Category Archives: Astronomy

A staple of mythology, the hero Hercules has a strange celestial story.

One of the best-known star patterns, Hercules stands high over our heads in the Northern Hemisphere at nightfall this week.

Like many of our oldest constellations, Hercules can be traced to the beginnings of recorded history about 5,000 years ago in the Middle East, specifically Mesopotamia (the region that today we call Iraq), although we refer to the ancient hero by his Latin name. Hercules has long represented a man of extraordinary strength and he appears in various forms in the legends of many peoples throughout the region, including the tale of Sampson in the Bible.

Related: Best night sky events (stargazing maps)

Depending on what astronomy guide book you are consulting, there are several variations on how Hercules is traced out. Initially, you might expect this mighty strongman to be a bright and conspicuous constellation, something along the lines of Orion the Hunter with his distinctive three-star belt.

But this is not so.

In his book "Find the Constellations" (Houghton Mifflin Co., 2008), author H.A. Rey perhaps said it best when he noted that "Hercules was ... famous for his strength, but as a constellation he is rather weak, without bright stars."

Mesopotamian skywatchers in 3000 BC saw Hercules standing upright high in the northern sky during the summer. Hercules' brightest star is third-magnitude Ras Algethi, which is Arabic for "Head of the Kneeler." And indeed, in the sky Hercules was portrayed posturing on one knee, with Ras Algethi, a red supergiant star, marking his head.

But over the past 5,000 years, the wobbling of the Earth's axis (called "precession") has caused the position of the stars to shift in such a manner so that today Hercules appears to be performing acrobatics, with his head passing well south of the zenith. In other words, Hercules is now standing on his head!

Rey reimagined this group of stars according to its current orientation as "a man swinging a club," he writes, "Hercules' favorite weapon." In Rey's version, a keystone-shaped quadrilateral which the ancients envisioned as his waist and hips ends up as Hercules' head. Meanwhile, the star Ras Algethi that the ancients considered the hero's head marks Hercules' left foot. Different strokes for different folks.

Meanwhile, in his book "Introducing the Constellations" (Viking Press, 1937), astronomer Robert H. Baker traced out Hercules as "a figure of six stars that outlines a butterfly with outstretched wings." This figure also somewhat resembles the letter "H," which of course is also the initial for Hercules.

Hercules was known in Greek culture as Heracles, and the extensive legends surrounding him are among the best known of Greek mythology. We call him Hercules in keeping with the tradition of using Latin names for the constellations.

Many Greek gods, heroes, heroines, and other legendary personalities were adopted by the Romans, who identified them with characters of their own. Thus, Zeus became Jupiter; Hera, Juno; Ares, Mars; and so forth. When astronomical bodies are given mythological names in modern times, the Latin version has generally been preferred.

The great Roman author, statesman and philosopher Lucius Annaeus Seneca (4 BC-AD 65) relates in verse some of the leading Hercules legends in "Hercules Furens" ("Mad Hercules"), including a diatribe by Juno against Hercules her husband's (Jupiter's) demigod son by another woman, the mortal Alcmene.

There is actually a connection between Hercules and two other constellations, the nine-headed serpentine water monster known as the Lernean Hydra, and a much smaller creeping sea creature.

A jealous Juno summoned a crab (Cancer) to fatally bite Hercules. Her crustacean arrived just at that moment that Hercules was busy slaying the multiheaded Hydra, one of his 12 assigned superhuman "labors."

But Cancer's bite was no more than a mere annoyance to our hero, who abruptly crushed the attacker under his heel. Infuriated with the crab's less-than-heroic fate, Juno banished this hapless creature to the heavens as one of the most inconspicuous of the traditional constellations.

As for the Hydra, each time Hercules lopped off one head, two others grew in its place. But Hercules emerged victorious by having his nephew, Iolaus, burn the stump of each severed neck, preventing new heads from sprouting. Interestingly, in our current evening sky, as Hercules stands triumphantly at the top of the heavens, the tail of the constellation Hydra can be seen slithering below the southwest horizon and hurrying out of sight.

