Pluto, the 9th planet, is rising at
about midnight.  At mag
13.88, Pluto has brightened another
whopping .01! But don't get too excited, it's still a tiny, faint little spec in a
telescope... any telescope.
It is currently
over 2.8 billion miles from
Earth. Located in the southeastern sky before sunrise, Pluto is also
not very well placed at this point for viewing. You'll have a much better
chance of viewing Pluto late in the spring or in the summer.
Checkout this awesome series captured by Gordon
Waite. This series depicts how Pluto was originally discovered. After
years of searching for a planet beyond Neptune, Clyde Tombaugh in 1930
came upon Pluto. His was not a simple discovery. He didn't just scan the
sky with his telescope and see Pluto. Nope. He took countless images of
the sky. Each image would be compared to an image taken days or weeks
earlier. While the stars are essentially motionless over short periods of
time, solar system objects would appear to move. On February 18, 1930,
Tombaugh compared images taken on January 23rd with images taken on
January 29th. While blinking the images, a technique which alternates the
images from one side to the other, he noticed that one of the stars moved.
That star was actually the planet Pluto. And so on that fateful day, the
population of our solar system increased by one. No other planets have
been found in our solar system since!
(Just in case you're having trouble, you should see
Pluto dancing towards the lower left corner of the image. If you don't,
hit your browsers "Reload" button.)
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Neptune, the 8th planet, is rising around 4:00am. Shining at mag7.95, Neptune
is a relatively easy target when viewed at the right time. That time,
however is not now. Neptune is rising just as astronomical twilight is
beginning. In other words, Neptune is rising about the same time that the
sky is starting to brighten. It'll be best viewed in late summer and the
fall, when it will high in the sky for hours before dawn. Almost
star-like in binoculars, it shows it's beautiful blue color in telescopes. Neptune gets this beautiful
blue coloring from a layer of Methane in its upper atmosphere.
Located over 2.84 billion miles from Earth, Neptune
has a huge circular orbit -- taking just over 164 years to orbit the Sun.
In fact, Neptune's orbit varies by less than 1% from circular. Neptune has
a couple of other claims to fame... It has the fastest wind speeds in the
solar system with gust at almost 1500 mph.
Similar to Jupiter, it is
categorized as a gas giant. Neptune is
roughly 17 times more massive than the Earth. In another similarity
to Jupiter, Neptune has a Great Dark Spot.
William Herschel is credited with the discovery of
Neptune in 1781. However, it had been recorded in several catalogs as a
star as far back as 1690.
The accompanying image was taken by the Voyager 2
spacecraft as it approached the distant planet. The large, dark oval to
the left side of the image rotates around the planet in about 18 hours.
This image, and many others came from NASA's "Welcome
to the Planets" website.
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Uranus, the 7th planet, is rising at 4:50am. 
Shining at mag5.90, Uranus is a relatively easy target. However, this is another tiny planet at only 3".
It is also rising at almost the same time as the sun. So... you'll have to
wait a few months to seek it out. Additionally, given it's tiny size, It displays absolutely no surface detail.
It does however show it's beautiful aquamarine color. Uranus also gets its
beautiful coloring from a layer of Methane in its upper atmosphere. Located
over 1.92 billion miles from Earth, Uranus
has a huge orbit -- taking just over 84 years to orbit the Sun. It is
categorized as a gas giant as is Jupiter, Saturn and Neptune. Uranus is
roughly 14 times more massive than the Earth. Discovered by William Herschel in March of 1781,
Uranus was the first planet to be "discovered". All the others
are plainly visible, and hence have been known since antiquity. The name
Uranus was suggested for mythological reasons. Since Jupiter was the
father of Saturn, it made sense to name the next planet out Uranus -- the
father of Saturn.
Checkout the rings of Uranus. Yup! Uranus has rings
too. They're no where near as bright as Saturn's, but they are
there.
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Mercury is rising at
about 6:10 am. 
It currently spans 5" and is shining at -1.01. Mercury has
gotten really bright over the last several weeks. Unfortunately, it is
rising only about 10 minutes before the Sun and is totally washed out by
the bright dawn sky.
The accompanying Mariner 10 image of Mercury's southwest quadrant
reveals the amount of destruction brought upon the planet by comets and
meteors. Since Mercury has no atmosphere, every object coming its way is
able to score a direct hit. This image was taken a the spacecraft made
it's closest pass to the planet at a distance of about 120,000 miles. The
largest craters are about 60 miles in diameter.
