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The Planet Uranus observed in the infrared

It’s 13 March. On this day in 1781 Uranus was discovered by William Herschel.

March 13, 1781. The seventh planet – Uranus – was discovered on this date, completely by accident. British astronomer William Herschel was performing a survey of all stars of at least magnitude 8 – stars slightly too faint to be seen with the eye alone, in other words. That’s when he noticed a very faint object – only barely above the limit for viewing with the eye – that that moved in front of the fixed stars. 

This movement clearly demonstrated the object was closer to us than the stars. At first he thought he had found a comet. Later, he and others realized it was a new planet in orbit around our sun, the first new planet discovered since ancient times

William Herschel announced its discovery on March 13, 1781, expanding the known boundaries of the Solar System for the first time in history and making Uranus the first planet discovered with a telescope.

NASA’s Voyager 2 spacecraft flew closely past distant Uranus, the seventh planet from the Sun, in January 1986. 

Voyager 2 radioed thousands of images and voluminous amounts of other scientific data on the planet, its moons, rings, atmosphere, interior and the magnetic environment surrounding Uranus.

Caroline Herschel was the sister of the astronomer William Herschel. After learning astronomy alone and math with the help of her brother, she became his assistant. His most significant contribution to astronomy were the discoveries of various comets, especially comet 35P / Herschel-Rigollet.

She was the first woman to be awarded a Gold Medal of the Royal Astronomical Society (1828), and to be named an Honorary Member of the Royal Astronomical Society (1835, with Mary Somerville). She was also named an honorary member of the Royal Irish Academy (1838). The King of Prussia presented her with a Gold Medal for Science on the occasion of her 96th birthday (1846).

Read more at: Wikipedia 

comet NEOWISE

The “Bookgroove” bookrack-table, by Deniz Aktay

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Dust Shells around WR 140 from Webb

What are those strange rings? Rich in dust, the rings are likely 3D shells -- but how they were created remains a topic of research. Where they were created is well known: in a binary star system that lies about 6,000 light years away toward the constellation of the Swan (Cygnus) -- a system dominated by the Wolf-Rayet star WR 140. Wolf-Rayet stars are massive, bright, and known for their tumultuous winds. They are also known for creating and dispersing heavy elements such as carbon which is a building block of interstellar dust. The other star in the binary is also bright and massive -- but not as active. The two great stars joust in an oblong orbit as they approach each other about every eight years. When at closest approach, the X-ray emission from the system increases, as, apparently, does the dust expelled into space -- creating another shell. The featured infrared image by the new Webb Space Telescope resolves greater details and more dust shells than ever before.