The object that always draws the most attention in Hercules and is regarded as a showpiece for Northern Hemisphere observers is M13, the Great Globular Cluster in Hercules. It is within the Keystone, about two-thirds of the way from the butterfly's head along the western edge of the northern wing. With a total light equivalent of about a sixth-magnitude star, it can be seen with the unaided eye in a very dark sky, as it was by Edmond Halley, who discovered this cluster in 1714.

At a distance of roughly 22,000 light years, M13 is among the nearest globulars; scientists believe that this great swarm contains at least several hundred thousand stars. Binoculars will show it as a pale, colorless glow with a diameter as much as half that of the moon. But through telescopes it becomes a sight to behold. Small telescopes of 4 to 6-inches will reveal the outer stars, while larger telescopes of 8 or more inches reveal the entrancing beauty of a great ball of stars.

The Hercules cluster is a celebrated object, often shown to those who might pay an evening summertime visit to an observatory. Next week (Aug. 5 to Aug. 8) will be the 85th annual Stellafane Convention which is held just outside of Springfield, Vermont. Weather permitting, assiduous amateur astronomers will set up their equipment under dark New England skies or congregate at the McGregor Observatory for views through the 13-inch Schupmann telescope or at the 12-inch Porter Turret Telescope.

An oft-told story about M13 stars deep-sky authority Walter Scott Houston (1912-1993), who had a regular column in Sky & Telescope magazine for nearly half a centuryand was known to one and all as "Scotty."

One evening he noticed a long line of people patiently waiting their turn to get a look through the Porter scope. "What are you folks looking at?" he asked as he poked his head through the observatory door. From out of the darkness, several people quietly murmured: M13.

"M13?" replied Scotty, with a tinge of skepticism. "So many people have looked at it, you would think it'd be worn out by now!"

Joe Rao serves as an instructor and guest lecturer at New York'sHayden Planetarium. He writes about astronomy forNatural History magazine, theFarmers' Almanacand other publications. Follow uson Twitter@Spacedotcomand onFacebook.

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Hercules, the mighty strongman of the summer sky - Space.com

Part of an astronomy team, Indian astronomers have detected a very short, powerful burst of high-energy radiation that lasted for about a second. The event had been travelling for nearly half the present age of the universe before it hit Earth. The universe is nearly 14 billion years old.

The burst was first detected by Nasas Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope last year. Analysis of the data showed that the shortest Gamma-Ray Burst (GRB) was caused by the death of a massive star. These bursts are considered one of the most powerful events in the universe and can travel across billions of light-years.

Named GRB 200826A, after the date it occurred, researchers released the details of the event in two papers published in Nature Astronomy. While the first paper led by Bin-bin Zhang at Nanjing University in China explores the gamma-ray data. The second, led by Toms Ahumada, a doctoral student at the University of Maryland, describes the GRBs fading multiwavelength afterglow and the emerging light of the supernova explosion that followed.

Dr Shashi Bhushan Pandey from Aryabhatta Research Institute of Observational Sciences (ARIES) was part of the study, apart from scientists from other Indian institutions. They showed for the first time that a dying star can produce short bursts too. Such a discovery has helped to resolve the long-standing issues related to gamma-ray bursts. Also, this study triggers to re-analyse all such known events to constrain number densities better, Dr Pandey said.

The Inter-University Centre for Astronomy and Astrophysics, Pune (IUCAA), National Centre for Radio Astrophysics - Tata Institute of Fundamental Research, Pune (NCRA) and IIT Mumbai also participated in the study, the Ministry of Science & Technology said in a statement.

While the burst was detected for barely a second, astronomers estimate that it emitted 14 million times the energy released by the entire Milky Way galaxy over the same amount of time, making it one of the most energetic short-duration GRBs ever seen.

When a star much more massive than the Sun runs out of fuel, its core suddenly collapses and forms a black hole. As matter swirls toward the black hole, some of it escapes in the form of two powerful jets that rush outward at almost the speed of light in opposite directions.

