Now is a great time to sleep out under the stars! Looking for summer constellations in the in the northern hemisphere is a great way to spend a warm summer night and the place to start your search is the Summer Triangle.
There is the potential for all of us to be able to see a newly discovered comet with the naked eye within the next month! Comet McNaught, which is officially cataloged as C/2009 R1 was discovered by Australian astronomer Robert McNaught in September of 2009. The comet is already visible through binoculars and is sporting an impressive tail. It is predicted that the comet will pass closest to Earth next week and continue on toward the sun, where it will reach perihelion on July 2.
NGC 2359, which is known as Thor’s Helmet Nebula is an emission nebula. It can be found in the constellation Canis Major – which is one of the hunting dog constellations near Orion. This nebula is about 15,000 light years away and is about 30 light years in size.
A couple of weeks ago, we did a post on 6 incredible pictures of the Sun from space. Since those pictures are indeed pretty incredible, I’m guessing that by now, you’re asking yourself, “Just what is the composition of the Sun anyway”?
The first thing you see when you look at the atmosphere of Jupiter is the bands of dark and light clouds as well as swirls, waves and oval spots. The patterns are mezmerizing! So what causes this complex mixture of colors and shapes?