You might’ve noticed two bright points of light setting along the western horizon just before the sun sets. Over the past couple of months, they seem to have been getting closer and closer together. These are not stars, but planets: Jupiter and Saturn.
Continue reading
The Juno spacecraft is a space probe orbiting Jupiter and it’s been sending back some amazing pictures of the gas giant. Launched on August 5, 2011, Juno only arrived at Jupiter as of 2016 and its been in orbit ever since. It dives between the planet and its intense belts of charged particle radiation, coming about 3000 miles from the cloud tops at its closest approach.
Back in 1995, astronomers had detected a planet orbiting around a Sun-like star. This was a huge deal. And today, we have discovered more than 4000 extrasolar planets. They come in a wide variety of sizes and characteristics. By the most optimistic projections, only about 50 are habitable, and only 20 have Earth-like temperatures. So, if we were to send off a probe to explore some of these worlds, what would be the top 5 nearest choices to visit?
A newly discovered extra-solar planet located some 11 light-years away may be suitable for life. It’s called “Ross 128 b” and you may be hearing a lot more of this exoplanet in the months and years to come.
Jupiter’s Great Red Spot is a swirling anticyclonic storm that was previously large enough to fit three Earths inside. However, observations taken by the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope has revealed that this is changing, both in shape and size.
So why is Jupiter’s trademark feature beginning to downsize?
This year, on March 9th, there will be a Total Solar Eclipse, visible over Indonesia and the Pacific Ocean. A total solar eclipse occurs when the moon completely blocks the Sun, revealing the its beautiful outer atmosphere known as the corona. An eclipse thereby totally or partly obscures the image of the Sun for a viewer on Earth. The view you see here will be the view of the sky visible in parts of central Indonesia and the Pacific Ocean.
March 8 will bring us what is called “Jupiter at Opposition.” This means the giant planet will be at its closest approach to Earth and its face will be fully illuminated by the Sun. Jupiter will be brighter than any other time of the year and will be visible all night long. It will be seen on the eastern horizon after sunset under the constellation Leo, the lion.
An artist’s impression of a possible ninth planet. It would be quite large — at least as big as Earth — with a thick atmosphere around a rocky core. CreditCalifornia Institute of Techonology
Break out the binoculars because on Wednesday, Jan. 20, Mercury, Venus, Saturn, Mars and Jupiter will all be visible in the sky at the same time. If you miss it tomorrow night there’s no need to fret, the spectacle will still be visible for the remainder of the month.
When we see depictions of the solar system, we often see an inaccurate representation of its size and scale. Some of the planets are often enlarged, other planets are minimized to a degree, while the orbital paths are shrunken down to be closer to the sun. This is done because, when viewing the entire solar system, you want to see everything that is there. Not only is there an enormous amount of space between the planets–especially between the rocky inner planets and the outer gas giants–but the scale between the inner and outter planets are at opposite ends of the spectrum. After all, you can fit over a thousand Earths inside Jupiter.
Giving an accurate depiction of the solar system’s scale is a very difficult task. It is a task that was recently tackled by filmmakers Alex Gorosh and Wylie Overstreet, using the “Earth as a marble” concept.
Irene W. Pennington Planetarium 