Category Archives: Astronomy

Night sky highlights for November 2023

Check out the night sky this month, November 2023. Here are videos highlighting the top sights to observe.

** What’s Up: November 2023 Skywatching Tips from NASA – NASA JPL

What are some skywatching highlights in November 2023?
The Leonid meteors peak, Saturn sits in the celestial sea, and Venus and Jupiter are visible on opposite sides of the sky.

0:00 Intro
0:13 Moon & planet highlights
1:31 Leonid meteors peak
2:21 The water constellations
3:46 November Moon phases

Additional information about topics covered in this episode of What’s Up, along with still images from the video, and the video transcript, are available at https://solarsystem.nasa.gov/skywatch….

** Tonight’s Sky: November 2023 – Space Telescope Science InstituteTonight’s Sky

In November, hunt for the fainter constellations of fall, including Pisces, Aries, and Triangulum. They will guide you to find several galaxies and a pair of white stars. Stay tuned for space-based views of spiral galaxy M74 and the Triangulum Galaxy, which are shown in visible, infrared, and ultraviolet light.

About this Series

“Tonight’s Sky” is a monthly video of constellations you can observe in the night sky. The series is produced by the Space Telescope Science Institute, home of science operations for the Hubble Space Telescope, in partnership with NASA’s Universe of Learning. This is a recurring show, and you can find more episodes—and other astronomy videos—at https://hubblesite.org/resource-galle….

** What to see in the night sky: November 2023BBC Sky at Night Magazine

Pete Lawrence and Paul Abel reveal what to see in the night sky this month.

Find out what you can see in the night sky tonight, including Venus bright in the dark morning sky, Jupiter at opposition, the Leonid Meteor Shower, the Moon’s Mare Orientale, the Leonid Meteor Shower and the mighty Andromeda Galaxy.

Click on the time codes below to jump to some of November 2023’s night-sky highlights.

00:00 – Intro
01:07 – Venus as a bright morning star
03:30 – Jupiter at opposition
04:48 – Saturn and its moons
09:10 – Uranus and Neptune
10:35 – Jupiter moon events
11:55 – Lunar occultation of Venus
13:15 – Mare Orientale
15:03 – Leonid meteor shower
16:56 – Great Square of Pegasus
24:35 – Andromeda Galaxy

** Sky & Telescope’s Sky Tour Podcast – November 2023 | Shooting stars and the Andromeda GalaxySky & Telescope Youtube

Our monthly Sky Tour #astronomy #podcast provides an informative and entertaining 10-minute guided tour of the nighttime sky. Listen to the November episode and seek out some shooting #stars, then spot some bright #planets, follow some celestial fish, and track down the #Andromeda #Galaxy. Grab your curiosity, and come along on this month’s Sky Tour.

See also

** What’s in the Night Sky November 2023 Taurid Fireball Meteors | Leonids | Jupiter OppositionAlyn Wallace

00:00 Intro
00:30 Unmissable Events
01:14 Northern Hemisphere Sky
02:24 Southern Hemisphere Sky
02:54 Taurid Fireballs
04:17 Leonid Meteor Shower
05:02 Planets
06:30 Full Moon
07:05 #WITNS Winners

** Night Sky Notebook November 2023Peter Detterline

What’s happening in the night time sky for the month of November 2023.

** See also:

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ESO: Observation of the most distant fast radio burst (FRB) to date

A new report from the European Southern Observatory (ESO):

Astronomers detect most distant fast radio burst to date

An international team has spotted a remote blast of cosmic radio waves lasting less than a millisecond. This ‘fast radio burst’ (FRB) is the most distant ever detected. Its source was pinned down by the European Southern Observatory’s (ESO) Very Large Telescope (VLT) in a galaxy so far away that its light took eight billion years to reach us. The FRB is also one of the most energetic ever observed; in a tiny fraction of a second it released the equivalent of our Sun’s total emission over 30 years.

The discovery of the burst, named FRB 20220610A, was made in June last year by the ASKAP radio telescope in Australia [1] and it smashed the team’s previous distance record by 50 percent.

“Using ASKAP’s array of dishes, we were able to determine precisely where the burst came from,”

says Stuart Ryder, an astronomer from Macquarie University in Australia and the co-lead author of the study published today in Science.

