Mars is at its biggest and brightest right now as the Red Planet lines up with Earth on the same side of the Sun.
Every 26 months, the pair take up this arrangement, moving close together, before then diverging again on their separate orbits around our star.
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"But you don't have to wait until the middle of the night; even now, at nine or 10 o'clock in the evening, you'll easily see it over in the southeast," says astrophotographer, Damian Peach. "You can't miss it, it's the brightest star-like object in that part of the sky," he told BBC News.
Not to change the topic here:
24 potential ... planets discovered close to Earth | Fox News
The 24 exoplanets are more than 100 light-years from Earth, but could be identified by future space telescopes, such as NASA's James Web Space Telescope, the researchers added. A light-year, which measures distance in space, is approximately 6 trillion miles.
In July, Fox News reported that the launch of the James Webb Telescope originally scheduled for March 2021 was pushed back to Oct. 31, 2021, because of the coronavirus pandemic.
Meet the Pi planet. It orbits its star every 3.14 days | Space | EarthSky
In a fun cosmic coincidence, researchers used old Kepler spacecraft data to discover an Earth-sized exoplanet with an orbital period of 3.14 days, a number that matches the mathematical constant pi.
Artist’s concept of K2-315b, which has on orbital period of 3.14 Earth-days, the same value as the mathematical constant pi . Image via NASA Ames/ JPL-Caltech/ T. Pyle/ Christine Daniloff/ MIT .
The pi planet was discussed in a new peer-reviewed paper published in The Astronomical Journal on September 21, 2020.
Planets Don't Wait for Their Star to Form First - Universe Today
Astronomers have examined plenty of young solar systems. Typically, a young star is surrounded by a disk of dust, and astronomers can see rings being cleared out in the dust by young planets as they form. In those instances, the young star has already gathered its mass. But not in this instance.
“Traditionally it was thought that a star does most of its formation before the planets form, but our observations showed that they form simultaneously.”
In case you are keeping track:
The Naturalist: Planetary show 'stars' Jupiter and Saturn - The Wilton Bulletin
Two planets that put on a good show now are Jupiter and Saturn. Look to the southern part of the sky and you will see two bright “stars” relatively close to each other. The planets stand out more than the stars around them even when there is a lot of moonlight because they are many times closer to Earth. This makes them relatively easier to find. Jupiter looks a little bigger than the surrounding stars and Saturn has a bluish hue.
Take a moment to look at the sky and find Jupiter and Saturn. They really do stand out among the stars!
Prince William Announces New Prize Aimed at 'Repairing' the Planet - The New York Times
LONDON — Prince William on Thursday announced the establishment of an environmental prize worth 50 million pounds, or $65 million, that will reward climate change solutions over the next 10 years, saying it was an effort to "turn the current pessimism surrounding environmental issues into optimism."
Prince William said the "Earthshot Prize" was inspired by President John F. Kennedy's launch in 1961 of a decade-long research program, "Moonshot," to send the first person to the moon.
WeatherTalk: Finding the planets in the night sky | Grand Forks Herald
NASA's Planet Patrol wants you to join the search for exoplanets | Space | EarthSky
Do you want to be a planet-hunter? NASA has launched a new citizen science website called Planet Patrol where volunteers can help search for exoplanets in data from the TESS space telescope.
Have you ever wanted to help scientists find exoplanets , worlds orbiting distant stars? Well, now’s your chance! NASA has just launched a new citizen science website called Planet Patrol , a collaboration between NASA, the SETI Institute, the Space Telescope Science Institute, and Zooniverse. Volunteers will assist astronomers by looking through images taken by the Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite ( TESS ), NASA’s newest planet-hunter, which was launched in 2018.
Happening on Twitter
Left: a view of Mars from space as seen by Mariner 4 in 1965, one of the first close-up photos of another planet.… https://t.co/7fZGGXNNOw NASAMars (from Fourth Planet From the Sun) Fri Oct 09 20:58:54 +0000 2020
After touching down on the Red Planet in February 2021, the @NASAPersevere Mars Rover will scour Jezero Crater abov… https://t.co/89VTNptj3D NASA_SLS (from Huntsville, AL) Sat Oct 10 20:55:00 +0000 2020
Once @NASAPersevere touches down on Mars in Feb 2021, it will help us understand the planet's history and search fo… https://t.co/uo06LYCl5y Dr_ThomasZ (from Washington, DC) Sat Oct 10 15:09:00 +0000 2020
New research adds fresh evidence for salty lakes below the Red Planet's south pole. https://t.co/dzSN6J4taq AstronomyMag (from Our tiny corner of the cosmos) Sat Oct 10 21:00:18 +0000 2020
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