Visual magnitude allows astronomers to measure a star’s brightness using the naked eye, but if we wanted to gauge its intrinsic brightness we would use absolute magnitude. This allows us to measure different objects’ true energy output, irrespective of their actual distance from Earth, by imagin...
Star birth can take millions of years and create families of stars. Astronomers see examples of star formation in nebulae throughout our own Milky Way Galaxy and in many other galaxies. The most famous and closest stellar nursery to Earth is the Orion Nebula, which lies about 1,500 light-ye...
Therefore, to help us better understand some of the mechanisms at work in space, here are ten cool facts about space that are sure to leave you amazed. 1. Water, Water Everywhere! Although the existence of water in deep space had been predicted for decades, astronomers were surprised to fi...
a massive storm system that has persisted for centuries. Using the Hubble Space Telescopes’ ultraviolet capabilities, astronomers have been able to photograph vividaurorason Jupiter. Jupiter’sformationand evolution hold important clues about the early history of the Solar System,...
Astronomers sort galaxies into three main types by their shapes:spirals,ellipticals, andirregulars, and further divide them into subtypes based on their particular characteristics. Facts about Galaxies Find out more about one of the galaxies by selecting it below....
Since the emergence of the Hubble Space telescope, we have discovered many distant galaxies, thousands of exoplanets and even peeked in our past, but one thing that astronomers are still not sure about is how many stars actually are there in the Milky Way, let alone in the entire Universe....
This often gets many giggles, so to avoid this, Astronomers have started pronouncing the name as “yoor-un-us”. Because Uranus is so far from Earth (2.57 billion km), it moves very slowly though the night sky. For centuries it was believed to be just another star, and wasn’t until...
Interesting Facts The North Star is prominently close (about two thirds of a degree) to the north celestial pole which is directly overhead of the viewer at the North Pole on Earth. Its visual magnitude is 1.97, which makes it the brightest star in the Little Dipper. ...
In 2003, Astronomers using NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatorydetected sound wavesfrom a supermassive black hole located 250 million light-years from Earth. The ‘note’ is the deepest ever detected from any celestial body. When black hole pulls something in, its event horizon supercharges the pa...
The universe is more than 13.7 billion years old and it is home to billions of galaxies. No one is quite sure exactly how many galaxies there are all told, but some of the facts we do know are pretty impressive. How do we know what we know about galaxies? Astronomers study the light...