“Then we used [ESO’s VLT] in Chile to search for the source galaxy, [2] finding it to be older and further away than any other FRB source found to date and likely within a small group of merging galaxies.”

The discovery confirms that FRBs can be used to measure the ‘missing’ matter between galaxies, providing a new way to ‘weigh’ the Universe.

Current methods of estimating the mass of the Universe are giving conflicting answers and challenging the standard model of cosmology.

“If we count up the amount of normal matter in the Universe — the atoms that we are all made of — we find that more than half of what should be there today is missing,”

says Ryan Shannon, a professor at the Swinburne University of Technology in Australia, who also co-led the study.

“We think that the missing matter is hiding in the space between galaxies, but it may just be so hot and diffuse that it’s impossible to see using normal techniques.”

“Fast radio bursts sense this ionised material. Even in space that is nearly perfectly empty they can ‘see’ all the electrons, and that allows us to measure how much stuff is between the galaxies,”

Shannon says.

Finding distant FRBs is key to accurately measuring the Universe’s missing matter, as shown by the late Australian astronomer Jean-Pierre (‘J-P’) Macquart in 2020. “J-P showed that the further away a fast radio burst is, the more diffuse gas it reveals between the galaxies. This is now known as the Macquart relation. Some recent fast radio bursts appeared to break this relationship. Our measurements confirm the Macquart relation holds out to beyond half the known Universe,” says Ryder.

“While we still don’t know what causes these massive bursts of energy, the paper confirms that fast radio bursts are common events in the cosmos and that we will be able to use them to detect matter between galaxies, and better understand the structure of the Universe,”

says Shannon.

The result represents the limit of what is achievable with telescopes today, although astronomers will soon have the tools to detect even older and more distant bursts, pin down their source galaxies and measure the Universe’s missing matter. The international Square Kilometre Array Observatory is currently building two radio telescopes in South Africa and Australia that will be capable of finding thousands of FRBs, including very distant ones that cannot be detected with current facilities. ESO’s Extremely Large Telescope, a 39-metre telescope under construction in the Chilean Atacama Desert, will be one of the few telescopes able to study the source galaxies of bursts even further away than FRB 20220610A.

Notes

[1] The ASKAP telescope is owned and operated by CSIRO, Australia’s national science agency, on Wajarri Yamaji Country in Western Australia.

[2] The team used data obtained with the FOcal Reducer and low dispersion Spectrograph 2 (FORS2), the X-shooter and the High Acuity Wide-field K-band Imager (HAWK-I) instruments on ESO’s VLT. Data from the Keck Observatory in Hawai’i, US, was also used in the study.

Links

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Night sky highlights for October 2023

Check out the night sky this month, October 2023. Here are videos highlighting the top sights to observe.

** What’s Up: October 2023 Skywatching Tips from NASA – NASA JPL

A “ring of fire” solar eclipse across the Americas on Oct. 14 is this month’s top highlight! Plus the Moon, Jupiter, Saturn, and Venus strike some lovely poses for stargazers and planet watchers to enjoy.

0:00 Intro
0:12 Moon & planet highlights
1:29 Psyche mission launch
2:17 Annular solar eclipse
3:41 October Moon phases

Additional information about topics covered in this episode of What’s Up, along with still images from the video, and the video transcript, are available at https://solarsystem.nasa.gov/skywatch….

** Tonight’s Sky: October 2023 – Space Telescope Science InstituteTonight’s Sky

Crisp, clear October nights are full of celestial showpieces. Find Pegasus, the flying horse of Greek myth, to pinpoint dense globular star clusters and galaxies, and keep watching for space-based views of M15, NGC 7331, and the Andromeda Galaxy.

** What to see in the night sky: October 2023BBC Sky at Night Magazine

Astronomers Pete Lawrence and Paul Abel reveal what to see in the night sky this month, including:

– Partial lunar eclipse on 28 October
– Making the most of Venus
– Bright beautiful Jupiter approaching opposition
– Observing Jupiter’s Galilean Moons
– Moon’s encounter with the Pleiades star cluster
– Cutlass effect on the Moon
– Draconid meteor shower and Orionid meteor shower
– Comet 103P/Hartley

** Sky & Telescope’s Sky Tour Podcast – October | An Annular Solar Eclipse and Orionid Meteor Shower – Sky & Telescope Youtube

Our monthly Sky Tour #astronomy #podcast provides an informative and entertaining 10-minute guided tour of the nighttime sky. Listen to the October episode and celebrate two #eclipses, check in with #jupiter and #Saturn, track down the evening’s bright #stars, and look for bits of Halley’s #Comet flashing across the sky. Grab your curiosity, and come along on this month’s Sky Tour.

