We know that the closest star to our planet is the Sun, but what about beyond that? The closest […]
Planet Nine might not exist, many astronomers now think
This article is originally published on The Conversation with the title of “Why astronomers now doubt there is an undiscovered 9th planet in our solar system”. Samantha Lawler, University of Regina Planet Nine is a theoretical, undiscovered giant planet in the mysterious far reaches of our solar system. The presence of Planet Nine has been […]
