Wolf Creek Astronomy

12/06/2015

Interesting Facts About Space-10

• Jupiter is known as the dumping ground for our solar system, as a large percentage of asteroids are pulled in by Jupiter’s gravity.
• Mercury’s days are twice as long as it’s year!
• As space has no gravity, pens won’t work!
• On average it takes the light only 1.3 seconds to travel from the moon to the earth.
• There are 88 recognised star constellations in our night sky.
• The centre of a comet is called a nucleus.
• As early as 240 B.C. the Chinese began to document the appearance of Halley’s Comet.
• In 2006, the International Astronomical Union reclassified Pluto as a dwarf planet.
• There are now 4 dwarf planets in the Solar System: Ceres, Pluto, Eris and Makemake.
• Buzz Lightyear has been out in space! He has spent 15 months on board the International Space Station, and returned to Earth on the 11th of September, 2009.

12/06/2015

The 'Big Moon' Illusion May Be All in Your Head

f you've ever seen the moon as it's just coming over the horizon, you may have wondered why it seems to look bigger than when it lies straight overhead. The answer may have more to do with the human brain than an external effect.

My own experience with this phenomenon happened over a half century ago, but I still have vivid recollections of it. I was spending a summer weekend at my Aunt Francie's house in Atlantic Beach, New York. My cousins and I were walking to the beach in the late afternoon when we noticed a group of people clustered on the corner of Kings Avenue and Ocean Boulevard, staring at something appearing off to their left. When we reached the corner, I was about to ask what everybody was looking at … and that's when I saw it for myself.

It was the nearly full moon. But this was no ordinary moon.

Read More: http://bit.ly/1NwQ7U8

12/06/2015

Try for Comet Catalina this weekend

It’s up before dawn, a small fuzzy patch of light in binoculars. On the morning of December 7, the comet will appear near a spectacular display of the moon and Venus!

We’re beginning to see more photos of Comet C/2013 US10 (Catalina) as it has gradually pulled away from the sunrise. But it still requires optical aid to be seen. Some observers have reported that the comet is becoming visible in binoculars. If you have not seen Comet Catalina, search for a first glimpse at this celestial visitor in the mornings ahead. Using binoculars, the comet should appear as a small fuzzy patch of light in your predawn sky. A small telescope show a hint of its two tails. Using a telescope, the tails may be seen very faint, and are a lot easier to see using a camera, as it captures more light and details than the human eye.

The big news is that Comet Catalina will be near the planet Venus and the moon on the morning of December 7, 2015. On that morning, Venus and the moon will appear very spectacular in the east before dawn. From parts of North America, the moon will cover over, or occult, Venus on the morning of December 7.

Read More: http://bit.ly/1HtnTsA

11/23/2015

Voyager 1 Cool Fact-3

Travelling at 38,000 Miles per Hour

Yeah, that’s right, the Voyager 1 Space Probe is one of the fasted moving man-made objects in space! It travels at a little more than 38,000 miles per hour!

Despite how fast the Voyager 1 Space Probe is traveling, it’s barely left the Solar System and we’re decades after its launch.

Something to keep in mind, it will take Voyager 1 nearly 300 years to reach the famous Oort Cloud and it’ll take around 30,000 years just to go from the entry point of the Oort Cloud ring to the exit.

If you think the Voyager 1 moves fast relative to astronomical objects, think again! The star Gliesse 445 is racing towards our Solar System at nearly 266,000 miles per hour!

One last tidbit to chew on, NASA speculates that the Voyager 1 Space Probe might wander around the Milky Way eternally. What a life!

11/16/2015

11/16/2015

(♥‿♥) THE HORSEHEAD NEBULA - BARNARD 33 (♥‿♥)

The Horsehead Nebula or Barnard 33 (B33), It's a cloud of gas cold and dark, located approximately 1500 light years from earth, South of the left side of the Orion's belt. It is part of the complex of molecular clouds of Orion, and measures approximately 3,5 light years wide. This Dark Nebula is visible by contrast, as it appears in front of the emission nebula IC 434. for his way is the most familiar of clouds of absorption.

The reddish color of the emission nebula originates recombination of electrons with protons of atoms of hydrogen. The Brightest Star, located on the left of the nebula, is the popular alnitak (Z Orionis) of Orion's belt. The unusual way of horse head was discovered for the first time in a photographic plate at the end of the nineteenth century by Scottish Astronomer Williamina Fleming, in the centre of the Harvard College. The first to include in a catalogue to the horse head nebula was Edward Emerson Barnard of the family Barnard, in 1919.1

iMAGE cREDIT & cOPYRIGHT:
Rafael Leon Batista © 2015
http://on.fb.me/1lrhO6m
Gran Canaria

11/16/2015

The 5 Most Beautiful Nebulae-1

The Cat’s Eye Nebula
• Distance from Earth: 3,262 Light Years, 19,176,075,967,324,928 Miles
• Location: Draco Constellation
• Diameter: ~4.5 Light Years, 26,453,814,179,326 Miles

What makes the Cat’s Eye Nebula unique on its own is the fact that it was one of the first planetary nebulae to be discovered. The Cat’s Eye Nebula is also one of the most complex planetary nebulae and most difficult to study.

