Astronomy News

Astronomy News

Dr. Neal Sumerlin keeps us abreast of happenings in the night sky and the progress of the new Belk Astronomical Observatory.

Blogs we recommend

Planetary Society Weblog
ScienceBlogs.com

Other Posts:

Describing the Indescribable (07/22/2009)
Total Solar Eclipse in July (06/07/2009)
Other Earths (05/20/2009)
Save Those Old Computers! (04/13/2009)
Play With Pictures from Mars! (04/13/2009)
Saturn in 2009 (04/13/2009)
The New Worlds (02/04/2009)
Christmas at the Moon (12/10/2008)
Potpourri of Space News (12/10/2008)
Night Sky Happenings (11/17/2008)
Power Sources for Space Probes (11/17/2008)
R.I.P., Mars Phoenix Lander (11/17/2008)
Pictures of Planets (11/17/2008)
Ice Geysers of Enceladus (09/22/2008)
Constellations (09/22/2008)
Happy Equinox Day! (09/22/2008)
More News from Mars (06/04/2008)
Search (but no rescue) on Mars (05/20/2008)
We lose a friend (05/03/2008)
Quiz winner! (04/29/2008)
Seeing and Patience (04/22/2008)
The World at Night (03/31/2008)
New Stars that are Really Old (03/14/2008)
Latest From Planetary Spacecraft (03/14/2008)
Lunar Eclipse Update (02/18/2008)
Aiming a Telescope (02/18/2008)
Observatory Update (02/04/2008)
Total Lunar Eclipse (02/04/2008)
Messenger Mission to Mercury (02/04/2008)

If you are up before dawn, you will surely have noticed two very bright "stars" preceding the Sun in the eastern sky. I like to joke that 75% of the astronomy questions I am asked can be answered with "Venus". Venus is the brighter of the two objects, and the brightest object in the sky after the Sun and the moon. Jupiter is the fourth brightest object. At dawn on February 1, there was a conjunction of the two as they appeared very close together in the sky. Of course, in actuality they were millions of miles apart! For convenience's sake, we often act as though the stars and planets were pasted on a hollow sphere with ourselves at the center. But the true picture is of course three-dimensional. Even though the two are still relatively close together in our sky, Venus is around 130 million miles away, while Jupiter is 575 million miles from us!