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Venus is rising about 7:10 am. Still
shining at a blistering mag -3.92, Venus currently spans 10". Venus is
now rising almost 60 minutes after the sun... it has slowly
but surely moved to take up its role as the Evening Star. Many of
you have no doubt seen it blazing away in the western sky after sunset.
Watch as it climbs higher and higher over the next few
months. By late spring and through the summer and Fall, Venus will dominate the night sky.
Did you know that Venus goes through phases? No...
not those kind of phases... Phases of illumination, like the moon. It's
true. Venus is current a round 96% illuminated sphere. As it climbs higher
in the sky (larger angular separation from the Sun) the illuminated
portion shrinks. By the time Venus is only 1/2 illuminated, it will have
brightened to mag -4.3. It will continue to brighten to about mag -4.7
late in the fall when it reaches its greatest elongation (angular
separation from the Sun). At that point, Venus will be only about 1/4
illuminated, but will have grown to over 44".
Checkout these cool images of the changing phases of
Venus by the Maple
Ridge Observatory.  
These were taken using a special Bessel U Filter which allows the
transmission of ultra-violet light. Note the detail captured in the clouds
of Venus' upper atmosphere.
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Hubble Sends Season's Greetings from the Cosmos to Earth
Looking like a colorful holiday card, this image
from NASA's Hubble Space Telescope reveals a vibrant green and red nebula far from Earth, where nature seems to have put on the traditional colors of the season. These colors, produced by the light emitted by oxygen and hydrogen, help astronomers investigate the star-forming
processes in nebulas such as NGC 2080.
NGC 2080, nicknamed "The Ghost Head Nebula," is one of a chain of star-forming regions lying south of the 30 Doradus nebula in the Large Magellanic Cloud that
have attracted special attention. These regions have been studied in detail with Hubble and have long been identified as unique star-forming sites. 30 Doradus is the
largest star-forming complex in the whole local group of galaxies.
The light from the nebula captured in this image is emitted by two elements, hydrogen and oxygen. The red and the blue light are from regions of hydrogen gas heated
by nearby stars. The green light on the left comes from glowing oxygen. The energy to illuminate the green light is supplied by a powerful stellar wind (a stream of
high-speed particles) coming from a massive star just outside the image. The white region in the center is a combination of all three emissions and indicates a core of
hot, massive stars in this star-formation region. The intense emission from these stars has carved a bowl-shaped cavity in the surrounding gas.
In the white region, the two bright areas (the "eyes of the ghost") - named A1 (left) and A2 (right) - are very hot, glowing "blobs" of hydrogen and oxygen. The bubble in
A1 is produced by the hot, intense radiation and powerful stellar wind from a single massive star. A2 has a more complex appearance due to the presence of more
dust, and it contains several hidden, massive stars. The massive stars in A1 and A2 must have formed within the last 10,000 years, since their natal gas shrouds are
not yet disrupted by the powerful radiation of the newly born stars.
The research team noted that Hubble's superb resolution is essential to see the various features in the nebula and to better understand the formation of massive stars
in this interesting region.
This "enhanced color" picture is composed of three narrow-band-filter images obtained March 28, 2000, with Hubble's Wide Field Planetary Camera 2. The colors are
red (ionized hydrogen, H-alpha, 1040 seconds), green (ionized oxygen, 1200 seconds) and blue (ionized hydrogen, H-beta, 1040 seconds). The image spans 67 x 67
arc-seconds, corresponding to 55 x 55 light-years at the distance of the Large Magellanic Cloud (168,000 light-years).
Credit: NASA, ESA & Mohammad Heydari-Malayeri (Observatoire de Paris, France) |
Photographer
Calvin Hall captured the shot on of the northern lights
from Portage, Alaska. Mike O'Leary
captured the image on the right. What an amazing display. I'm
so jealous :) Not for nothing, but... We need
a good dose of the northern lights.
Indications
are that Mars contains huge amounts of hydrogen filled ice in the south
polar region. This is especially important given that water is deemed one
of the critical elements required for life as we know it.
for 2002. As
an added feature, you may also click on any of the planetary images to view a
planetary reference page filled with important facts about the planet.
