Astronomy

Follow the Dave’s Universe blog: www.Astronomy.com/davesuniverse Follow Dave Eicher on Twitter: @deicherstar On April 8 of next year, what promises to be the most viewed total eclipse in history will sweep across North America. Remember the amazing eclipse in 2017? More than 12 million Americans lived within the path of totality for that event. This time, the number who can simply walk outside and see the total eclipse (given clear skies, of course) soars to more than 31 million. More than half the U.S. population lives within 250 miles of the path of totality. It will be an astonishing, widely viewed celestial event. If you don’t know where you’re going for the eclipse yet, it’s high time to start figuring it out. The path moves through Mexico, Texas, Oklahoma, Arkansas, Missouri, Illinois, Indiana,…

Following Jupiter Although I have been gazing up at the night sky since I was quite young, my wife of 48 years never seemed as interested. However, after I shared details in Michael Bakich’s October article, “Hail to the king,” and explained Jupiter’s location with respect to the Moon’s location (based on Martin Ratcliffe’s and Alister Ling’s summary in Sky This Month), she immediately picked out Jupiter on her own! And ever since that evening, she has been looking up to locate and observe Jupiter with very special excitement. —Glenn Luzzi, Mount Bethel, PA Certain uncertainty Just got my October copy of Astronomy with Stephen O’Meara’s column on uncertainty. Wow, did it get me thinking about looking up into the sky and being uncertain about what I am seeing! Sometimes, sitting in my…

For its latest trick, NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) performed a stellar disappearing act on the Pillars of Creation in the Eagle Nebula (M16), the star-forming region made famous by the Hubble Space Telescope. First, JWST captured the region with its Near-Infrared Camera (NIRCam), revealing myriad crimson stars forming within the Pillars (at right). Then, using its Mid-Infrared Instrument (MIRI), JWST made thousands of stars appear to vanish (at lower right). That’s because stars typically don’t emit much light at mid-infrared wave-lengths. Rather, mid-infrared light unmasks dense regions of gas and dust. The red regions toward the top of this image are areas where dust clouds are relatively diffuse, while the blue-gray pillars consist of very dense dust. Using JWST’s data, astronomers hope to figure out exactly how much…

FINAL FLIGHT The Stratospheric Observatory for Infrared Astronomy (SOFIA) took its final science flight Sept. 29. SOFIA carried a 2.5-meter telescope aboard a modified Boeing 747SP and observed nearly the entire infrared range of light. DEPOT DROP NASA and the European Space Agency agreed Oct. 19 that the Perseverance Mars rover will cache samples at Three Forks in Jezero Crater as a backup for those the rover carries. The latter will be picked up in 2030 and returned to Earth in 2033. BRIGHT BURST Gamma-ray burst 221009A arrived at Earth Oct. 9 after traveling some 2 billion light-years. Space- and ground-based telescopes captured the record-breaking explosion, which likely came from a star collapsing into a black hole.…

» NASA has finally taken its first small step toward sending humans back to the Moon. Over the course of a 25-day flight, the uncrewed Artemis 1 mission launched aboard NASA’s brand-new Space Launch System (SLS), looped around the Moon twice thanks to the European-built Service Module, and splashed down with the Orion capsule off Mexico’s Baja California coast on Dec. 11 — the 50th anniversary of the Apollo 17 Moon landing. In the runup to the launch, NASA officials had emphasized that the mission was a test flight. “We are stressing Orion beyond what it was designed for,” said Bob Cabana, NASA’s associate administrator, at a briefing. But Artemis 1 passed with flying colors, proving that the hardware meant to fly humans to the Moon is up to the task. TRY, TRY…

BLACK HOLE BURPS In June 2021, astronomers spotted a black hole belching out material three years after it first tore apart and ingested a star. Normally, these eruptions last only a few months, so this delayed event opens new questions into how black holes digest stars. ADIOS, ARECIBO The National Science Foundation has decided not to rebuild the Arecibo radio telescope, whose main dish collapsed in 2020. Instead, the site will become an education and outreach center, the agency said Oct. 13. EARLY WARNING Massive stars may dim by up to 100 times in the year before they explode as a supernova, astronomers predict in a study published Oct. 13. This may give observers warning to train telescopes on likely targets. GIVE IT A BOOST NASA and SpaceX are brainstorming about how a Dragon spacecraft might boost…