Seven Sisters: One Of The Night Sky’s Brightest Clusters

Null hypotheses im looking at you :(

Chi square :(

“How to Identify that Light in the Sky ” Is the NASA Astronomy Picture of the Day of today, November 14, 2021

The Very Beginnings of the History of Astronomy

Image credit: Michele Falzone/ Photodisc/ Getty Images

Astronomy in Ancient History

The Very Beginning

Since the beginning of time, humans have looked up at the stars and wondered... But the first documented instance of actual astronomical observations dates all the way back to the Assyro-Babylonians in 1000 BCE. These clever ancient people collected data on celestial bodies and recorded their periodic motions--quite impressive when you consider that the ancient Assyro-Babylonians did not have telescopes or really anything besides their eyes to observe the night sky. 

Ancient Greece

Many ancient civilizations would continue to observe the stars, but it would be the Ancient Greeks who first attempted to use astrometry to estimate the location of celestial bodies in the sky. Copernicus is most well-known for his theory of heliocentrism, but as far back as the third century BCE, some Greek astronomers believed in the heliocentric system. Aristarchus of Samos was one such supporter, and he managed to use trigonometry to assess the relative distance of the Sun and the Moon from Earth. His measurement was not very precise, with him claiming the Sun was 18-20 times the distance of the Moon from Earth (current data puts that number at about 400 times more), but he definitely was on the right track. 

 A century later Greek astronomer Hipparchus of Nicaea created the first stellar catalogue using the ancient Babylonian practice of dividing a circle into 360 degrees and each degree into 60 arc minutes. This original catalog listed the positions of 850 stars to the accuracy of one degree--this might not seem so impressive today, but if you consider he was able to do this based on naked-eye observations and rudimentary gnomons, astrolabes, and armillary spheres. It's also thanks to Hipparchus that we have a magnitude system for describing the brightness of stars. 

The Rest is Ancient History

It would be impossible to list every ancient astronomer who observed something important to astronomy, but needless to say, astronomers from ancient civilizations were all extremely intelligent individuals who collected data and created systems that are still in wide use today. 

Radio view closeup of Milky Way center © J.C. Munoz-Mateos

Lynds’ Dark Nebulae

l Shawn Nielsen l Aygen l JkbSahner l Reinhold Wittich l Adam Block l Astromet

SQUISHY PHYSICS- I-

bro i can’t come to the phone right now, neptune has a moon that shines like a star.

can't tell which is more confusing: random names that don't really follow a pattern but are relatively easy to learn and remember OR random set of numbers and letters that sometimes make sense but is impossible to remember

There is literally nothing that can compete with how satisfying cancelling down an equation is

Scientists find remains of cannibalized baby planets in Jupiter's cloud-covered belly

The finding settles a long-standing debate about the gas giant's formation.

Jupiter’s innards are full of the remains of baby planets that the gas giant gobbled up as it expanded to become the behemoth we see today, scientists have found. The findings come from the first clear view of the chemistry beneath the planet’s cloudy outer atmosphere.

Despite being the largest planet in the solar system, Jupiter has divulged very little about its inner workings. Telescopes have captured thousands of images of the swirling vortex clouds in the gas giant’s upper atmosphere, but these Van Gogh-esque storms also act as a barrier blocking our view of what’s below.

“Jupiter was one of the first planets to form,” in the first few million years when the solar system was taking shape around 4.5 billion years ago, lead researcher Yamila Miguel, an astrophysicist at Leiden University in The Netherlands, told Live Science. However, we know almost nothing for certain about how it formed, she added.

In the new study, researchers were finally able to peer past Jupiter’s obscuring cloud cover using gravitational data collected by NASA’s Juno space probe. This data enabled the team to map out the rocky material at the core of the giant planet, which revealed a surprisingly high abundance of heavy elements. The chemical make-up suggests Jupiter devoured baby planets, or planetesimals, to fuel its expansive growth.

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