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POPSTycho's "Bright Light" As a Dane I'm very proud of our great astronomer, Tycho Brahe, and I'm glad that now his observation has been pinned down as an explosion, thus proving his cleverness.
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POPSTycho Brahe, Danish Astromer Tycho Brahe made a remarkable star catalogue of over 1000 stars. This was not the biggest catalogue in the number of stars, but in accuracy. His improvements of methods and accuracy in observations was very significant. He proved that comets are not objects in the atmosphere. He showed irregularities in the moons orbit. His wall quadrant and other instrument became widely copied and lead to improved stellar instruments. Kepler used Tycho Brahe's observations when he constructed his famous laws of planetary movement.
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POPSFamous supernovae still echo across the Milky Way Read to understand pic. In 1572, the Danish astronomer Tycho Brahe observed and studied the explosion of a star that became known as Tycho's supernova. More than four centuries later, Chandra's X-ray photograph of the supernova remnant shows an expanding bubble of multimillion degree debris (green and red) inside a more rapidly moving shell of extremely high energy electrons (filamentary blue). Astronomers have detected a light echo from this supernova, meaning they can see the light from the explosion itself 400 years later.
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POPSYoungest Exploded Star In The Milky Way Is Discovered
It turns out, Green and his team came across the remnants, now called G1.9+0.3, more than 20 years ago using the Very Large Array (VLA) radio telescope in Socorro, NM, and estimated the object’s age to be 400-1,000 years old. It is near the center of the Milky Way, some 25,000 light-years from Earth. By comparing notes, the astronomers learned the images taken more than two decades apart documented the expansion of debris from the star's explosion. The images taken in 2007 were about 16 percent larger than the ones taken in 1985. "This is a huge difference," said Reynolds. "It means the explosion debris is expanding very quickly, which in turn means the object is much younger than we originally thought." Reynolds also observed the object with the VLA radio telescope to confirm the supernova remnant's rapid expansion. Unlike visible-light telescopes, radio and X-ray telescopes can penetrate the thick clouds of gas and dust in our galaxy.
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POPSAsteroid Fly-By Coming in January Lil' Dizzy registered a star (in the Andromeda constellation) in her name, for Christmas, so we've spent a bit of time looking heaven-ward. This gem from Signs of the Times makes note that at the end of the month of January, a large asteroid will be traveling very close by the "third rock from the Sun."
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POPSHolmes Shakes Tail in Nightsky At this time, Comet Holmes doesn't appear to have a tail. Astronomers do not know if one will eventually become visible. You can follow Comet Holmes progress with the naked eye. It can be seen in the northeast evening sky. It is in the Perseus constellation. First face the North Star (Polaris) and locate the constellation Cassiopeia, which is at about 2 o'clock from Polaris. Perseus is at about 4 o'clock from Cassiopeia. In the Perseus constellation, find the brightest star, Mirfak. Mirfak is the top corner of a small triangle. Comet Holmes is the lower-left corner of the small triangle.
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POPSComet 17P/Holmes Erupts in the Sky "Hi List, In the ancient constellation of Perseus (Rising in the NE just after Sunset and highest in the sky around 2-4 am), a fading comet has suddenly exploded back into life. This comet, 17P Holmes, is suddenly visible to the naked eye, although it had already swung by its perihelion months ago and was now about 2.5 AU from the Sun. (and a little bit more than the Sun-Mars distance from Earth). Initially mistaken for a companion to the Andromeda Galaxy, Comet Holmes was discovered in 1892, and has had a lesser outburst before... Not bad for a Jupiter family (main belt asteroid like) comet estimated at less than 3.5 Km in diameter. What is happing aboard Comet Holmes? Why is it suddenly 100,000 times brighter than it was before? Don't touch that dial and stay tuned for some exciting scenes next week :-) Happy Hunting, Doug" meteorite-list@meteoritecentral.com
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