In the Sky This Week – January 19, 2021

I know quite a few astrophotographers! During online meetings of the Warren Astronomical Society, members show astrophotos they’ve recently captured and processed; even their “bad ones” are awe-inspiring! Here’s a beautiful pic by Adrian Bradley:

Orion Nebula. Credit: Adrian Bradley December 2020.

A couple of these astrophotographers regularly livestream their telescope sessions for the public to view: Doug Bock & Dr. Brian Ottum.

All three of these astrophotographers that I just shamelessly plugged helped with the Astronomy at the Beach event last September.

Venus appears very low above the southeastern horizon before sunrise – appearing lower each morning.

Venus appears low in the southeastern predawn sky; Venus appears a bit lower with each day. Credit: Bob Trembley / Stellarium.

Jupiter and Saturn are now lost in the glare of the Sun. Mercury is visible in the southwestern sky at dusk – appearing slightly higher each evening.

Mercury appears in the southwestern sky at dusk; Mercury appears a bit higher above the horizon each morning. Credit: Bob Trembley / Stellarium.

Mars appears high in the southern sky after sunset; the Moon appears near Mars on the evening of Wed. Jan. 20th.

Mars appears very high in the southern sky a few hours after sunset; the Moon appears near Mars on Jan 20th and 21st. Credit: Bob Trembley / Stellarium.

The Moon appears near the star Aldebaran in the constellation Taurus after sunset on Sat. Jan. 23rd.

The Moon appears near the star Aldebaran in the constellation Taurus on Jan 23rd. Credit: Bob Trembley / Stellarium.

The Moon is a waxing crescent – visible toward the southwest in early evening. This is a great week for observing the Moon with a telescope or binoculars!

The first-quarter Moon occurs on Wed. Jan. 20th – visible high in the southern sky in early evening.

After Jan. 20th the Moon will be a waxing gibbous – visible to the southeast in early evening, and up for most of the night.

The Moon from 2021-01-19 – 2021-01-25. Visualizations by Ernie Wright / NASA’s Scientific Visualization Studio.

If you click on the Moon image above, or click this link, you will go to NASA’s Moon Phase and Libration, 2021 page – it will show you what the Moon looks like right now. If you click the image on that page, you will download a high-rez TIFF image annotated with the names of prominent features – helpful for logging your lunar observations!

Moon News

The Sun has a spot! Spaceweather.com says “AR 2797 has a simple magnetic field that poses no threat for strong solar flares.”

Sunspot AR2797. Credit: SDO/HMI/Spaceweather.com

Both the northern and southern coronal holes have opened up, and both have large tendrils stretching up towards the equator. Lots of coronal activity associated with AR 2797 is rotating into view.

The Sun seen in 193 angstroms (extreme ultraviolet) January 18, 2021:

Moderate prominences activity over the last couple days; the region of coronal activity rotating into view shows a lot of activity.

The Sun seen in 304 angstroms (extreme ultraviolet) January 18, 2021:

Solar Activity on Facebook – Run by Volunteer NASA/JPL Solar System Ambassador Pamela Shivak

The SOLARACTIVITY PICTURE OF THE DAY for January 19th, 2021 is this awesome prominence capture by John Slinn.

Solar Corona

Solar wind speed is 322.2 km/sec, with a density of 14.4 protons/cm³ at 1041 UT.

Near real-time animation of the corona and solar wind from the Solar & Heliospheric Observatory (SOHO):

Animated LASCO C2 Coronograph showing the solar corona above the Sun’s limb (the white circle). Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech-SOHO

Sun News

The U.S. Postal Service to Issue NASA Sun Science Forever Stamps! I am just over-the-top thrilled at this! Time to update my Sun lecture… again!

The United States Post office announced on Jan. 15, 2021, that they would be releasing a series of stamps highlighting images of the Sun captured by NASA’s Solar Dynamics Observatory. Credits: NASA/SDO/USPS

NASA’s images of the Sun’s dynamic and ­­­dazzling beauty have captivated the attention of millions. In 2021, the US Postal Service is showcasing the Sun’s many faces with a series of Sun Science forever stamps that show images of solar activity captured by NASA’s Solar Dynamics Observatory, or SDO.

“I have been a stamp collector all my life and I can’t wait to see NASA science highlighted in this way,” said Thomas Zurbuchen, associate administrator for NASA’s Science Mission Directorate (SMD) in Washington.  “I feel that the natural world around us is as beautiful as art, and it’s inspiring to be able to share the import and excitement of studying the Sun with people around the country.”

The 20-stamp set features ten images that celebrate the science behind NASA’s ongoing exploration of our nearest star. The images display common events on the Sun, such as solar flares, sunspots and coronal loops. SDO has kept a constant eye on the Sun for over a decade. Outfitted with equipment to capture images of the Sun in multiple wavelengths of visible, ultraviolet, and extreme ultraviolet light, SDO has gathered hundreds of millions of images during its tenure to help scientists learn about how our star works and how its constantly churning magnetic fields create the solar activity we see.

That solar activity can drive space weather closer to Earth that can interfere with technology and radio communications in space. In addition to this immediate relevancy to our high-tech daily lives, the study of the Sun and its influence on the planets and space surrounding it – a field of research known as heliophysics – holds profound implications for the understanding of our solar system and the thousands of solar systems that have been discovered beyond our own. As our closest star, the Sun is the only nearby star that humans are able to study in great detail, making it a vital source of data. – NASA

The SOHO spacecraft is the most prolific comet-hunter in space! The mission has discovered over 4,000 comets to date, many of which were found by citizen scientists. The mission recently celebrated a quarter-century in space!

