Friday, November 8, 2019

Nov 8 - Edmond Halley's Magnificent Prediction

FaceBookShare
TwitterShare
color-instagram-96.png
color-link-96.png

Halley's Comet, at its last return near the sun in 1986. Image via NASA.

Edmond Halley's magnificent prediction

Born on today's date in the year 1656, English astronomer and mathematician Edmond Halley was the first to predict the return of a comet. Today, Halley's Comet - the most famous of all comets - bears his name. Read more.

Is Hygiea now the smallest dwarf planet?

New images from ESO's Very Large Telescope show that asteroid Hygiea is round, meaning that it may now be classified as the smallest-known dwarf planet in our solar system. Read more.

What we're reading

In the journal BioScience … World scientists’ warning of a climate emergency

Published this week, the opening paragraph states, "Scientists have a moral obligation to clearly warn humanity of any catastrophic threat and to 'tell it like it is.' On the basis of this obligation and the graphical indicators presented below, we declare, with more than 11,000 scientist signatories from around the world, clearly and unequivocally that planet Earth is facing a climate emergency. Read more … it's not long.

EarthSky lunar calendars are back in stock

We're guaranteed to sell out, get one while you can! Your support means the world to us and allows us to keep going. Purchase here.

Transit of Mercury on November 11

Skywatchers are eagerly anticipating Monday's Mercury transit. It'll happen in the morning hours for us in North America. Read more. Enjoy this beautiful image of the last transit of Mercury on May 9, 2016, via Vegastar Carpentier Liard in France. Mercury is the small black dot on the left side of the sun in this image. Thank you, Vegastar! See more photos of the 2016 Mercury transit … after Monday, we won't have one again until 2032.

A deep look at Orion

View larger. | Perhaps you know the constellation Orion for its 3 prominent Belt stars, or its famous Orion Nebula, or its bright stars Betelgeuse and Rigel.  Here's a deeper look at the area of sky around Orion, revealing many of the bright and faint nebulae in this part of the sky. On Monday, our friend Fred Espenak wrote: “I've been working on the processing of this image (on and off) for a week or so … The image is a composite of seven 4-minute exposures (F/4, ISO 1600) with a modified Nikon D750 and a Nikon 50mm f/1.8 lens.” Thank you, Fred!

Submit your photo to EarthSky here!
Did a friend forward EarthSkyNews to you? Click here to get your own subscription!
Like us on Facebook
Follow us on Twitter
Instagram
Website

No comments:

Post a Comment