Category Astronomy/Space

Quadrantid Meteor Shower

A meteor shower, a binocular comet and the winter circle of stars. Here are the details:
~Quadrantid Meteor Shower: The Quadrantid meteor shower on Jan. 4 will either sizzle or fizzle for observers in the U.S. The shower may favor the U.S. or it could favor Europe depending on which prediction turns out to be correct. For viewing in the US observers should start at 3 a.m. EST. The peak should last about 2 hrs with rates of 120 meteors per hour predicted in areas with a dark sky.

Comet Catalina

~Comet Catalina: In the middle of the month, midnight to predawn will be primetime for viewing Comet Catalina. It should be visible with binoculars if you have a dark sky, but a telescope would be ideal...

For distant stars with planets orbiting them, this information is key in determining whether any of those planets can harbour life. Knowing the surface gravity of a star is essentially knowing how much you would weigh on that star. If stars had solid surfaces on which you could stand, then your weight would change from star to star. On the sun you would weigh 20X more than on Earth. A red giant star (future fate of our Sun) has a much weaker pull at its surface, so you’d be 50X lighter.

The new method allows scientists to measure surface gravity with an accuracy of about 4%, for stars too distant and too faint to apply current techniques...

Galaxy NGC 6052, located around 230 million light-years away in the constellation of Hercules.

This image, taken with the Wide Field Planetary Camera 2 on board the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope, shows the galaxy NGC 6052, located around 230 million light-years away in the constellation of Hercules. t would be reasonable to think of this as a single abnormal galaxy, and it was originally classified as such. However, it is in fact a “new” galaxy in the process of forming. Two separate galaxies have been gradually drawn together, attracted by gravity, and have collided. We now see them merging into a single structure.

As the merging process continues, individual stars are thrown out of their original orbits and placed onto entirely new paths, some very distant from the region of the collis...

Limits on the differences of the γ values for three FRB observations. Credit: Phys. Rev. Lett. 115, 261101 – Published 23 December 2015. DOI: 10.1103/PhysRevLett.115.261101

A new way to test one of the basic principles underlying Einstein’s theory of General Relativity using brief blasts of rare radio signals from space called Fast Radio Bursts (FRB) is 10-100X better than previous testing methods that used gamma-ray bursts. The new method is considered to be a significant tribute to Einstein on the 100th anniversary of his first formulation of the Equivalence Principle, which is a key component of Einstein’s theory of General Relativity...