Astronomers only detect a GRB when one of these jets happens to point almost directly toward Earth. When a star much more massive than the Sun runs out of fuel, its core suddenly collapses and forms a black hole. As matter swirls toward the black hole, some of it escapes in the form of two powerful jets that rush outward at almost the speed of light in opposite directions. Astronomers only detect a GRB when one of these jets happens to point almost directly toward Earth.

According to the Ministry of Science & Technology, "GRB 200826A was a sharp blast of high-energy emission lasting just 0.65 seconds. After travelling for aeons through the expanding universe, the signal had stretched out to about one-second-long when it was detected by Fermis Gamma-ray Burst Monitor."

The new discovery could help astronomers in understanding the nature of these bursts that are linked to supernovas. The detection of such GRB remains rare compared to exploding stars.

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Indian astronomers part of Nasa team detect radiation from death of a star over 5 billion years ago - India Today

New data from the star-mapping Gaia satellite are helping scientists unlock the mystery of our Milky Way galaxy's spiral arms.

Recently published studies exploring the Early Data Release 3 (EDR3), a batch of observations made available to the scientific community last December, reveal the spiral structure of our galaxy with a greater precision and detail than was possible before.

Since the 1950s, astronomers have known that our galaxy, the Milky Way, looks like a spiral, with several dense streams of stars and dust emanating from the galactic center, winding through the galactic disc and dissolving around its edges. However, scientists have struggled to understand how many of these streams there are and what created them.

"The problem with our galaxy is that we are inside its disc and therefore it's very difficult to understand the structure as a whole," Eleonora Zari, a scientist at the Max Planck Institute for Astronomy in Heidelberg, Germany, and author of one of the new papers, told Space.com. "It's like being in a forest and looking around. At some point, the trees are in front of each other. Plus the forest is a bit foggy, so you really cant see what the whole forest looks like."

Related: See a virtual Milky Way map from Europe's Gaia spacecraft

The European Space Agency's (ESA) Gaia mission has been mapping the Milky Way since 2014, measuring the precise positions and distances from Earth of nearly two billion stars. The first two batches of data acquired by the spacecraft, which were released to the scientific community in 2016 and 2018, have revolutionized the study of our galaxy. In addition to the fixed positions, the spacecraft also measures how fast stars move in three-dimensional space, allowing astronomers to model the evolution of the Milky Way in the past as well as into the future.

The latest data release, EDR3, improves the accuracy of the previous data sets. And it's this precision that is enabling astronomers to disentangle the spiral arms from the rest of the stars in the galactic disc with better precision.

"We derive the distance of the stars from a measure called the parallax," Zari said. "And this parallax measurement is 20% better with the latest release. That means that stars that previously we may have seen as part of the same structure now clearly belong to different structures."

Parallax is a star's apparent movement against the background of more distant stars as Earth revolves around the sun. By measuring the change in the angle between the star and Earth from two opposite points in the planets orbit, astronomers can calculate the distance of the star using simple trigonometry.

In one new paper, Zari and her colleagues looked at concentrations of hot bright blue stars, called the OBA-type stars, in the Milky Way's disc. In areas where they could see a higher-than-average concentration of these stars, they could assume the existence of a spiral arm. They then compared their analysis with previously developed models of the galaxy.

"The position of the spiral arms is different and also the strength of the spiral arms, how bright they are, is different," Zari said.

The Milky Way is known to have two main spiral arms, the Perseus arm and the Scutum-Centaurus arm. Our galaxy also possesses two less pronounced arms, or spurs, called the Sagittarius and the Local Arm (which passes close to the sun).

But in Zari's study, the difference between the arms doesn't seem so obvious.

"The Perseus arm seems less bright, and instead the Local arm is more prominent," she said. "Aso the other two arms Sagittarius and Scutum Centaurus at least in my study, they seem to have about the same brightness."

Zari's colleague Eloisa Poggio looked at concentrations of 600,000 young stars to determine the precise position of the spiral arms. Young stars are especially valuable when studying the spiral arms, Poggio explained, because spiral arms, with their dense concentration of dust and gas, are believed to be where the majority of stars form.

"We calculated, for each position in the disc, whether that region was more or less populated with respect to the average," Poggio told Space.com. "Using that approach, we were able to construct a map of the spiral arms in the region that Gaia maps, that is about 16,000 light-years around the sun."

