Astronomers gear up. A Total Lunar eclipse is coming up on Nov 8. The eclipse will be visible late afternoon in India around 4:30 pm IST. But observers in India will see that the moon after the peak eclipse.
The moon is expected to rise in New Delhi around 17:28 IST, past the peak eclipse point
Penumbral eclipse begins at 08:02 UTC on November 8 (13:32 IST). Partial eclipse begins at 09:09 UTC on November 8 (14:39 IST). Totality begins (moon engulfed in Earth’s shadow) begins at 10:16 UTC on November 8 (15:46 IST). Totality ends at 11:41 UTC on November 8 (17:11 IST). Partial eclipse ends at 12:49 UTC on November 8 (18:19 IST). Penumbral eclipse ends at 13:56 UTC on November 8 (8:56 IST). Maximum eclipse is at 10:59 UTC on November 8 (16:29 IST). Duration of totality is about 85 minutes.
The Draconid meteor shower will peak on Sunday (Oct. 9), offering a chance to see fireballs appearing to originate from the dragon of the Draco constellation
However, the meteor shower peak coincides with a full moon that can make it difficult to observe
The comet responsible for the Draconid meteor shower is called Giacobini-Zinner which orbits the sun every 6.6 years.
Comet Neowise is now a evening comet. Now you can get your entire family to see it because nobody apart from you wanted to get up early at 3 am!
The comet is visible at dusk, after sundown from 8:30 ish looking North by North-West. So all you need is unobstructed view looking North, clear skies and low light pollution.
If you live in Delhi, good luck with that.
skyhound.com published a nice star chart that shows the daily progression of Comet Neowise through the night sky. The chart shows the comet’s path from July 2nd 2020 to July 31st 2020
Comet neowise is the latest attraction of the night sky. Rather it is the latest attraction of the morning sky.
To watch it, wake up around 4 am look east/north-east just before daybreak, the comet is currently just outside the constellation Auriga. Its easily visible to the naked eye at an outstanding magnitude of 3.
But you must hurry, because its hurling towards the sun at a very high speed and may not be visible in a few days when its completely overwhelmed by the sun
Comet Neowise C/2020 F3, image taken by V. Parkash, Minnesota, USA
On Sunday March 15th 2020, a discussion will be carried out in the sky theatre of Nehru Planetarium, New Delhi about Messier objects. Please find the details in the poster below.
Messier objects are the most sought after objects for amateur astronomers and form a list called Messier’s Object List. The list was created by French Astronomer and comet hunter Charles Messier during the mid 1700s. The objects are widely observed and every year in March, the amateur astronomers participate in an event known as Messier Marathon which is a fun night of locating all 110 objects in one night using a manual telescope.
The list consists of all kind of objects, from double stars to Supernova remnant. Different kind of star clusters, nebulae and galaxies comprise this list. It is fun and exciting to see the objects in one night and there is plenty to learn about them.
The session will start from 10:00 AM and will continue till about 11:20 in the sky theatre. Following this, a small interaction will be carried out to discuss further. Attendance is “Free of cost” and it is “Open to all”. For any queries, kindly drop a message at +91-9560338860 for Sneh.
Greetings! Nehru Planetarium, Nehru Memorial Museum and Library, is providing an opportunity for students to attend a sky theater Astronomy session at the planetarium, on Thursday, the 16th of January 2020, at 5 PM. The session will have discussions “under the stars” inside the sky theater, and would cover basic positional Astronomy onwards to glimpses of cutting edge multiwavelength/multimessenger Astronomy where we are now poised in our understanding of the Universe. The discussions will be for basic awareness. We request you to bring this to the notice of students. They can send a mail to nehruplanetarium@gmail.com and be there at the planetarium by 5 PM on the 16th.
Interested students are also urged to see the website http://vigyansamagam.in/ to know about some of the cutting edge mega projects in Astronomy. Students can register as volunteers at https://bit.ly/2ufCViz . Some students may have already registered as a potential volunteer in an exciting exhibition in this connection, which will be at the National Science Center, Delhi from the 21st of January to the 18th of March 2020. This will be a tremendous learning opportunity to the students, if selected for volunteering for any of the megaprojects.
Nehru Planetarium, Nehru Memorial Museum and Library, invites you to a half day sky theatre Astronomy session at the planetarium, on Sunday, the 12th of January 2020, from 9:30 – 11:30 AM. The session will have discussions “Under the Stars” inside the sky theatre, and would cover basic positional Astronomy onwards to glimpses of cutting edge multi-wavelength/multi-messenger astronomy where we are now poised in our understanding of the Universe. The discussions will be for basic awareness. Please send a mail to nehruplanetarium@gmail.com and be there at the planetarium by 9:15 AM on the 12th.
Interested students and visitors are urged to see the website http://vigyansamagam.in/ to know about some of the cutting edge mega projects in Astronomy. Students should also register on the site (if not done already), if they wish to be a volunteer in an exciting exhibition in this connection, which will be at the National Science Center, Delhi from the 21st of January to the 18th of March 2020. This will be a tremendous learning opportunity to the students, if selected for volunteering for any of the megaprojects.
NASA’s deep solar system probe “New Horizons” made history in 2015 being the first space probe to visit Pluto, providing stunning images of the planet beloved by kids all over the world. After its mission completion on sending over the enormous volumes of data it collected, the probe’s mission was extended to do what no probe had done before. It was repurposed to now visit the Kuiper belt.
What is the Kuiper Belt?
For those of you who do not know what the Kuiper belt is, it is just a big cloud of protoplanetary material or giant space rocks that orbit the sun outside the orbit of Neptune. This bunch of space rocks are essentially the remanants of failed planets. The same stuff the solar system planets are made out of. It is thought that these rocks ( actually solidified ice, methane etc ) failed to become planets because they were too sparsely spaced to form stable planets. Pluto itself is thought to be a Kuiper Belt Object or KBO
In 2016, using the Hubble Space Telescope, a few KBOs were identified that NASA engineers and scientists thought could be suitable for New Horizons to visit and return data, given the amount of fuel left on the craft and the life of its radioisotope generators. Finally a space rock dubbed “Ultima Thule” was identified
New Horizons Reaches asteroid 486958 (2014 MU69) “Ultima Thule”
On Jan 1 2019, New Horizons made its closest flyby to Ultima Thule making it history as its the furthest object any spacecraft has visited. New Horizons came withing 2200 Km of the KBO. Reaching this Kuiper Belt object is truly and outstanding feat of mankind.
Asteroid 486958 (2014 MU69) taken by LORRI Instrument on board New Horizons Spacecraft on its Jan 01,2019 flyby. Image: NASA/Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory/Southwest Research Institute
As you can see, the asteroid has a snowman like structure. Scientists think the two parts of the ball were distinct objects before, until they collided and coalesced togther. the asteroid is approx 20 miles by 10 miles
