... This colorful telescopic view towards the northern constellation Lyra reveals dim outer regions around M57, popularly known as the Ring Nebula. While modern astronomers still refer to M57 as a planetary nebula, at one light-year across M57 is not a planet but the gaseous shroud of a dying sun-like star. ... Mercury Transits the Sun . ... The outer gasses of the star expelled into space appear from our vantage point as if we are looking down a helix. International Space Station in Transit . ...

... The apparent path of the Sun across the sky. ... Like the planets, the Sun, too, moves around the zodiac, making one complete circuit each year. ... In one year, as the Earth completes a full circuit around the Sun (drawing above), the Earth-Sun line and its continuation past Earth sweep the entire plane. ... Since the Sun and Earth are in the plane of the ecliptic, the line is automatically in that plane too; if the moon is also on the same line, it must be in the plane of the ecliptic as well. ...

... Like the night sky on the Earth, the martian sky hosts a plethora of astronomical phenomena occurring around the clock in a neverending space opera played out for the benefit of robotic and future human observers alike. ... Moons . Mars has two moons, Phobos and Deimos . ... Under the same conditions, Deimos would be as bright as -5, somewhat brighter than the planet Venus appears in Earth's sky. ... The moons are also eclipsed by Mars itself (a situation analogous to lunar eclipses at the Earth). ...

... Armagh Planetarium . ... Universe . ... Posted on April 2, 2014 | ... Continue Reading.. ... No Comments Astronomy is a science that knows no borders. ... 1 Comment Comets are frozen lumps of ice (often called volatiles) and rock that come from distant parts of our Solar System. ... Newer Entries . Hello, IтАЩm Colin, welcoming you to Astronotes, the PlanetariumтАЩs official blog. Here you will find the latest news and views from the fascinating worlds of astronomy and space exploration. ...

... 2010 January 26 . Annular Eclipse Over Myanmar . ... The event on January 15 was actually an annular solar eclipse, and the hole was really Earth's Moon, an object whose dark half may appear even darker when compared to the tremendously bright Sun . ... Pictured above was a complete solar annular eclipse sequence as seen above the Ananda Temple in Bagan , Myanmar . ... The next solar eclipse will be a total solar eclipse during 2010 July. ... About APOD | ... A service of: ASD at NASA / GSFC . ...

... This year's eclipse is unique in duration. ... Although, at the present time, there are 6 solar observatories belonging to leading space agencies in orbit around the Earth, the eclipse of 22 July, 2009, will only be seen by two of them: the Russian CORONAS-PHOTON satellite equipped with TESIS telescopes and Japan's HINODE satellite fitted with an XRT space telescope. ... TESIS will be the first of the two devices (and the very first on Earth) to witness the solar eclipse. ...

... More on 51 Peg: . The discovery of a Jupiter--mass planet in orbit around the solar--type star 51Peg has been reported by Michel Mayor and Didier Queloz (Geneva Observatory) on October 6th at the 9th Cambridge workshop on "cool stars, stellar systems, and the sun" held at Florence (Italy). ... Recall that the measurements of radial velocity only yield v sin i which in turn gives us M sin i. For most values of i, sin i will be greater than 0.5 and this gives a mass estimate of 0.5 Jupiter masses. ...

... The Magazine . ... Observing . ... Magazine . ... Star Atlas . ... An artificial comet holds secrets to Earths life . ... stars . ... Observing Podcasts . ... Astronomy for Kids . ... Observing springtime deep-sky objects with a large telescope . Springtime observing for small telescopes . ... Receive news, sky-event information, observing tips, and more from Astronomy's weekly email newsletter. ... Click here to receive a FREE e-Guide exclusively from Astronomy magazine. ... Astronomy Magazine . ...

... For a long time we've known that planets form and live around stars. ... When a star is born, any leftover gas and dust forms a disc around it, similar to Saturn's rings. Within this disc, small dust grains made of rock sometimes form. ... Now, for the first time ever astronomers have spotted solid grains in the gassy disc around a 'brown dwarf' an object that is neither a planet nor a star. ... Astronomers didn't expect to find these solid grains around brown dwarfs for a number of reasons. ...

... Indiana Jones is a registered trademark of Lucasfilm Ltd. ... There's the intrigue of the megaliths of Stonehenge, the ancient pyramids of Egypt, the earthen figures of Britain and Peru, and the bloody rituals of the Maya. ... To make sense of these great structures and sophisticated concepts, archaeologists and astronomers have pooled their talents. ... People could use these alignments to synchronize their calendars or track the exact path of a celestial object. ... Maya glyphs of Venus. ...

... White Dwarf Spectra . ... New Paper! 9.24.2012 The WIRED Survey III: An Infrared Excess around the Eclipsing Post-Common Envelope Binary SDSS J030308.35+005443.7 , accepted to ApJ. ... Debes Sigurdsson, 2002 reaches 100 citations 2.20.2012 One of my first papers as a graduate student and the subject of my second year project, "Are There Unstable Planetary Systems around White Dwarfs?", has just broken the 100 citation count. ... I've accepted a new position! ... Welcome to my new webpage! ...