When the researchers compared their galaxy map to previous models, they found that the Perseus arm, one of the two dominant arms, lies further away from the center of the galaxy in the studied region. The short Local arm appeared much longer than the previous models expected.

Astronomers are also still speculating about the origin of those arms and their longevity. Some earlier theories proposed that the shape of the arms is somehow fixed and spins around the galactic center over a long period of time while individual stars, orbiting at their own velocities, move in and out of this shape.

This so-called density wave theory, however, is being disputed by the latest findings enabled by the Gaia mission. Many scientists now think that the spiral arms might not be fixed at all. Instead, they might form temporarily, as a result of the rotation of the galactic disc, and later dissolve and reform again in a different configuration.

To find which theory is correct, Alfred Castro, of the University of Leiden, in the Netherlands, looked at so-called open clusters, groups of thousands of young stars born from the same cloud of gas and dust. Due to their young age, these stars are still close to their birth place, that is within the spiral arms. If the newer theories were correct, the amount of younger open clusters in the spiral arms would be higher than the amount of older open clusters, Castro speculated. And that's exactly what the data showed.

"I saw in the data that the spiral structure appears to contain the younger population of stars but disappears if you look at the older stars," Castro told Space.com. "We see that the rotation rate of the shape is more or less similar to the rotation rate of the stars and varies with the radius to the galactic center. The shape and the stars can't be decoupled, and that means we don't have a global shape, which would be the spiral arms, and then the stars moving in and out of them as the density wave theory suggests."

According to Castro's analysis, the spiral arms may exist for about 80 to 100 million years, a small fraction of time in the 13-billion-year life of our galaxy.

In the future, Poggio hopes, scientists might be able to find out why those spiral arms in the Milky Way exist in the first place. While some theories expect this swirl of stellar streams may have been born after another, smaller galaxy crashed into the Milky Way, others believe it came to existence naturally as a result of the rotation of the galactic disc.

"We expect that we would see different signatures in the motion of the stars if the spiral arms were caused by an external impact," Poggio said. "Future Gaia data releases will give us more information about the motion of stars in a greater portion of the galactic disc, and we hope we might be able to find something there."

The next batch of Gaia data, the full Data Release 3, is expected to be made available to scientists worldwide in about mid-2022. Gaia, one of the most productive missions in history (measured by the number of scientific papers it produces), will continue scanning the sky until 2025. The vast catalogues of stellar positions, motions and velocities it creates will keep astronomers busy for decades to come.

The papers by Poggio, Castro and Zari were published in the journal Astronomy and Astrophysics in July.

Follow Tereza Pultarova on Twitter @TerezaPultarova. Follow us on Twitter @Spacedotcom and on Facebook.

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Why does the Milky Way have spiral arms? New Gaia data are helping solve the puzzle - Space.com

While not all of us have access to a rocketship like Branson and Bezos, we can still appreciate space from right here on Earththough it helps if you can also tap into some of those visionaries pocket change. Sonomas newest luxury resort, Montage Healdsburg, has just unveiled a new astrotourism experience to immerse guests in the wonders of the night sky that will set you back $95,000, for up to six guests, and its full of plenty of big-ticket touches.

To get to and from wine country, the group will receive a private flight from (and back to) anywhere in the US, via Jet Edge, plus airport transfers in wine country.Once at the upscale resort, which debuted in January, youll be whisked away to a 4,600-square-foot, three-bedroom hideaway thats perched on a high knoll overlooking Mount St. Helena and the vineyards of the Alexander Valley.

While in this beautiful settingwhich will be your home for two nightsyoull be treated to a private dinner on a terrace with epic views of the Mayacamas mountain range to help you really unplug. Naturally, the feast will showcase the very best local produce and an array of exclusive wines from nearby vineyards, because even astronomy buffs can appreciate the fruits of our planet.

Guests will be flown to the resort from anywhere in the US aboard a luxe private jet.JetEdge

One of the highlights of the stay will be a private tour of the Robert Ferguson Observatory. Located in Sugarloaf Ridge State Park in Santa Rosa, this is the largest observatory on the West Coast and is nestled amid a ring of hills that block out the light pollution from nearby cities, making for optimal stargazing. The observatory is equipped with several high-tech telescopes that afford views of planets, constellations and galaxies lightyears away.

