Page 9 - Astronomy Essentials News Today

Sometimes Mars is bright like a dot of flame. Other times, as in May 2021, Mars appears inconspicuous among the brighter stars. Why?

May 25, 2021 Lunar libration lets us see more than 50% of the moon. Photos by Manuel Castillo Vela/ EPOD. It’s common knowledge that our moon has a near side and a far side. And most people know that half of the moon always faces Earth, and one half always points away. Does this mean we can only see 50% of the moon’s surface from Earth? No. Over time, it’s possible to see as much as 59% of the moon’s surface, due to a combination of motions – in particular, a slight north-south rockin...

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Bruce McClure Bruce McClure has served as lead writer for EarthSkys popular Tonight pages since 2004. Hes a sundial aficionado, whose love for the heavens has taken him to Lake Titicaca in Bolivia and sailing in the North Atlantic, where he earned his celestial navigation certificate through the School of Ocean Sailing and Navigation. He also writes and hosts public astronomy programs and planetarium programs in and around his home in upstate New York.

Graham Jones Graham Jones is an astrophysicist and science communicator at timeanddate.com. He is part of the timeanddate team that produces live streams of eclipses and transits, including the May 26 lunar eclipse and June 10 solar eclipse. Graham has a BSc in astrophysics from Royal Holloway, University of London, and an MSc in science communication from the University of Edinburgh.

Omega Centauri in infrared light via Spitzer Space Telescope/ Wikimedia Commons. Omega Centauri, the largest globular star cluster of the Milky Way, contains about 10 million stars. This behemoth, with a diameter of 230 light-years, is 10 times more massive than a typical globular cluster. Despite all these stars, scientists released a study in 2018 that said Omega Centauri probably is not home to life. Stars pack so tightly inside Omega Centauri that the average distance between stars in the c...

May 19, 2021 View larger. | EarthSky community member Beverley Sinclair captured this beautiful view of a total solar eclipse outside Charleston, South Carolina, on August 21, 2017, and wrote: “The skies were very cloudy leading up to totality but, miraculously, slowly cleared as totality approached. This photo shows the diamond ring and Baily’s beads.” Thank you, Beverley! The middle of the current eclipse season falls on June 1, 2021. This eclipse season features two eclipses: a total e...

Deborah Byrd Deborah Byrd created the EarthSky radio series in 1991 and founded EarthSky.org in 1994. Today, she serves as Editor-in-Chief of this website. She has won a galaxy of awards from the broadcasting and science communities, including having an asteroid named 3505 Byrd in her honor. A science communicator and educator since 1976, Byrd believes in science as a force for good in the world and a vital tool for the 21st century. "Being an EarthSky editor is like hosting a big global party ...

Total lunar eclipse composite image by Fred Espenak. A solar eclipse happens at new moon, when the moon passes between the sun and Earth. A lunar eclipse happens at the opposite moon phase – at full moon – when the Earth, sun and moon align in space, with Earth between the sun and moon. At such times, Earth’s shadow falls on the full moon, darkening the moon’s face and – at mid-eclipse – sometimes turning it a coppery red. We typically have between four and seven eclipses – some p...

If the moon orbited Earth on the same plane that Earth circles the sun, then wed have a total lunar eclipse at each full moon, and a total solar eclipse at each new moon. But that doesnt happen because the lunar orbit is inclined to Earths orbit by about 5 degrees.