| | December 15
2nd Interstellar Visitor,
December Solstice Ahead | | | |
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 | | | The blue object in this image is comet 2I/Borisov: the 2I stands for 2nd interstellar. The streak to the upper right is its tail of ejected dust. The image is from November 16, about 3 weeks before the comet's perihelion, or closest point to the sun. It appears in front of a distant background spiral galaxy, whose bright central core is smeared because Hubble was tracking the fast-moving comet. Comet Borisov was over 200 million miles (over 300 million km) from Earth in this exposure. It'll be closest to Earth in late December. Image via NASA/ ESA/ D. Jewitt. | | |
| | 2nd-known interstellar visitor rounds the sun | | | Astronomers last week released new Hubble Space Telescope images of the mysterious object known as 2I/Borisov, shortly before and shortly after its December 8 perihelion. The object is the 2nd-known interstellar object, now characterized as a comet. The images are historic; we've never before witnessed an interstellar object sweeping closest to our sun. And - although we haven't heard of any outbursts from 2I/Borisov as it came nearest the sun - the Hubble observations did yield important science. Read more. | | | | | | A second black hole at our galaxy's center? | | | There's a supermassive black hole - 4 million times our sun's mass - in the center of our Milky Way galaxy. Astronomers who've measured star movements near this central black hole are now saying there might be a 2nd companion black hole near it. Read more. | | | | | | | |
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|  | | | See a celestial Chariot in December | | Tonight, or any one of these long December nights, you can find the constellation Auriga the Charioteer. The Heavenly Chariot is a 5-sided figure with a bright star, Capella. It starts its journey in the northeast at early evening, flies overhead around midnight and finishes up in the northwest at dawn. Capella is really 2 stars, each with a golden color similar to our sun. You'll always recognize Capella for the little Triangle of stars near it, an asterism called The Kids. Read more. | | | | | |
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 | | | Venus and Saturn after sunset | | View at EarthSky Community Photos. | Here's last week's Venus-Saturn conjunction. Some beautiful photos of it passed through EarthSky Community Photos. Thanks to all who contributed! Ellen Troberman captured this one on her iPhone about 45 minutes after sunset on Tuesday at Torrey Pines State Beach in Del Mar, California. Venus is the brighter object. Thanks, Ellen. | | |
