A spacecraft taking the scenic route to Mercury successfully completed a crucial maneuver on its journey: a precisely choreographed swing past Earth.
The spacecraft, BepiColombo , represents a partnership between the European Space Agency (ESA) and the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA). The mission launched in October 2018 , but its destination, Mercury, is very challenging to reach: Achieving orbit around the innermost planet requires a seven-year trajectory including complex planetary acrobatics in the form of a total of nine flybys.
Check out this next:
Stunning Images Show The Rings of Uranus Are Like Nothing Else in The Solar System
Saturn may be the most showy, but it's not the only planet in the Solar System circled by rings. And last year we found out more about the 13 rings around Uranus when it photobombed a thermal image astronomers took of the ice planet.
For the first time, researchers were able to determine the temperature of the rings, and confirmed that the main ring - called the epsilon ring - is like none other in the Solar System.
Usually, Saturn is the only one pictured with rings, because the ones circling Uranus, Jupiter, and Neptune can only be seen with powerful telescopes (or probes such as Juno, which snapped this breathtaking photo of one of the ghostly Jovian rings ).
How Many Moons Does Our Solar System Have? We Ranked Them All
The first moon we discovered was, of course, our own. Next, the discovery of Io, Europa, Ganymede, and Callisto by Galileo Galilee in the 17th century restructured our understanding of the universe. “That’s the beginning of the scientific era, in my mind,” astronomer David Jewitt of the University of California, Los Angeles tells Popular Mechanics .
Moons are far from simple celestial objects, so before we dive in, here are a few helpful definitions to guide you along your cosmic journey:
Astronomers clock extremely high winds on an object outside of our solar system - CNN
(CNN) For the first time, scientists have been able to measure the wind speed on an object outside of our solar system, according to a new study. The object, known as a brown dwarf, is 33.2 light-years away from Earth.
This may worth something:
It Came From Outside Our Solar System and Now It's Breaking Up - The New York Times
It came from beyond our solar system. But the sun wasn't content to let it leave in peace, or in one piece.
Comet 2I/Borisov, an Eiffel Tower-sized clod of dust and ice, plunged into our solar system last fall , exhaling vapor as it buzzed nearest to our sun around Christmas . This alien visitor must have formed around a distant and unknown star.
It slumbered as it crossed the frozen gulf of interstellar space. But now, suddenly, the sleeper is awake and kicking. To the simultaneous delight and frustration of the world's astronomers, Borisov has sloughed off at least one fragment over the last few weeks.
The Next Full Moon Is a "Supermoon" Pink Moon – NASA Solar System Exploration
The next full Moon is the Pink Moon, Sprouting Grass Moon, Egg Moon, Fish Moon, the Pesach or Passover Moon, Paschal Moon, Hanuman Jayanti, Bak Poya and a " supermoon ."
The Moon will be full on Tuesday night, April 7, 2020, appearing opposite the Sun (in Earth-based longitude) at 10:35 PM EDT. The Moon will appear full for about three days around this time, from Monday night through Thursday morning.
The Maine Farmer's Almanac first published "Indian" names for the full Moons in the 1930's. According to this Almanac, as the full Moon in April and the first full Moon of spring, this is the Pink Moon, a name that comes from the herb moss pink, also known as creeping phlox, moss phlox, or mountain phlox, which is native to the eastern USA and one of the earliest widespread flowers of Spring .
Bad Astronomy | An alien comet dropped something off on its way out of the solar system
What with everything going on in the world at the moment you might be forgiven if you've forgotten about something going on well outside it: A comet from another star is blasting through our cosmic neighborhood right now.
Discovered in 2019 by amateur astronomer Gennadiy Borisov , follow-up observations quickly showed that this comet was moving far, far too quickly to be bound gravitationally to the Sun. The most reasonable explanation is that it came from another star ( though which one exactly is unclear ), a true interstellar visitor.
Mysteries of Uranus' oddities explained - Advanced Science News
Uranus, its moons, and rings are all “tipped”, suggesting they formed during a cataclysmic impact early in its history.
All the planets in our Solar System revolve around the Sun in the same direction and plane, and rotate in the same direction with their poles oriented perpendicular to their orbit. All but one, that is.
According to the study, the team came to this conclusion while constructing a novel computer simulation of moon formation around icy planets. According to the researchers, Uranus’ ring and moons provided the evidence they needed to unravel the planet’s oddities.
Happening on Twitter
Farewell, Earth! Mercury probe makes successful flyby to head deeper into solar system. https://t.co/foQH4En3gF https://t.co/fBHCRT8Yba SPACEdotcom (from NYC) Fri Apr 10 06:49:32 +0000 2020
No comments:
Post a Comment