This will be a thread where we can post interesting articles about our planet and whatever is "out there" in our skies and in space.
Fallstreak hole: Rare cloud formation pictured in the East - BBC News
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This will be a thread where we can post interesting articles about our planet and whatever is "out there" in our skies and in space.
Fallstreak hole: Rare cloud formation pictured in the East - BBC News
Solar conjunction for Mars happened yesterday. That's when Mars was most directly behind the sun for this 25-month period. In 2023, from the vantage point of spacecraft controllers on Earth, the season of Mars' 2023 conjunction takes place between November 5 and December 2, 2023. During this period, data exchange between Mars spacecraft and Earth is limited. Image via ESA. Read about Mars behind the sun.
Starship launch scheduled within the hour
Today’s 20-minute test window opens at 7 a.m. central (13 UTC). SpaceX's Starship is scheduled to go up from a beach overlooking the Gulf of Mexico, in far south Texas. Watch the 2nd test launch of the world's tallest and most powerful rocket here.
The meteors from the Leonids appear to stream from a single point in the sky - their radiant point - in the constellation Leo the Lion. But you don’t need to know where Leo is to see the meteors. They can shoot to all corners of the sky. Overnight tonight is your best chance to see meteors from this shower. Between midnight and dawn is best. Great news ... the moon will be out of the way. Happy meteor hunting!
This Webb space telescope deep field image shows a universe filled with sparkling galaxies. In modern cosmology, these galaxies are all seen as moving away from one another. That's what's meant by the expanding universe. Now scientists have found that the universe is expanding faster than popular models in cosmology predict. Image via NASA/ ESA/ CSA/ STScI.
This was the view at Starbase in Boca Chica, Texas, on September 5, 2023. SpaceX's latest Starship vehicle was fully stacked at that time, awaiting launch. And it's still waiting. Image via SpaceX. Will Starship launch on Friday?
Tonight and tomorrow night, a young moon - a waxing crescent - will float low in the sunset direction in bright evening twilight. Look shortly after sunset. If you're in the Northern Hemisphere, you'll probably need binoculars to spot tiny Mercury close to the moon on these evenings. If you're in the Southern Hemisphere, see the chart below! And here's some good news for all of us. A young moon now means a moon-free sky in the predawn hours this weekend, when the Leonid meteors will be flying.
NASA released this new Uranus image last April 6. It's from the Webb space telescope. In this zoomed-in view, you can see Uranus' dusty rings and dynamic atmosphere. Notice anything strange about the rings? Yep. Uranus' rings lie sideways with respect to the ring-and-moon planes of the other planets. Uranus is our solar system's sideways planet. And that means its seasons are strange! Read more about them here. Image via NASA/ ESA/ CSA/ STScI/ J. DePasquale (STScI).
Euclid - launched this past July - is a cosmology survey mission, optimized to determine the properties of dark energy and dark matter on universal scales. Dr. Becky - aka astrophysicist Becky Smethurst from the University of Oxford - does a great job explaining what's incredible about Euclid's 1st images.
View at EarthSky Community Photos. | Aurelian Neacsu in Visina, Dambovita, Romania, captured this image of the moon in the midst of occulting – or passing in front of – Venus yesterday. Aurelian wrote: "Venus hiding behind the moon." Thank you, Aurelian! Yesterday morning, the moon and Venus looked close together on the dome of our sky. And – as from Romania – from some spots on the globe people saw Venus pass behind the moon. See more photos of Venus and the moon from around the globe here.
View larger. | This is one of the unusual round rock features the Perseverance rover saw on our neighboring planet, Mars, late last month. Image via NASA/ JPL-Caltech. Read about them.
Don't miss the spectacular pairing of the waning crescent moon and Venus Thursday morning! You'll find them in the sunrise direction. Parts of the globe will be treated to an occultation, when the moon will pass in front of Venus, blocking it from our view. Plus, tomorrow will be a good time to look for Venus during the day. For more sky events, visit EarthSky’s night sky guide.
