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AAS Random Astro-Facts
AAS Random Astro-FactsApril 21
Ancient cultures began defining constellations 5,000+ years ago. Today there are 88 official constellations from Andromeda (the chained lady) to Vulpecula (the fox), as adopted by the International Astronomical Union in 1930. How many can you recognize? #gam2018 #RandomAstroFact
April 20
Later this year, China will attempt to land the Chang'e-4 robot spacecraft & rover on the far side of the Moon. No astronauts have landed there but NASA's unmanned Ranger 4 missed its near-side target & crashed out of control on the far side in 1962. #gam2018 #RandomAstroFact
April 19
Star counts: Ptolemy (2nd century AD) listed 1,022 stars in the Almagest. Bonner Durchmusterung (1903) catalogued ~325,000 photographed stars. Data Release 1 from the Gaia satellite tabulates over 1 billion digitally measured stars, with more to come. #gam2018 #RandomAstroFact
April 18
Small Australian radio telescopes may have detected cosmic dawn, when the first stars began to shine, about 200 million years after the Big Bang. The signal is 30,000 times weaker than background radio noise from our galaxy, so it needs to be confirmed. #gam2018 #RandomAstroFact
April 17
An Argentine amateur astronomer testing a new camera on a small telescope in 2016 serendipitously spotted the birth of a supernova in galaxy NGC 613, photographing a huge increase in brightness over 90 minutes, the first time this phenomenon was seen. #gam2018 #RandomAstroFact
