Page 8 - Variable Star Observers News Today : Breaking News, Live Updates & Top Stories | Vimarsana

still bright at magnitudes at 8.1 and 9.9, respectively, but a brand new nova in Scorpius has just joined the scene. Add in Comet ATLAS (C/2020 R4), now at magnitude 9.5, and you know in your heart a dawn observing session is in your future. Amateur astronomer Paul Camilleri of Northern Territory, Australia and the All-Sky Automated Survey for Supernovae (ASAS-SN) independently discovered the new object early on April 12th at visual magnitude 9.5. Formally named V1710 Scorpii, it brightened quickly to 8.5 before fading slightly, now simmering around 9.5 as of early April 15th. Oscillations li...

 E-Mail IMAGE: U Mon's primary star, an elderly yellow supergiant, has around twice the Sun's mass but has billowed to 100 times the Sun's size. Scientists know less about the companion, the... view more  Credit: Credit: NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center/Chris Smith (USRA/GESTAR) Astronomers have painted their best picture yet of an RV Tauri variable, a rare type of stellar binary where two stars - one approaching the end of its life - orbit within a sprawling disk of dust. Their 130-year dataset spans the widest range of light yet collected for one of these systems, from radio to ...

Madam starmaker When it comes to prestige in US education, few names carry more weight than Harvard University. Founded in 1636 in Cambridge, in the Massachusetts Bay Colony, as New College, Harvard is the US’s oldest institution of higher education. People today might think of Harvard for its legal and business studies but from its early days it was known as a centre of scientific research. Less known is the role that women played at Harvard in developing astronomy as a science. Prominent among these starry women was Henrietta Swan Leavitt, born on 4 July 1868 in Lancaster, Massachusetts...