The Small Magellanic Cloud (SMC) is one of the closest dwarf galaxies circling the Milky Way. The SMC and his great sister, Large Magellanic Cloud, have fascinated mankind since the dawn of time. Now we can see them like never before. SMC is distorted by the gravitational attraction of other galaxies in the system. This makes it quite active, with many new stars. And because is only 200,000 light-years away, the SMC is a brilliant candidate for exploring stellar evolution. The problem so far has been interstellar dust, preventing us from getting a full picture. Fortunately, astronomers can now rely...
Scientists have long been aware of the fact that galaxies are growing in volume when they swallow up other, smaller galaxies. This process is part of the cosmic evolution. Evidence of this is the cosmic auras (halo) in which the stars of the cannibalized galaxies can be spotted, Science Alert writes. All this applies in full force for Andromeda (also known as M31) – our closest neighbor. The galaxy has a huge and virtually invisible halo of stars that is bigger than itself. For a long time, scientists thought it had come from a number of small mergers. However, thanks...
A dozen new Moons are found around Jupiter, and now the total number of moons known to be 79, most of any other Planet in our Solar System, astronomers said. One of the new moons was described as a “oddball” by researcher Scott Shepherd at the Carnegie Science Institute, due to its small size of almost one kilometer. It also “has orbit like no other known moon of Jupiter and is its smallest known moon,” he added. The strange moon takes about a year and a half to travel around Jupiter and its orbit is tilted that intersects with many...
David Paliwoda has created a really great website with the help of which you can very clearly see how far the Red Planet is from us. If the Earth is 100 pixels wide, where would Mars be? For begging – The Moon is 3000 pixels (the satellite is wide 27 pixels). But what about Mars? The Red Planet is only 428,000 pixels. It takes ages to get to it. Even in pixels. Check it out HERE
The question why the Sun is circle, only seems to be simple one. And confirmation of this is the fact that the answer to the “childish” question, scientists have only been able to find in the twentieth century. The complexity comes from the fact that, as the Sun represents a huge globe of hot gases, in the sky above us, instead of the round light we are accustomed to seeing, we should observe a blurry, shining spot with no pronounced boundaries. And we see a circle. And this circle is quite limited, leaving even the impression of a solid surface...
The Solar System is full of many strange moons. Our own, however, is probably the most unusual. For example – the Moon is really huge. Virtually as a Planet. The Earth’s satellite is a quarter of the size of the Planet. With the exception of Pluto and Chiron, it is larger than any other moon in the Solar System located in the orbit of a Planet. What’s more – the Moon is so big it does not even orbit the Earth. Both space objects are in the orbit of a point located between them, called barycentre. It is located...
Exciting news astronomy fans: You can see one of the largest asteroids in the Solar System right now with the naked eye. Vesta, which is also sometimes classed as a protoplanet, is the second-largest object in the asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter after the dwarf planet Ceres. Occasionally, it’s bright enough to see with the naked eye, including right now, as it just made its closest pass to Earth in two decades. Its previous close pass came in May 2007, when it was a little bit further away. As noted by Sky and Telescope, the object reached its closest point...
Astronomers got the most detailed (so far) view of Io’s largest volcanic lake – an impressive view of the Jupiter’s moon which is the most volcanic active place in the Solar System. In an article published in Nature, experts from Berkeley – University of California, describe how they were able to explore the largest volcanic lake not from images taken by spacecraft, but by observation in transit of Europa – other of Jupiter’s moon. They have been able to observe the movement of the waves in Loki Patera – the largest lake of lava in the lo’s volcanic caldera,...
