In the evening during early January, the prominent open star cluster known as the Pleiades, the Seven Sisters and Messier 45, is climbing the southeastern sky. The stars of its home constellation Taurus, the Bull, will be below the cluster. This year, the brilliant planet Jupiter will be sh...
The moon's orbit around theEarthis not a perfect circle. It has an average distance of 238,000 miles (382,900 km) from Earth, but its apogee and perigee — the closest and farthest approaches from Earth — change every lunar month. "The main reason why the orbit of the moon is not ...
I am a full-time astrophotographer, and I have used many different types of telescopes to both view and photograph the wonders of the night sky. Unlike the other articles littered across the web explaining that the ‘best telescope’ is the one they recommend on Amazon, I have some honest ...
Stanley also includes a spin through upcoming planetary science missions and what they might tell us – from the Mars Sample Return Mission, which could shine more light on the red planet’s geology, to the Jupiter Icy Moons Explorer, to various missions to study the surface and interior of ...
During the Full Moon, the star of the night is at its maximum distance from the Sun, thus forming an opposition in the opposite sign to its position. The Moon then reflects the sunlight in a luminous disc. A Full Moon symbolizes clear consciousness, everything that was sensed is now seen...
You may be a fine performer when your skies are bright and blue But disaster is the acid that shall prove the worth of you; So just meet your disappointments with a cheery sort of grin, For the man who keeps his temper is the man that's sure to win.Posted...
To get a sense of scale, Mars is about 1.5 AU from the Sun, Jupiter is about 5 AU, Saturn is 9.5 AU, and Pluto sits a staggering average distance of 39 AU. The New Horizons spacecraft set off for Pluto in January 2006 and didn’t get there until 9.5 years later. It’s a long...
Earth has five Lagrange points, as does Earth's moon. Earth's L1 and L2 points are within the easiest reach of space missions. How far is the L1 point from Earth? The Earth-sun L1 point is about 932,000 miles (1.5 million km) from Earth. The L2 point is the same distance but in...