Discovered by William Hershel on February 15, 1786, the Cat’s Eye is one of the brightest shining planetary nebulae in the sky. Additionally, The Cat’s Eye was the very first planetary nebula to have its spectrum studied, by William Huggins in 1864. How exciting is that? Because it was one of the first planetary nebula spectrum to be studied, we’ve given it the fifth position of our list of the 5 Most Beautiful Nebulae.

This beautiful nebula is a planetary nebula that contains jets, knots, bubbles and complex arcs that give it the wonderful shape in which it has.

Lastly, the Cat’s Eye shines exceptionally bright – about 10,000 times as luminous as our Solar System’s Sun. The enchanting structure of this complex planetary nebula makes it stand out; with eleven rings (or shells) of gas that make up the Cat’s Eye Nebula.

11/16/2015

The 5 Most Beautiful Nebulae-5

The Eagle Nebula

• Distance from Earth: ~7,000 Light Years, 41,150,377,612,285,254 Miles
• Location: Serpens Constellation
• Diameter: ~110 Light Years, 646,648,791,050,196 Miles

Also known as the Star Queen Nebula, it gets the name the Eagle Nebula from its resemblance to the bird. Discovered by Jean Philippe de Cheseaux in the year 1945, this emission nebula contains several active star forming gas and dusts areas, including the much talked about “Pillars of Creation”, which is essentially a large region of star formation.

What gives the Eagle Nebula the top spot on our list of the 5 Most Beautiful Nebulae is the countless and intriguing star-forming regions within it. Inside the Eagle Nebula, clouds of gas are attracted together due to gravity, only to collapse in. In case there’s enough gas present, nuclear fusion ignites in the center and the compact cloud becomes a shining star.
Nebulae are one of the most astounding creations in the Universe and have been studied by curious minds since the first nebulae was discovered. Each of them appears to be different and that’s just what makes these objects magnificently beautiful. Beauty isn’t just what nebulae are all about, there is more to them than a pretty face. These collections of gas and dust are a source of material and settings from which stars are born, as indicated above, forming the basis from which entire planetary systems can take shape, just like our own Solar System.

11/15/2015

Oldest Stars Ever Discovered at Milky Way Center --"Dating from Before Its Birth"

"These pristine stars are among the oldest surviving stars in the Universe, and certainly the oldest stars we have ever seen," said Louise Howes from The Australian National University (ANU), lead author of the study published in the latest issue of Nature. "These stars formed before the Milky Way, and the galaxy formed around them."
These oldest known stars, dating from before the Milky Way Galaxy formed, when the Universe was just 300 million years old. The stars, found near the center of the Milky Way, are surprisingly pure but contain material from an even earlier star, which died in an enormous explosion called hypernova.

The discovery and analysis of the nine pure stars challenges current theories about the environment of the early Universe from which these stars formed.

Read More: http://bit.ly/1PsGxnj

11/15/2015

So last night I set up at a place called camp hope for some wounded warriors, it is truly amazing and humbling place. I met some wonderful people both volunteers and soldiers, I feel truly honored that I was allowed to go there and share the night sky with these folks. It really reminds me that there is still good in this world and I pray that I will be allowed to join them again in the spring

11/14/2015

Comet Catalina returns this month with naked-eye potential. Follow its every move with our guide and finder charts. Comet C/2013 US10 Catalina on Oc

11/14/2015

Black holes: We explode six myths to prevent you from getting sucked in-5

Myth 5: Supermassive black holes form when a massive star dies

There are supermassive black holes in the centres of most galaxies — but the way they form is more uncertain.

"One possibility is that the very first generation of stars which were made out of almost pure hydrogen and helium from the Big Bang 13.8 billion years ago were bigger than today's stars, maybe hundreds of times the mass of our Sun," Dr Bauer said.

These stars were so hot and huge that they burned through their nuclear fuel supplies in just a few million years before going supernova and forming primordial black holes.

Formed in regions where lots of gas was collecting and forming the first galaxies, these primordial black holes probably sank to the centre and grew over time, eventually forming supermassive black holes, Dr Bauer said.

"Another possibility is nearby black holes merged to create progressively bigger black holes, so you get this merging of black holes, which over time form supermassive black holes.

"The big challenge is that we haven't seen any intermediate-sized black holes, we haven't seen anything between stellar mass and supermassive black holes, so we're not sure yet whether this is the formation process, but it's a good theory."