|
April 1
What do Bach, Keats, Disney & Rembrandt have in common? They are all the names of craters on the planet Mercury. #GAM2014 #randomastrofact
|
 |
April 2
There is water on Mars, frozen underground & visible at the north & south poles. Sorry, no rivers, lakes or seas. #GAM2014 #randomastrofact
|
 |
April 3
Sirius, the Dog Star, brightest in the night sky, has a companion, Sirius B, the “Pup,” about the size of Earth. #GAM2014 #randomastrofact
|
 |
April 4
The Rosetta spacecraft deploys lander “Philae” on Comet Churyumov-Gerasimenko in November. Be a Philae fanatic! #GAM2014 #randomastrofact
|
 |
April 5
The red dwarf Proxima Centauri, nearest star to the Sun, is too small & cool to be seen from 4.2 light-years away. #GAM2014 #randomastrofact
|
 |
April 6
The current 11-year sunspot cycle is the weakest in 100 years. But sunspots will rise again, peaking around 2024. #GAM2014 #randomastrofact
|
 |
April 7
Radio telescopes have listened for signals from life on other worlds for over 50 years. So far, no word from ET. #GAM2014 #randomastrofact
|
 |
April 8
Look for Mars, at its brightest in 8 years, low in the east-southeast after dark. Unlike stars, it won’t twinkle. #GAM2014 #randomastrofact
|
 |
April 9
Voyager 1, launched in 1977, is the first object from Earth to reach interstellar space, a feat achieved in 2012. #GAM2014 #randomastrofact
|
 |
April 10
There may be as many as 100 billion rogue planets in our galaxy, roaming through space but not orbiting any star. #GAM2014 #randomastrofact
|
 |
April 11
Use your brain & personal computer to help astronomers find exoplanets. Check out http://www.planethunters.org. #GAM2014 #randomastrofact
|
 |
April 12
Sungrazing comets sweep so close to the Sun that they can be disrupted & vaporized, like Comet ISON last November. #GAM2014 #randomastrofact
|
 |
April 13
NASA’s New Horizons probe, launched in 2006, will fly past the dwarf planet Pluto & moon Charon on 14 July 2015. #GAM2014 #randomastrofact
|
 |
April 14
Tonight, enjoy a total eclipse of the Moon, the first since 2011. Totality begins at 3:07 am EDT, 12:07 am PDT. #GAM2014 #randomastrofact
|
 |
April 15
City lights make the cosmos hard to see. Surf the Web to find a Certified International Dark Sky Park, then visit! #GAM2014 #randomastrofact
|
 |
April 16
“Fermi bubbles” sprout from the Milky Way, detected in gamma & microwaves. Cause: black-hole burst or supernovas? #GAM2014 #randomastrofact
|
 |
April 17
Ice volcanoes on the moon Enceladus spew cold steam & ice particles into space, forming the E Ring around Saturn. #GAM2014 #randomastrofact
|
 |
April 18
Giant Magellan Telescope in Chile will have a bigger mirror than present telescopes & sharper vision than Hubble. #GAM2014 #randomastrofact
|
 |
April 19
Venus is hotter than Mercury, though much farther from the Sun. Blame global warming from the greenhouse effect. #GAM2014 #randomastrofact
|
 |
April 20
We’re rotating on Earth every day, orbiting the Sun every year & circling the Milky Way every 226 million years. #GAM2014 #randomastrofact
|
 |
April 21
Look for a few Lyrid meteors after midnight tonight, before the Moon rises high. They’re debris from a comet. #GAM2014 #randomastrofact
|
 |
April 22
Save the date! Halley’s Comet returns every 75-76 years. Look for it next in 2061. #GAM2014 #randomastrofact
|
 |
April 23
Cell phones are useless in the National Radio Quiet Zone around the National Radio Astronomy Observatory in WV. #GAM2014 #randomastrofact
|
 |
April 24
Most of the water vapor in Jupiter’s stratosphere was dumped there in 1994 by fragments of Comet Shoemaker-Levy 9. #GAM2014 #randomastrofact
|
 |
April 25
IceCube at the South Pole detects neutrinos from deep space. Don’t confuse it with famed rapper/actor Ice Cube. #GAM2014 #randomastrofact
|
 |
April 26
Some pulsars, called “black widows,” destroy their companion stars with powerful winds of subatomic particles. #GAM2014 #randomastrofact
|
 |
April 27
Tidal force from a 4-million-solar-mass black hole in the Milky Way is now disrupting the doomed gas cloud G2. #GAM2014 #randomastrofact
|
 |
April 28
Hubble found six tails on object P/2013 P5, a small asteroid spinning so fast that rock dust is hurled into space. #GAM2014 #randomastrofact
|
 |
April 29
Cosmic rays come from the Sun, from the remnants of exploding stars & occasionally from distant galaxies. #GAM2014 #randomastrofact
|
 |
April 30
Astronomers at the South Pole find evidence of gravitational waves from the Big Bang -- ripples in space-time. #GAM2014 #randomastrofact
|