Notes: LD means “Lunar Distance.” 1 LD = 384,401 km, the distance between Earth and the Moon. Red highlighted entries are asteroids that either pass very close, or very large with high relative velocities to the Earth. Table from SpaceWeather.com

Asteroid News

The Planetary Defense Conference Exercise – 2021 website shows this notice:

This webpage does not describe a real potential asteroid impact. The information on this page is fictional and provided only to support an emergency response exercise conducted during the International Academy of Astronautics (IAA) 2021 Planetary Defense Conference in Vienna, Austria, April 26–April 30, 2021. This is only an exercise.

On January 18, 2021, the NASA All Sky Fireball Network reported 12 fireballs!
(12 sporadics)

In this diagram of the inner solar system, all of the fireball orbits intersect at a single point–Earth. The orbits are color-coded by velocity, from slow (red) to fast (blue). Credit: SpaceWeather.com

Fireball News

If you see a bright meteor or a fireball, please REPORT IT to the American Meteor Society and the International Meteor Organization!

Position of the planets and several spacecraft in the inner solar system:

Position of the planets and a couple spacecraft in the inner solar system, 2021-01-19. Credit: Bob Trembley / NASA Eyes on the Solar System.

Position of the planets in the middle solar system – the orbit of dwarf planet Ceres is highlighted:

Position of the planets in the middle solar system, 2021-01-19. Credit: Bob Trembley / NASA Eyes on the Solar System.

Position of the planets, dwarf planets and some transneptunian objects in the outer solar system – the orbit of dwarf planet Haumea is highlighted:

Position of the planets and some transneptunian objects in the outer solar system, 2021-01-19. Credit: Bob Trembley / NASA Eyes on the Solar System.

Mars Perseverance Rover: #CountdownToMars

International Space Station:

The SpaceX Cargo Dragon spacecraft has safely returned to Earth with zero fanfare; this is probably in response to the incident during the Crew Dragon splashdown in August 2, 2020.

HiRISE – on the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter:

Juno at Jupiter:

Hubble Space Telescope:

Climate:

See a list of current NASA missions here: https://www.jpl.nasa.gov/missions/?type=current

ex·o·plan·et /ˈeksōˌplanət/, noun: a planet orbiting a star other than the Sun.

Data from the NASA Exoplanet Archive
* Confirmed Planets Discovered by TESS refers to the number planets that have been published in the refereed astronomical literature.
* TESS Project Candidates refers to the total number of transit-like events that appear to be astrophysical in origin, including false positives as identified by the TESS Project.
* TESS Project Candidates Yet To Be Confirmed refers to the number of TESS Project Candidates that have not yet been dispositioned as a Confirmed Planet or False Positive.

Exoplanet News

Auroras taken by Rayann Elzein on January 18, 2021 @ Utsjoki, Finnish Lapland

SpaceWeather.com Realtime Aurora Gallery: https://spaceweathergallery.com/aurora_gallery.html

Visit an International Dark Sky Park: https://www.darksky.org/our-work/conservation/idsp/parks/

For Kids:

Einstein Observatory: Beautiful Universe

1E 0102.2-7219 is a supernova remnant located ~202,000 light-years away in the Small Magellanic Cloud. The object was discovered in 1981 by NASA’s Einstein Observatory. Light from the supernova blast would have arrived at Earth ~1,700 years ago – during the decline of the Roman Empire. The supernova’s light would have only been visible from Earth’s southern hemisphere; no records of this supernova event are known to exist.

This Hubble Space Telescope portrait reveals the gaseous remains of an exploded massive star that erupted approximately 1,700 years ago. The stellar corpse, a supernova remnant named 1E 0102.2-7219, met its demise in the Small Magellanic Cloud, a satellite galaxy of our Milky Way. Credits: NASA, ESA, and J. Banovetz and D. Milisavljevic (Purdue University)

Read more about supernova remnant 1E 0102.2-7219, and watch a time-lapse video of the remnant’s expansion in this post.

What I was listening to when I was editing this:

Stay safe, be well, and look up!

Software Apps used for this post:

NASA Eyes on the Solar System: an immersive 3D solar system and space mission simulator – free for the PC /MAC. I maintain the unofficial NASA Eyes Facebook page.
Universe Sandbox: a space simulator that merges real-time gravity, climate, collision, and material interactions to reveal the beauty of our universe and the fragility of our planet. Includes VR support.
SpaceEngine: a free 3D Universe Simulator for Windows. Steam version with VR support available.
Stellarium: a free open source planetarium app for PC/MAC/Linux. It’s a great tool for planning observing sessions. A web-based version of Stellarium is also available.

Section header image credits:
The Sky – Stellarium / Bob Trembley
Observing Target – Turn Left at Orion / M. Skirvin
The Moon – NASA/JPL-Caltech
The Sun – NASA/JPL-Caltech
Asteroids – NASA/JPL-Caltech
Fireballs – Credited to YouTube
Comets – Comet P/Halley, March 8, 1986, W. Liller
The Solar System – NASA Eyes on the Solar System / Bob Trembley
Spacecraft News – NASA Eyes on the Solar System / Bob Trembley
Exoplanets – Space Engine / Bob Trembley
Light Pollution – NASA’s Black Marble
Aurora – Bob Trembley
The Universe – Universe Today