#asronomy

Nevil Maskelyne – Scientist of the Day

Nevil Maskelyne, an English astronomer and cleric, was born Oct. 5, 1732, in London.  

Blog# 149

Wednesday, December 15th, 2021

Welcome back,

Astronomy is the oldest of the natural sciences, dating back to antiquity, with its origins in the religious, mythological, cosmological, calendrical, and astrological beliefs and practices of prehistory: vestiges of these are still found in astrology, a discipline long interwoven with public and governmental astronomy. Ancient astronomers were able to differentiate between stars and planets, as stars remain relatively fixed over the centuries while planets will move an appreciable amount during a comparatively short time.

We have very little in the form of recorded information on early man's impression of the heavens, mostly some drawings of eclipses, comets, supernovae such as the Pueblo Petrograph (see below). However, early man was clearly frightened/overwhelmed by the sky. One of the earliest recorded astronomical observations is the Nebra sky disk from northern Europe dating approximately 1,600 BC. This 30 cm bronze disk depicts the Sun, a lunar crescent and stars.

The disk is probably a religious symbol as well as a crude astronomical instrument or calendar. In the Western hemisphere, similar understanding of basic stellar and planetary behavior was developing. For example, Native American culture around the same time were leaving rock drawings, or petroglyphs, of astronomical phenomenon. The clearest example is found below, a petroglyph which depicts the 1,006 AD supernova that resulted in the Crab Nebula.

The first documented records of systematic astronomical observations date back to the Assyro-Babylonians around 1000 BCE. From this cradle of civilisation in Mesopotamia – in the southern part of present-day Iraq – astronomers had built up knowledge of the celestial bodies and recorded their periodic motions.

Originally published on abyss.uoregon.edu

COMING UP!!

(Saturday, December 18th, 2021)

NGC 2403

Hoy presentamos una galaxia cercana, a sólo 8 millones de AL. De hecho, es una de las más cercanas fuera del Grupo Local, al que pertenecen Andrómeda (M31), la galaxia del Triángulo (M33), la Vía Láctea y muchas otras más pequeñas galaxias satélites.

NGC 2403 se encuentra en la constelación de Camelopardalis y, si se amplia la imagen, podemos llegar a ver puntos brillantes en ella que corresponden a regiones de intensa formación estelar. Claro que si quieres ver los detalles tienes que ir a la página del Hubble, porque mi telescopio no lo es precisamente.

Mide unos 70000 AL de diámetro y forma parte del grupo de galaxias M81, los vecinos del Grupo Local. Por supuesto, las estrellas que se ven en primer plano pertenecen a nuestra galaxia.

Refractor TS Photoline 72 mm a f6. Cámara imx 294.

Aries: Ant Man

Leo: Black Panther

Libra: Hawkeye

Capricorn: Doctor Strange

Cancer: Superman

Pisces: Dare Devil

Scorpio: Spider Man

Sagittarius: Captain America

Taurus: Thor

Gemini: X-men

Aquarius: Batman

How Do Galaxies Die? This Is How The “Head Of Death” Of A Galaxy Was Observed!

In a new paper published on Nature Astronomy, an international team of researchers introduces us to the ID2299 Galaxy. This space entity is forming stars 550 times faster than the Milky Way. But this galaxy is also losing gas at a speed that has not been encountered before. Every year, it sends 10,000 Sun-equivalent stars into intergalactic space. This loss means that 46 percent of all cold gas…