“There are no major showers this months, but there are hopes for Comet 2022 E3, which was nearing naked-eye visibility in mid-January. The comet will be at its nearest to the Earth on February 1st, at a distance of 43 million kilometres. “
“This book consists of 100 chapters, each 2-3 pages long, and each supposedly covering a single star, not in alphabetical order or by constellation, which is how beginners’ books usually do it. “
Uranus in Aries was multiply occulted by the Moon last year, two of the events visible from the UK, and on January 1st it will happen again around 10.20 p.m., depending on location, for viewers north of a line from Cork to Norwich, with the reappearance at 11.08 p.m., as seen from Edinburgh.
“As this is the last of the planned ‘Beginners’ Astronomy’ articles, and it’s scheduled to appear on Christmas Day, this seems an appropriate subject to end with. “
Venus and the Pleiades over Australia, Aug 2017 by Yuri Beletsky – Orion at top, Betelgeuse at foot
The planet Mercury will reappear in the evening sky with Venus in December, at greatest elongation from the Sun on December 21st, coinciding with the winter solstice.
“It is incredibly exciting to know that everything is going to be rewritten. That is one of the best parts of being a scientist.” Laura Flagg, Cornell University
John’s Young’s space suited leap on Apollo 16. “Some of the things the astronauts did would be well-nigh impossible under Earth gravity, particularly moving at speed or leaping, as John Young did on an Apollo 16 EVA, while wearing spacesuits”
The researchers studied the Sparkler galaxy located in Webb’s First Deep Field and used JWST to determine that five of the sparkling objects around it are globular clusters. Image credit: Canadian Space Agency with images from NASA, ESA, CSA, STScI; Mowla, Iyer et al. 2022.
“The Taurid meteor showers from Encke’s Comet go on for the whole of November, peaking on November 5th and 11th-12th”
