Answer Time From Space!

What’s Up for January?

A meteor shower, a binocular comet and the winter circle of stars. Here are the details:

Quadrantid Meteor Shower

The Quadrantid meteor shower on Jan. 4 will either sizzle or fizzle for observers in the U.S. The shower may favor the U.S. or it could favor Europe depending on which prediction turns out to be correct. For viewing in the United States, observers should start at 3 a.m. EST. The peak should last about two hours with rates of 120 meteors per hour predicted in areas with a dark sky.

Comet Catalina

In the middle of the month, midnight to predawn will be primetime for viewing Comet Catalina. It should be visible with binoculars if you have a dark sky, but a telescope would be ideal. Between the 14th and 17th the comet will pass by two stunning galaxies: M51, the whirlpool galaxy and M101, a fainter spiral galaxy.

Constellation Orion

Winter is also the best time to view the constellation Orion in the southeastern sky. Even in the city, you’ll see that it’s stars have different colors. Not telescope needed, just look up a few hours after sunset! The colorful stars of Orion are part of the winter circle of stars.

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Using the advanced adaptive optics system on the Gemini South telescope, astronomers have imaged a beautiful stellar jewel-box – a tightly packed cluster of stars that is one of the few places in our galaxy where astronomers think stars can actually collide. Stellar collisions are important because they can provide the key to understand the origin of exotic objects that cannot be interpreted in terms of the passive evolution of single stars. read more here credit: Gemini Observatory/AURA 

i think the coolest thing would be to see a new color

Solar System: Things to Know This Week

Here are a few things you should know about our solar system this week:

1. Gearing Up for a Grand Finale

There’s just a year left until the Cassini mission begins its Grand Finale – the final phase of its mission, during which the spacecraft will dive repeatedly between the planet and the rings. To get ready, the Cassini team has launched an enhanced, mobile device-friendly version of the mission website. The site includes information about Cassini, Saturn, the moons and the rings – but it also tells the human stories behind one of the most ambitions expeditions of all time.

2.Caught in Transit

On Monday, May 9, the planet Mercury will cross directly in front of the sun, an event that hasn’t occurred since 2006 and won’t happen again until 2019. Find out how to watch HERE.  

3. A Moon for Makemake

Our Hubble Space Telescope has spotted a small, dark moon orbiting Makemake (pronounced “MAH-kay MAH-kay). Make make is the second brightest icy dwarf planet – after Pluto – in the faraway Kuiper Belt.

4. The Age of the Aquarids

The Eta Aquarid meteor shower is the first of two showers that occur each year as a result of Earth passing through dust released by Halley’s Comet. This year, it should peak on the night of May 5/6. Get tips for watching HERE.

5. The Southern Lights of Saturn

On May 4, Cassini will reach periapse, the closest point to Saturn in the spacecraft’s orbit. At about this time, Cassini’s cameras will monitor Saturn’s south polar aurorae, and also image the bright limb of the planet to better understand its upper haze layers.

Want to learn more? Read our full list of the 10 things to know this week about the solar system HERE.

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What’s Up for March 2016?

In March, Jupiter, it’s moons and moon shadows will all be visible in the sky. Find out when and where to look up:

Jupiter dominates the evening sky this month, rising at sunset and setting at dawn. On March 8, Jupiter reaches what is called “opposition”. Imagine that Jupiter and the sun are at opposite ends of a straight line, with the Earth in between. This brings Jupiter its closest to Earth, so it shines brighter and appears larger in telescopes.

On the nights of March 14 – 15, March 21 – 22 and March 29, two of Jupiter’s moons will cross the planet’s disk. 

When the planet is at opposition and the sun shines on Jupiter’s moons, we can see the moon’s shadow crossing the planet. There are actually 11 of these double shadow transits in March!

The next six months will be awesome times for you to image Jupiter when it’s highest in the sky; near midnight now, and a little earlier each night through the late summer.

Even through the smallest telescopes or binoculars, you should be able to see the two prominent belts on each side of Jupiter’s equator made up of the four Galilean moons: Io, Europa Ganymede and Calisto. If you have a good enough view, you may even see Jupiter’s Red Spot!

Our Juno spacecraft will arrive at Jupiter on July 4th of this year and will go into orbit around the giant planet. Right now, the Juno mission science team is actively seeking amateur and professional images of the planet. These images are uploaded to a Juno website, and the public is invited to discuss points of interest in Jupiter’s atmosphere.

Locations will later be voted on and the favorites will be targets for JunoCam, the spacecraft’s imaging camera. Once JunoCam has taken the images, they’ll be posted online. Imaging participants can then process these raw mission images and re-upload them for others to view.  

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The Hubble Space telescope just sent back a new photo of the Twin Jet Nebula. Here’s what it looked like in 1997:

And now …

Whoa. But wait, we also got an updated image of the merging galaxies NGC 6240. What it looked like in 2008:

And today:

Science, you’re the best. Oh, and the explanation behind those merging galaxies and their black holes is wild.

Southern Cross by Carlos Fairbairn

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