What a week for auroras! More coming?
After the beautiful auroral displays of Sunday night, last night was calmer. But Earth's magnetic field remains stormy. The threshold for yet more G1 (minor) geomagnetic storming was reached at 2:30 UTC this morning. More auroras coming? Read the sun news.
Will SpaceX Starship fly again this month?SpaceX said on Friday that its Starship super rocket is ready to fly again, after completing a full rehearsal of the launch sequence last week.The launch could come as soon as November 13, sources say, pending regulatory approval. It'll be the 2nd Starship test launch, following the dramatic midair explosion of the prototype Starship last April 20, less than 4 minutes after the vehicle had lifted off from a beach at SpaceX's Starbase in Boca Chica, Texas. SpaceX deliberately destroyed the vehicle after it veered off course. Still, that 1st Starship was the most powerful rocket ever flown.
Sorry for the low-resolution image. It's the best available so far. It's a capture of the 2-asteroids-in-1, seen for the 1st time this week by the Lucy spacecraft. The asteroid - called Dinkinesh - was assumed to be single when it was discovered in 1999. But Lucy got as close as approximately 270 miles (430 km) on Wednesday, revealing it as 2. By the way, Dinkinesh means marvelous in Amharic. Image via NASA/ Goddard/ SwRI/ Johns Hopkins APL/ NOAO. Read about Lucy's Dinkinesh flyby.
View at EarthSky Community Photos. | Have you noticed the bright "star" ascending in the east each evening? It's our solar system's biggest planet, Jupiter, and it's brighter than any star. Jupiter is closest to Earth today for all of 2023. And Patrick Prokop caught the giant planet yesterday, from his Heavenly Backyard in Savannah, Georgia. Read about Jupiter at its closest.
View at EarthSky Community Photos. | Stojan Stojanovski in Debrca, Macedonia, caught this wonderful image on Halloween Night in 2020, when there was a full moon. Thank you, Stojan! Full moons fall on Halloween only every 19 years, by the way. The next one won't come until 2039! Watch a video, or read why we celebrate Halloween.
View at EarthSky Community Photos. | Riste Spiroski in Ohrid, Macedonia, caught the full Hunter's Moon this morning, as it was setting in the west. He also saw the eclipse. Thank you, Riste! More Hunter's Moon eclipse photos here.
Hunter's Moon for 2023 falls Saturday night
This year's Hunter’s Moon for the Northern Hemisphere will come tomorrow night. The Southern Hemisphere has a full moon, too, of course. But the full moon displays different characteristics as seen from the different parts of Earth's globe. Bonus! We'll all see bright Jupiter - closest to us for 2023 on November 1-2 - near the bright moon tonight and tomorrow. Read about the Hunter's Moon.
A shallow partial lunar eclipse Saturday night
People in Europe, Africa, most of Asia and western Australia will see a shallow partial lunar eclipse overnight on Saturday. We list livestreams here. Only a small fraction of the moon will enter Earth’s darkest shadow. At best, you might notice a dark shading on the moon, followed by the barest of bites taken from one edge. Read about the partial eclipse.
The moon is 40 million years older than we thought
Scientists believe that - in the early years of our solar system - a Mars-sized object smashed into the young Earth! During this giant impact, either a chunk of the impactor, or debris kicked up from Earth, then coalesced to form our moon. They thought this big collision happened about 4.425 billion years ago. But a new analysis announced this week places this date 40 million years earlier. How did they do it? And why do we care?
Last night's moon, from Chile
View at EarthSky Community Photos. | Patricio Leon captured last night's moon from Santiago, Chile. He wrote: "A beautiful high gibbous moon. The bright claw-shape of the crater Sinus Iridum - the Bay of Rainbows - is seen at the lower terminator line [the line between lunar night and day]. And you can see the conspicuous ray systems of the craters Copernicus and Tycho, and the cratered terrain at the upper terminator." Thanks, Patricio! By the way, full moon is just days away. It'll be the Northern Hemisphere's Hunter's Moon.