Whats more, each group will enjoy a two-hour photography session with Rachid Dahnoun. The award-winning astrophotographer, who has shot the cover of National Geographics Night Sky of North America guide,specializes in nighttime photography and will snap a one-of-a-kind picture of you and your guests to encapsulate the experience.

Guests will be treated to a private dinner on an epic terrace.Christian Horan

While the two-nightSkys the Limit package does command a rather astronomical price tag, it has been organized to the nth degree and promises to impart some unforgettable memories. Who knows, you may even spot the next billionaires voyage to space.

Check out more photos of the resort below:

Christian Horan

Christian Horan

Christian Horan

Christian Horan

Christian Horan

Christian Horan

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This Sonoma Luxury Resorts $95,000 Astronomy Experience Is (Almost) Out of This World - Robb Report

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Dubai: Get ready to explore night skies at The View at The Palm, the 360-degree observation deck, during the yearly phenomenon known as Opposition.

In collaboration with Dubai Astronomy Group, visitors have a unique opportunity to observe Saturn and Jupiter at their largest and brightest on Monday, August 2 and Friday, August 20 from 8pm to 10pm, as well as take part in ongoing astronomy sessions on select dates from August 6 to 28.

The anticipated annual event for observing planets in their clearest forms, Opposition is when the earth is between the sun and the opposite planet. Only planets that are further out in the solar system including Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune can be in Opposition.

Tailor-made for stargazers and astrophotographers, this is a prime opportunity to observe the planets in great detail, ranging from Saturns spectacular and complicated rings to Jupiters stripes and swirls atmosphere.

Hosted at The View at The Palm, on level 52 of The Palm Tower, each 60-minute event will start with an explanation of the phenomenon, led by Dubai Astronomy Groups CEO, Hasan Ahmad Al Hariri, followed by an in-depth Q&A session. Participants can view Saturn and Jupiter through telescopes and take images on their mobile phones or cameras.

Tickets for Saturn and Jupiter at Opposition are priced at Dh125 for adults, Dh95 for children aged four to 12, and free for kids under four.

Visitors can also take part in ongoing 90-minute astronomy sessions at The View during August to learn more about the solar system and our planets, and enjoy a session of stargazing. Tickets are Dh125 per adult and Dh95 per child.

All sessions have a limited capacity and will adhere to strict Covid-19 safety regulations including two-metre social distancing norms, the wearing of masks and sanitising protocols.

Location: The ViewCost: Dh125 for adults, Dh95 for kidsWhen: Saturn at Opposition: August 2 from 8pm to 10pm, Jupiter at Opposition:August 20 from 8pm to 10pm, Ongoing Astronomy Sessions: August 6, 7, 13, 14, 21, 27 and 28 from 8.30pm to 10pm

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See Saturn and Jupiter at The View with Dubai Astronomy Group - Gulf News

The Shanghai Astronomy Museum by Ennead Architects opened its doors to the public on July 18, 2021, after being under development since 2014. It serves as the astronomical branch of Perkins + Wills Shanghai Science and Technology Museum, which is also relatively new, completed back in 2015.

At 420,000 square feet (39,000 sqm), the Shanghai Astronomy Museum is the worlds largest museum solely dedicated to astronomy. Its a monumental structure set within an expansive green zone and designed without straight lines or right angles to echo the geometry of the universe and the dynamic energy of celestial movement.

The breathtaking new museum creates an immersive experience, placing visitors in direct engagement with real astronomical phenomena.

The website reads:

The international competition-winning design celebrates the continuum of time and space: it is modern and forward-looking while at the same time presents a link to the past, mirroring both the rich history of Chinese astronomy and the future ambitions of Chinas space exploration program.

In linking the new Museum to both scientific purposes and the celestial references of buildings throughout history, the exhibits and architecture will communicate more than scientific content: they will illuminate what it means to be human in a vast and largely unknown universe.

