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Portal:Astronomy

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The Astronomy Portal

Introduction

A man sitting on a chair mounted to a moving platform, staring through a large telescope.
Percival Lowell observing Venus from the Lowell Observatory telescope in 1914

Astronomy is a natural science that studies celestial objects and the phenomena that occur in the cosmos. It uses mathematics, physics, and chemistry in order to explain their origin and their overall evolution. Objects of interest include planets, moons, stars, nebulae, galaxies, meteoroids, asteroids, and comets. Relevant phenomena include supernova explosions, gamma ray bursts, quasars, blazars, pulsars, and cosmic microwave background radiation. More generally, astronomy studies everything that originates beyond Earth's atmosphere. Cosmology is a branch of astronomy that studies the universe as a whole.

Astronomy is one of the oldest natural sciences. The early civilizations in recorded history made methodical observations of the night sky. These include the Egyptians, Babylonians, Greeks, Indians, Chinese, Maya, and many ancient indigenous peoples of the Americas. In the past, astronomy included disciplines as diverse as astrometry, celestial navigation, observational astronomy, and the making of calendars.

Professional astronomy is split into observational and theoretical branches. Observational astronomy is focused on acquiring data from observations of astronomical objects. This data is then analyzed using basic principles of physics. Theoretical astronomy is oriented toward the development of computer or analytical models to describe astronomical objects and phenomena. These two fields complement each other. Theoretical astronomy seeks to explain observational results and observations are used to confirm theoretical results.

Astronomy is one of the few sciences in which amateurs play an active role. This is especially true for the discovery and observation of transient events. Amateur astronomers have helped with many important discoveries, such as finding new comets. (Full article...)

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A black-and-white mosaic of Triton, constructed from Voyager 2 imagery. Triton's massive south polar cap dominates most of the image, with cryovolcanic features such as Leviathan Patera located left of center

Triton is the largest natural satellite of the planet Neptune. It is the only moon of Neptune massive enough to be rounded under its own gravity and hosts a thin, hazy atmosphere. Triton orbits Neptune in a retrograde orbit—revolving in the opposite direction to the parent planet's rotation—the only large moon in the Solar System to do so. Triton is thought to have once been a dwarf planet from the Kuiper belt, captured into Neptune's orbit by the latter's gravity.

At 2,710 kilometers (1,680 mi) in diameter, Triton is the seventh-largest moon in the Solar System, the second-largest planetary moon in relation to its primary (after Earth's Moon), and larger than all of the known dwarf planets. The mean density is 2.061 g/cm3, reflecting a composition of approximately 30–45% water ice by mass, with the rest being mostly rock and metal. Triton is differentiated, with a crust of primarily ice atop a probable subsurface ocean of liquid water and a solid rocky-metallic core at its center. Although Triton's orbit is nearly circular with a very low orbital eccentricity of 0.000016, Triton's interior may still experience tidal heating through obliquity tides. (Full article...)

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Credit: NRAO / L. Birzan and team (Ohio University)

A galaxy cluster, or cluster of galaxies, is a structure that consists of anywhere from hundreds to thousands of galaxies that are bound together by gravity with typical masses ranging from 1014–1015 solar masses. MS 0735.6+7421 is a galaxy cluster located in the constellation Camelopardalis, approximately 2.6 billion light-years away. A composite image from Hubble and Chandra.

Astronomy News

21 November 2024 –
The European Southern Observatory announces that its astronomers in Chile capture the first close-up image of a star outside the Milky Way. (The New York Times)
20 November 2024 – Discoveries of exoplanets
In a study published by the Nature journal, astronomers announce the discovery of IRAS 04125+2902 b, a newborn exoplanet. The discovery was made by Madyson Barber, a graduate student at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. (Nature) (ABC News)
15 July 2024 – Mare Tranquillitatis pit
In the journal Nature Astronomy, American and Italian scientists announce the discovery of a lunar cave, approximately 250 miles (400 km) from the landing site of Apollo 11. (AP) (Nature Astronomy)

December anniversaries

  • 7 December 1972 – The Blue Marble photograph is taken by the Apollo 17 crew
  • 8 December 1992 – Galileo completes the second Earth flyby
  • 14 December 1962 – Mariner 2 becomes the first space probe to perform a flyby of a planet, when it passes within 35,000 kilometers of Venus
  • 17 December 1917 – 2001: A Space Odyssey science fiction author Arthur C. Clarke is born
  • 19 December 2013 – Gaia is launched for the mission to study billions of stars in the Milky Way
  • 21 December 1968 – Apollo 8, is launched with the first crewed spacecraft to leave Earth orbit, reach the Moon, orbit it, and return safely to Earth
  • 27 December 1571 – Astronomer, mathematician, and astrologer Johannes Kepler is born

Astronomical events

All times UT unless otherwise specified.

1 December, 06:21 New moon
6 December, 02:11 Mercury at inferior conjunction
7 December, 20:19 Jupiter at opposition
8 December, 08:56 Moon occults Saturn
9 December, 09:19 Moon occults Neptune
12 December, 13:18 Moon at perigee
14 December, 01:12 Geminids peak
15 December, 09:02 Full moon
18 December, 08:49 Moon occults Mars
21 December, 09:20 Earth southern solstice
22 December, 10:00 Ursids peak
24 December, 07:25 Moon at apogee
25 December, 01:59 Mercury at greatest western elongation
30 December, 22:27 New moon

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