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December 24, 2019  

What Has Happened Or What Will Happen To Betelgeuse (In Orion) — When It Is 700 Light-Years Away.

by Anura Guruge

Click to access U.K. “Daily Mail” article.

Click to ENLARGE if you are NOT familiar with ‘Betelgeuse’.

Click to ENLARGE and read here. Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Betelgeuse

As soon as I saw the headline in the U.K. ‘Daily Mail’ I knew it was going to be amusing. To be fair, and to their credit, they did make a decent enough fist of trying to explain the ‘dilemma’.

And what is that ‘dilemma’. When we are talking about stars, including our own Sun, we have to factor in the delay it takes for light from it to reach us. In the case of the Sun it takes 8 minutes and 20 seconds. Has to do with the enormous distances involved and the speed of light (which, though very fast, is only ‘that’ fast). So, if something was to happen to the Sun it would be 8 minutes and 20 seconds before we saw anything. Just the laws of physics.

Betelgeuse is ~640 light years away. That means it takes light from Betelgeuse ~640 years to arrive to us, on Earth.

So, we are seeing Betelgeuse as it was ~640 years ago!

Think about that.

When looking at stars we are always looking way back … into history.

We just have NO, NO, NO WAY of knowing what is happening at Betelgeuse right now.

All we see is what happened ~640 years ago.

So, it is difficult to write about ‘future’ events involving stars. The event might have already happened! We just don’t know.

That is the problem with this article. Betelgeuse could have already exploded — without us knowing.

Think about it. It is cool. SMILE.

P.S., All the stars that make up Orion are not the same distance away from us!

Betelgeuse is much closer than most of the others in that constellation! Something else to think about.

Click to ENLARGE.

Related posts:
Category ‘Astronomy’.

by Anura Guruge

 

November 11, 2019  

Mercury’s Transit Of The Sun As Seen Over New Hampshire — November 11, 2019.

by Anura Guruge

Click to ENLARGE.

This is what we saw!

The Sun was up there but behind some impressively thick clouds.

I was hoping that we might get a break. No such luck.

Well, I will not be around for the next one so I will never see this phenomenon again. C’est la vie.

But, I at least have seen one transit. Venus transit across the Sun on June 5, 2012.

This is what it should have looked like.

I know. I do know my astronomy. SMILE.

Just for YOU. Smile.

Related posts:
Category ‘Astronomy’.

by Anura Guruge

 

October 14, 2019  

This Latest Interstellar Comet, 2I/Borisov, Is By NO Means The Only Comet To Spew Cyanide Gas. Quite Common!

by Anura Guruge

From ‘Google News’. It was BIG in … astronomy news.

Click to ENLARGE. From my ‘Comets 101’ book. Link below.

Yes, everybody is trying to cash in on this Interstellar Comet — supposedly the second we have discovered (albeit, both in the last 2-years). When I saw the headlines about cyanide it made me smile. I knew that cyanide was not uncommon in comets.

Recall Halley’s comet that comes around every 75-76 years. In the early 20th century there was a scare that folks would die from the cyanide that was emanating from its tail. Well nobody did.

So, please don’t get excited about this cyanide. It will NOT kill you or anybody else.

Has a ton of good information about comets.

Related Posts:
Check Categories ‘Events’ &  ‘Astronomy’.

by Anura Guruge

October 13, 2019  

Mercury Will Transit The Sun On November 11, 2019 — Remembrance Day, At That.

by Anura Guruge

YOU  will need Eclipse Glasses.

A ‘transit‘ in astronomy is when celestial body passes in front of another. In this case, it will be Mercury passing in front of the Sun — and we, in New England, will have front-row seats for it, and, moreover, it will be in the morning, around 10 am Eastern. The only thing that can spoil it for us is the weather. I will keep you posted.

Given that this is a solar transit, it is kind of like a solar eclipse — like the BIG one we had in August 2017. And as with a solar eclipse you MUST HAVE eclipse glasses IF you are going to look at the Sun. They are cheap enough. Better get some now. I still have mine from 2017.