The building heightens visitors awareness of our fundamental relationship to the earths orbital motion and the sun through form, scale, and manipulation of light. Ennead drew from the classic three-body problem in physics for its design, looking to the intricate choreographies made by the gravitational attraction of multiple bodies within solar systems.

Thomas J. Wong, a Design Partner at Ennead Architects, said:

In making this building, we wanted to create a place where the institutional mission is fully entangled with an architecture that itself is teaching and finds form in some of the fundamental principles that shape our universe. So the big idea of the Shanghai Astronomy Museum was to infuse a visceral experience of the subject matter into the design and deliver that before you even enter the building. And at the end of your visit, there is this culminating moment directly with the sky, which is framed and supported by the architecture.

The building consists of three principal architectural components: The Sphere, The Oculus, and the Inverted Dome. They function as astronomical instruments, tracking the sun, stars, and moon.

The Sphere, half-submerged in the building, dipping into the museum proper, houses the planetarium theater. It evokes an illusion of weightlessness, floating, or anti-gravity with visible supports kept to a minimum. Its spherical form references the primordial shapes in our universe.

The Oculus, suspended over the main entry, functions as a sundial, marking the passage of time by tracking a circle of sunlight across the ground of the entry plaza and its reflecting pool. During the summer solstice at noon, a full circle aligns with a circular platform in the entry plaza.

The Inverted Dome is a giant inverted glass structure. It rests on top of the central atrium and can be reached by a 720-degree spiraling ramp from where visitors get an unimpeded view of the sky. This is the final experience for the visitor, an actual encounter with the universe.

The museum includes permanent and temporary exhibits, a 78-foot solar telescope, and several smaller surrounding buildings housing an observatory, an optical Planetarium, a Digital Sky Theater, and an Education and Research Center.

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New World's Largest Astronomy Museum Connects Visitors To The Universe Intelligent Living - Intelligent Living

Astronomy Fans; YOU Are Invited to a Free Lectureon Telescopes and Technology to See the StarsPhoenix, AZ The Phoenix Astronomical Society PASAZ.ORG is proud to announce that Mr. Mark Johnston will be our guest lecturer on July 15, 2021 during our ZOOM meeting starting at 7:00 p.m.The link to this meeting can be obtained at the PASAZ.ORG website under the heading of "PAS Calendar, & the date of this meeting.Marks lecture is titled Electronically Assisted Astronomy. Technology is now helping amateur astronomers see more than ever before and allowing them to take pictures of these awesome images above us in the dark sky.Mark is a NASA Solar System Ambassador and also runs a technology consulting business in Scottsdale.A member of PAS and numerous other astronomy societies, he has shared the Arizona night sky with thousands of people in his public outreach star parties. He is also a certified cruise ship speaker on astronomy and space science, and an enthusiastic astrophotographer. This lecture is open to the public, so please tell a friend.

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Astronomy Fans; July 15 - YOU Are Invited to a Free Lecture on Telescopes and Technology to See the Stars - Glendale Daily Planet

The best astronomy photos of the year invite the eye upward and outward, bringing stunning views such as auroras above Earth and visions of a stellar nursery 554 light-years away.

These images, from the finalists in the 13th annual Royal Observatory Greenwich's Astronomy Photographer of the Year competition, are a beautiful reminder of the size and age of the universe. One image, created by photographer James Rushforth, shows the comet NEOWISE passing over Stonehenge, a structure that didn't even exist when the comet last streaked by Earth 6,800 years ago.

Held in cooperation with BBC Sky at Night magazine, the competition drew more than 4,500 entries from 75 different countries. Winners in 12 categories will be announced on September 16, 2021, and the winning photographs will be exhibited in the National Maritime Museum in London. Here are the shortlisted competitors.

The International Space Station travels across a waning crescent moon in this daylight shot. Photographer Andrew McCarthy of Elk Grove, California, used two cameras and two telescopes to capture the images, which he then blended together into a seamless scene.

