Mocofun – Gamers Review

Astronomy is the study of the universe. It is a serious science, but also an enjoyable hobby. Therefore, whenever an astronomy picture of the day is offered to people, they usually accept it. There are plenty of such pictures to choose from, and plenty of interesting objects out there to keep people looking.

NASA of course is a primary source for an astronomy picture of the day. This site NASA.gov shows a new image each and every day. There’s also another section that shows video footage. This could be used to create your own image site. Saturn’s moon Enceladus was featured on November 5, 2008.

The image was taken by a passing spacecraft. It gets down to details the size of a bus. The ice on this moon reflects nearly 100% of all the light that hits it. Wear sunglasses. This moon is so fascinating that Cassini will continue to fly by for more photos later in its mission.

NASA keeps an archive of all the astronomy picture of the day dating all the way back to June 16 of’95. It was a ‘what if’ photo of the Earth posing as a neutron star. The footage is a computer generation. The most fascinating feature is that the constellation of Orion is visible twice. Even light from behind a neutron star is visible because the dense star bends the light around it. This causes some objects to be seen twice.

The entry for September 8th,’95 was an amazing picture of the central part of the ‘Milky Way’ galaxy taken by NASA’s COBE satellite. This area is normally invisible because of the dust masking it. But COBE scans in infrared, so produced that amazing photo of our very symmetrical galaxy.

The astronomy picture of the day was the same on January 1st, 2000 and January 1st, 2001. The explanation why both dates shared this picture is that most people considered the year 2000 as the first year of the third millennium.

However, the third millennium actually started on January 1st, 2001. NASA reasoned it was just better to just go with the flow and do it on both dates. apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap010101.html shows mankind’s view of the universe as it grew from mere objects circling the Earth, all the way to the ‘Big Bang’ creating the universe as we see it today.

NASA has many more days with their own astronomy picture of the day. Visit the web site, NASA.gov to see them.

Astronomy: pictures of the day are fascinating to vast numbers of people. If you are fascinated by astronomy, visit our website at: http://astronomy.the-real-way.com Grab a totally unique version of this article from the Uber Article Directory

How many facts are there to be known or learned about all the objects and phenomenon in our entire universe? Just think: there are about 1 x 10 ^22 stars in the universe, that’s 10,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 stars; then there are many of those stars that have planets in orbit around them. Then consider the moons that orbit those planets and the comets and asteroids, the galaxies these stars form, the nebulae and black holes and everything else that’s out there. The amount of information and data is really quite mind-boggling. This article definitely will not contain every fact about astronomy, but they are very interesting facts nevertheless.

Shall we start by taking a look at a small aspect of astronomy: which are the brightest stars seen from the Earth? – except the Sun, that is, which is just about 250,000 times nearer than the next closest star. In fact, it is so bright that when the sky is viewed from the Earth, it’s light blinds out all the other stars in the sky during a phenomenon called daytime.

So, while reading this list, please bear in mind that according to the scale we are using, lower numbers are brighter: the Sun would be roughly -26.73, whereas the full moon is about -12.6; keeping that in mind, here are the top 5:

#5 is Vega, which means “falling eagle” in Arabic is in Lyra. It’s roughly 25 light years away and has a magnitude of 0.04.

When considering these astronomical facts, please remember that ‘brightest from Earth’ doesn’t mean largest or brightest. The Sun is not the largest or brightest star in the universe or even the galaxy, yet it appears so bright because it is so near compared to other stars.

#4 Rigel Kentaurus is a very bright, bluish-white supergiant star in the constellation of Orion. It is a binary star, with an average apparent magnitude of 0.12. It’s scientific name is Beta Orionis. ‘Rigel Kentaurus’ is Arabic for the ‘foot of the centaur’. It’s about four light years from Earth.

#3 is Arcturus. The name is Latin/Greek and means ‘guardian of the bear’. This star is roughly 37 light years away. It is in the constellation of Bootes, behind The Great Bear. It has a magnitude of 0.00

#2 Canopus. Of these top five, Canopus, the Greek name for the pilot of the vessel Argo made famous in the stories about Jason and the Argonauts, is the brightest. But it’s 313 light years from Earth, so it’s just second on this list as seen from Earth. It has a magnitude of -.62 as seen from this planet.

#1 is Sirius, which translate from the Greek as ’scorching’. It’s also sometimes called the ‘Dog Star’ because it is the brightest star in the constellation of Canis Major, which means ‘The Big Dog’ in Latin. It is situated only 9 light years from Earth, which makes it easily the second closest of these top five. It has a magnitude of -1.44, which makes it very easily the brightest star that can be observed in the night sky.

These facts don’t even scratch the surface on the subject of astronomy but it’s something to think about anyway the next time you look up into the sky at night.

Are you fascinated by Astronomy for Beginners? If so, please visait our website at http://astronomy.the-real-way.com Grab a totally unique version of this article from the Uber Article Directory