That it is on Remembrance Day — my Poppy Day — makes it even more special. WOW.

Related posts:
Category ‘Astronomy’.

by Anura Guruge

 

September 13, 2019  

TWO ‘Interstellar Comets’ In Less Than 2-Years — And We Have Never Seen ANY Before?

by Anura Guruge

Click to ENLARGE and study. See image below for origin — viz. JPL Small Body Database Browser.

Click to ENLARGE and study. JPL Small-Ball Database Browser.

Click to access ‘spaceweather.com’ and read the original.

Click to access my 2017 post.

I will grant that this new comet, C/2019 Q4 (Borisov), does have more of an intriguing orbital path than did C/2017 U1.

But, I am not willing to RUSH to the conclusion that it is interstellar — i.e., it did NOT originate in our own Oort cloud. Still very early days. That it is travelling too fast to be bound to the Sun is interesting.

I was not convinced about A/2017 U1 (ʻOumuamua) being interstellar and now others are joining in. SMILE. I do know some about comets.

All I am saying, for now, is don’t rush to a conclusion. Let’s study this puppy a bit more.

Definitely not going to be GREAT comet. It will be very far from the Sun. Twice as far as the Earth is to the Sun. So, unlikely that it will be very bright or sport a spectacular tail.

Just wanted to keep YOU in the loop. But, stay tuned.

Has a ton of good information about comets.

Related Posts:
Check Categories ‘Events’ &  ‘Astronomy’.

by Anura Guruge

July 31, 2019  

‘Black Moon’ Today, July 31, 2019, & How It Differs From A ‘Blue Moon’.

by Anura Guruge

The Key Difference:

Black Moon has to be a NEW Moon.

Blue Moon has to a FULL Moon.

Other than that they both refer to an ‘EXTRA’ moon in a given ‘month’.

‘Blue Moon‘ can mean one of two things:

1. Second full moon within the same calendar month.

2. Third full moon during an astronomical season that has four full moons; an astronomical season in this context being the 3-month period between an equinox and a solstice, e.g., 3-months between the March Spring Equinox and the June Summer Solstice.

‘Black Moon‘, DITTO, but when it applies to a NEW MOON.

So, it means:

1. Second NEW moon within the same calendar month — as is the case this month, i.e., July 2019.

2. Third NEW moon during an astronomical season that has four full moons; an astronomical season in this context being the 3-month period between an equinox and a solstice, e.g., 3-months between the March Spring Equinox and the June Summer Solstice.

Both are rare events.

Furthermore, today’s Black Moon is a Supermoon — i.e., it is closer to Earth than normal.

Related posts:
Search ‘blue moon’.
Check Category ‘Astronomy’.

by Anura Guruge

July 21, 2019  

Did You Know That ‘AOC’, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Has An Asteroid Named After Her?

by Anura Guruge

Donald Trump will be SO, SO livid IF he ever finds out.

So don’t tell him. OK? Our secret.

23238 Ocasio-Cortez (2000 WU111)

Click to ENLARGE and study here. Link to original below.

Link to original.

Click to ENLARGE and read here. Wikipedia: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexandria_Ocasio-Cortez

This wasn’t recent either! It was named after her c. 2007 — eleven years ahead of her being elected to the United States House of Representatives.

This is pretty impressive stuff. She got this honor, because as a high school senior (aged 18), from Yorktown High School [Yorktown Heights, New York], in 2007, she won second place in the 2007 ‘Intel International Science and Engineering Fair’ for her microbiology project. Wow.

I really don’t know much about her. Did not even suspect this.

Trump will now want Jupiter renamed after him. But, maybe NOT Jupiter. Mars would be more appropriate and it is a GOOD COLOR match.

The asteroid itself had been discovered in 2000 at the Lincoln Laboratory.

A pretty common or garden asteroid in the asteroid belt. Nothing special. Decent size. Just over a mile across. So, not huge, but not tiny either.

Related posts:
Check Category ‘astronomy’.

by Anura Guruge

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