The center of the Lagoon Nebula is a star-forming tornado. We call it a tornado because it resembles a familiar tornado on Earth. At its center, two funnel-shaped clouds, each roughly half a light-year long, were formed by extremely powerful stellar winds and intense, energetic starlight. The nearby, extremely bright star Hershel 36 illuminates it. The dust clouds obscure other hot stars and […]
Pi is arguably the most famous number. Ironically, we don't actually have a single number, Pi. At least, not a complete number, because Pi goes on forever. It's a strange mathematical quirk. In short, Pi is a mathematical constant obtained by dividing the circumference of a circle by its diameter. It's abbreviated as 3.14159. As we've mentioned before, […]
No matter where you live in the world, you can see this view in the early morning light. While our friend in the picture missed the mark, it didn't detract from its beauty. This picture was taken in 2012, and the view has been visible ever since. Marek Nikodem took this photo in a place called Szubin while escaping the light pollution of Poland. He says both were so bright that they were […]
As you know, friends, yesterday was the peak of the Perseid meteor shower. My friends and I had a barbecue and watched the sky together, far from the city center. Luckily, we didn't catch anything :) But we didn't sit idly by. We observed with telescopes. Since I'd broken my phone, I started wondering if I could take some photos with my tablet and 5MP camera. The autofocus […]
Didn't get to see the supermoon this Sunday? No problem, they took pictures for you from the International Space Station. Why do I feel like I'm talking like a salesperson now? Anyway... Before we get to the pictures, a little background information. As we know, the moon's orbit is elliptical. This means it moves away from us and closer to us over the course of a month. What we call a supermoon is when the moon is closest to us and […]
The Rosetta spacecraft, launched by the European Space Agency (ESA) 10 years ago to land on comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko, has successfully entered orbit around the comet. ESA Director of Rosetta spacecraft operations Sylvain Lodiot announced from headquarters in Germany, “We’ve reached the comet!” ESA Director Jean-Jacques Dordain said, “We’ve been flying toward the target for exactly 10 years, 5 months, and 4 days.”