Listen and subscribe to this podcast at https://skyandtelescope.org/observing/ and don’t forget to subscribe to S&T’s YouTube channel to get alerts about new videos, including this monthly podcast

Learn more about #observing and #stargazing on our website, https://skyandtelescope.org/ and subscribe to our monthly magazine at https://skyandtelescope.org/subscribe.

Guide to viewing the 2023 Annular Solar Eclipse | October 14, 2023 – Sky & Telescope Youtube

Here’s what to expect for the annular — or “ring of fire” — #solareclipse on October 14, 2023. Don’t miss seeing the #Moon partially cover the face of the #Sun in a run-up to the total solar #eclipse happening next year in April 2024. The editors of Sky & Telescope share what to expect and how to safely view all the phases of October’s celestial event. Learn more about this annular eclipse and safe eclipse viewing at skyandtelescope.org.

See also

** What’s in the Night Sky October 2023 – Annular Solar Eclipse | Orionid Meteor ShowerAlyn Wallace

00:00 Intro
00:30 Ring of Fire Eclipse
03:03 Partial Lunar Eclipse
05:18 Milky Way
06:43 Orionid Meteor Shower
08:53 Taurid Meteor Showers
10:58 Aurora
11:40 Moon and Planets
13:02 #WITNS Winners

** Night Sky Notebook October 2023Peter Detterline

** See also:

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Stellaris: People of the Stars

ESO: Most distant galactic magnetic field detected

A new report from the European Southern Observatory (ESO). Note that the galaxy of interest was initially discovered by a citizen science project sponsored by the BBC’s Stargazing Live television program [1].

Furthest ever detection of a galaxy’s magnetic field

This image shows the orientation of the magnetic field in the distant 9io9 galaxy, seen here when the Universe was only 20% of its current age — the furthest ever detection of a galaxy’s magnetic field. The observations were done with the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA), in which ESO is a partner. Dust grains within 9io9 are somewhat aligned with the galaxy’s magnetic field, and due to this they emit polarised light, meaning that light waves oscillate along a preferred direction rather than randomly. ALMA detected this polarisation signal, from which astronomers could work out the orientation of the magnetic field, shown here as curved lines overlaid on the ALMA image. The polarised light signal emitted by the magnetically aligned dust in 9io9 was extremely faint, representing just one percent of the total brightness of the galaxy, so astronomers used a clever trick of nature to help them obtain this result. The team was helped by the fact that 9io9, although very distant from us, had been magnified via a process known as gravitational lensing. This occurs when light from a distant galaxy, in this case 9io9, appears brighter and distorted as it is bent by the gravity of a very large object in the foreground.

Using the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA), astronomers have detected the magnetic field of a galaxy so far away that its light has taken more than 11 billion years to reach us: we see it as it was when the Universe was just 2.5 billion years old. The result provides astronomers with vital clues about how the magnetic fields of galaxies like our own Milky Way came to be.

Lots of astronomical bodies in the Universe have magnetic fields, whether it be planets, stars or galaxies.

Many people might not be aware that our entire galaxy and other galaxies are laced with magnetic fields, spanning tens of thousands of light-years,”

says James Geach, a professor of astrophysics at the University of Hertfordshire, UK, and lead author of the study published today in Nature.

We actually know very little about how these fields form, despite their being quite fundamental to how galaxies evolve,”

adds Enrique Lopez Rodriguez, a researcher at Stanford University, USA, who also participated in the study. It is not clear how early in the lifetime of the Universe, and how quickly, magnetic fields in galaxies form because so far astronomers have only mapped magnetic fields in galaxies close to us.

Now, using ALMA, in which the European Southern Observatory (ESO) is a partner, Geach and his team have discovered a fully formed magnetic field in a distant galaxy, similar in structure to what is observed in nearby galaxies. The field is about 1000 times weaker than the Earth’s magnetic field, but extends over more than 16 000 light-years.

