So said writer and physicist André Bormanis. He may be biased, because he has been telling true and fictional stories set in space for more than 25 years. Many of us now have more time, and if you can safely step outside, you can spy the skies and navigate the universe.
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We asked Bormanis for a beginner's introduction to the sky —a handful of celestial highlights you can see without a telescope. He gave us seven. All should be visible to the naked eye on a cloudless night, especially if there's not too much light pollution in your neighborhood. (For his bonus suggestion, No. 7, you might need binoculars.)
Quite a lot has been going on:
5 Major Planets Are Going Retrograde During Taurus Season 2020
"With five celestial bodies stationing retrograde this season , this period is an opportunity to redefine yourself authentically within the new structure that's emerging," astrologer Nura Rachelle tells Bustle.
Pluto may be small, but in astrology, it rules over some deep and intense themes. "Pluto represents our transformational power and how we evolve," Rachelle says. During Pluto retrograde periods , which happen each year for about five months, we have a chance to re-examine our relationship with power and secrets — and we also have an opportunity to transform ourselves on a core level.
A Puffy Planet and a Cat on Titan | The Planetary Society
No matter what day Perseverance launches during its 17 July to 5 August launch window, mission managers will adjust its course so it lands on Mars on exactly 18 February 2021. It’s rocket science!
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NASA’s OSIRIS-REx spacecraft completed a sample collection rehearsal at asteroid Bennu , coming just 75 meters from the surface before backing away as planned. The probe is scheduled to touch down on Bennu in August, grabbing a small sample of regolith that will be returned to Earth in 2023. The samples could shed light on the connection between asteroids and the formation of our solar system, as well as the role asteroids played in bringing water to Earth.
Plan B? Newly discovered planet is the closest yet to a second Earth - National | Globalnews.ca
If you’re fed up with the Earth’s people, pandemic and politics, you might be pleased to know there’s a newly discovered, untouched world out there that might be perfect for you — as long as you don’t mind red light or figuring out your own way to get there.
Astronomers say they’ve found a planet that more closely resembles our Earth than any other distant world they’ve seen to date, in a thrilling new discovery made possible by a dead space telescope.
And here's another article:
Is That A Planet, A Star Or A SpaceX Starlink Satellite?
It's easy. Get one of the best stargazing apps—outlined below—and do two things when you go outside after dark:
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That done, these apps are super-clever. Using your smartphone's digital compass, accelerometer, gyroscope and GPS sensors—along with an ephemeris (database) of the movements of the stars and planets—augmented reality smartphone apps help you identify planets, stars and satellites. All you do the is point your phone.
EXPRES looks to the skies of a scorching, distant planet
The atmosphere of MASCARA-2 b reaches temperatures of more than 3,140 degrees Fahrenheit, putting it on the extreme end of a class of planets known as hot Jupiters. Astronomers are keenly interested in hot Jupiters because their existence had been unknown until 25 years ago and they may offer new information about the formation of planetary systems.
"Hot Jupiters provide the best laboratories for developing analysis techniques that will one day be used to search for biosignatures on potentially habitable worlds," said Yale astronomer Debra Fischer, the Eugene Higgins Professor of Astronomy and co-author of a new study that has been accepted by the journal Astronomy and Astrophysics .
Mystery of Venus atmosphere's weird rotation may finally be solved | Space
The mystery behind why the atmosphere of Venus spins much faster than the planet's surface may finally be solved, a new study finds.
The finding might help shed light on how habitable distant exoplanets, or worlds beyond our solar system, may actually be, researchers said.
Compared to Earth, Venus twirls at a leisurely pace on its axis, with its surface taking 243 Earth days to complete one rotation. However, the hot, deadly atmosphere of Venus spins nearly 60 times faster than its surface, whirling around the planet once every 96 hours, an effect known as super-rotation.
This young Canadian scientist has found 21 new planets—and counting - Macleans.ca
You could say she's a superstar. Michelle Kunimoto is only 26 and, before even earning her Ph.D. from the University of British Columbia, has already made an impressive contribution to astrophysics. Recently, she published a paper in the esteemed Astronomical Journal describing how she found 17 new planets beyond our solar system—or exoplanets—in addition to the four she had already discovered while still an undergrad.
But even that's not the biggest deal. Kunimoto found the planets by figuring out a new way to pore through four years' worth of data from NASA's Kepler space observatory. Kepler, launched in 2009 and still in orbit (although now retired from duty), monitored about 200,000 stars for four years in a patch of sky that's part of our own galaxy, the Milky Way. It was looking for periodic dips in brightness.
Happening on Twitter
Happy 30th birthday, @NASAHubble! 🎂 Hubble helps us understand the Sun's effects throughout space: We study the Sun… https://t.co/wsP7L9DcC8 NASASun (from NASA Goddard, Greenbelt, MD) Fri Apr 24 14:59:26 +0000 2020
The famous Hubble Deep Field image reveals thousands of galaxies beyond our own, each containing billions of stars.… https://t.co/W5KSzEgEZQ NASASolarSystem (from Milky Way galaxy) Fri Apr 24 14:44:45 +0000 2020
What has Hubble been looking at for the past 30 years? This visualization by @NadiehBremer breaks down the plethora… https://t.co/70oB33MDEV PhysicsToday (from College Park, MD) Fri Apr 24 15:32:31 +0000 2020
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