This discovery gives us new clues as to how galactic-scale magnetic fields are formed,

explains Geach. Observing a fully developed magnetic field this early in the history of the Universe indicates that magnetic fields spanning entire galaxies can form rapidly while young galaxies are still growing.

The team believes that intense star formation in the early Universe could have played a role in accelerating the development of the fields. Moreover, these fields can in turn influence how later generations of stars will form. Co-author and ESO astronomer Rob Ivison says that the discovery opens up

“a new window onto the inner workings of galaxies, because the magnetic fields are linked to the material that is forming new stars.”

To make this detection, the team searched for light emitted by dust grains in a distant galaxy, 9io9 [1]. Galaxies are packed full of dust grains and when a magnetic field is present, the grains tend to align and the light they emit becomes polarised. This means that the light waves oscillate along a preferred direction rather than randomly. When ALMA detected and mapped a polarised signal coming from 9io9, the presence of a magnetic field in a very distant galaxy was confirmed for the first time.

No other telescope could have achieved this,”

says Geach. The hope is that with this and future observations of distant magnetic fields the mystery of how these fundamental galactic features form will begin to unravel.

Notes

[1] 9io9 was discovered in the course of a citizen science project. The discovery was helped by viewers of the British BBC television programme Stargazing Live, when over three nights in 2014 the audience was asked to examine millions of images in the hunt for distant galaxies.

Links

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Night sky highlights for September 2023

Check out the night sky this month, September 2023. Here are videos highlighting the top sights to observe.

** What’s Up: September 2023 Skywatching Tips from NASA – NASA JPL

Venus returns to the early morning skies as a bright beacon in the east. The full moon at the end of the month is known as the Harvest Moon. And if you have access to dark skies away from urban light pollution, you might be able to glimpse the faint, glowing pillar of the zodiacal light.

0:00 Intro
0:13 Venus in the morning sky
0:36 Viewing Jupiter and Saturn
1:01 The Harvest Moo
1:37 The Zodiacal Light
2:50 OSIRIS-REx asteroid sample return
3:21 September Moon phases

Additional information about topics covered in this episode of What’s Up, along with still images from the video, and the video transcript, are available at https://solarsystem.nasa.gov/skywatch….

** Tonight’s Sky: September 2023 – Space Telescope Science InstituteTonight’s Sky

In September, Pegasus becomes increasingly prominent in the southeastern sky, allowing stargazers to locate globular star clusters and a nearby double star, Alpha Capricorni. Keep watching for space-based views of densely packed, spherical collections of ancient stars in visible and X-ray light.

** What to see in the night sky: September 2023BBC Sky at Night Magazine

Pete Lawrence and Paul Able guide us through this month’s night-sky highlights, including Mercury emerging as a morning planet, Neptune at opposition, lunar occultation of Botein, Gruithuisen’s Lunar City, the autumn equinox and 2023’s Harvest Moon.

** Sky & Telescope’s Sky Tour Podcast – September 2023 | The Harvest Moon and the Summer Triangle – Sky & Telescope Youtube

Our monthly Sky Tour #astronomy #podcast provides an informative and entertaining 10-minute guided tour of the nighttime sky. Listen to the September episode and celebrate the equinox; stalk the Harvest #Moon; check in with #Saturn, #Jupiter, and #Venus; and explore the #Summer Triangle. Grab your curiosity, and come along on this month’s Sky Tour.

See also

** Night Sky Notebook September 2023Peter Detterline

[ Sept.4.2023: Added the following video,

** What’s in the Night Sky January 2023 – Comet Nishimura | Harvest Supermoon Alyn Wallace

00:00 Intro
00:24 Comet Nishimura
01:48 Farewell Milky Way
02:38 Zodiacal Light
03:32 Gegenschein
04:06 Aurora
04:39 Super Harvest Moon
05:26 Planets
06:14 #WITNS Winners

]

** See also:

=== Amazon Ads ===

Celestron
70mm Travel Scope
Portable Refractor Telescope
Fully-Coated Glass Optics
Ideal Telescope for Beginners
BONUS Astronomy Software Package

==

Stellaris: People of the Stars