(For the monochrome image: McCarthy used a Celestron EdgeHD800 telescope at f/10, Hobym Traveller mount, ZWO ASI174MM camera, 1,000 x 1-millisecond exposure. And for the color, he chose the Orion XT10 telescope at f/10, Hobym Traveller mount, Sony A7II camera, ISO 200, 1-millisecond exposure.)

The aurora borealis outshines the lights of Murmansk, Russia, in this photograph taken in January 2020. Photographer Vitaliy Novikov had to wait for a strong solar flare so that the aurora was visible despite the city lights.

(To capture the skylights, Novikov used a Nikon D850 camera, 24 mm f/5.6 lens, ISO 1000, 0.8-second exposure.)

This image was stitched together from shots taken of the Veil Nebula in June, July and August 2020. The nebula is the remnant of a giant supernova explosion the death throes of a massive star. The image was snapped from Pest County, Hungary.

(The photographer used a SkyWatcher 200/800 Newton Astrograph telescope at f/4.6, Astronomik Ha and OIII filters, SkyWatcher NEQ6 Pro mount, Moravian G3-16200 Mark II camera, Ha-OIII composite, 12 hours total exposure.)

This chateau in Centre-Val de Loire, France, was a photographer's dream and a challenge for Benjamin Barakat of the U.K., who had to snap photographs during minute-long pauses in the castle's lighting, which occurred once every 15 minutes.

(Baraket used the following equipment: Sigma Art 40 mm telescope, iOptron SkyTracker Pro mount, Canon 6D Baader modified camera. For the foreground, Baraket used a 40 mm f/2.8 lens, ISO 3200, 4 x 30-second exposures; and for the sky, he used a 40 mm f/2 lens, ISO 1600, 8 x 30-second exposures.)

Stonehenge didn't exist 6,800 years ago, the last time the comet NEOWISE passed by Earth. This stunning shot, captured by James Rushforth of the U.K., hints at the incredible changes our planet has seen since the astronomical phenomenon last occurred. An orange glow emanates from the villages of Durrington and Larkhill, and a passing truck's lights illuminate the stones.

(Equipment: Nikon D850 camera, 70200 mm lens at 100 mm f/2.8, ISO 5000, 4-second exposure)

The Dolphin Head Nebula sits in the middle of the constellation Canis Major. Yovin Yahathugoda, of Sri Lanka, captured this shot with the help of the Telescope Live remote telescope in Chile. The gorgeous result represents 90 minutes of exposure time spread over three nights of uncooperative weather.

(Yahathugoda used the ASA 500N telescope at f/3.8, Astrodon filters, ASA DDM85 Premium mount, FLI PL16803 camera, Ha-OIII composite, 1.5 hours total exposure.)

Star trails reveal the rotation of Earth in this shot taken over Dugi Otok in Croatia. The stars reflected in the water were added in post-production because winds over the water prevented the photographer, Ivan Vucetic, from capturing the real-life reflection of the stars.

(Vucetic used a Nikon D600 camera, 20 mm f/2.8 lens, ISO 1600. The foreground required a 526-second exposure, and the sky 247 x 25-seconds.)

The Milky Way shines over Mount Damavand, Iran, in this shot from May 2020. To capture this image, Masoud Ghadiri took a seven-hour hike to get into position. The photo contains 10 stacked images, five for the sky and five for the foreground.

(Ghadiri used Nikon D850 camera, Vixen Polarie mount, 24 mm f/4 lens, ISO 6400, 10 x 30-second exposures.)

Our favorite cameras for night sky photography

This view of the Milky Way contrasts the stars of the galaxy with the lavender fields of Valensole, France. The photographer, Stefan Liebermann, shot the foreground and night sky separately because the lavender blowing in the breeze would otherwise look like a blur in the long exposures required to capture the Milky Way's beauty.

(Liebermann captured the shot with a Sony ILCE-7M3 camera, Fornax Mounts LighTrack II mount, 16 mm f/2.8 lens. For the foreground: ISO 2500, 15 x 0.8-second exposures; and for the sky: ISO 2000, 5 x 120-second exposures.)

The aurora lights up the sky near Vik, Iceland, in this shot taken in January 2020. The photographer, Larryn Rae, noted that capturing the northern lights over the powerful natural environment of Iceland in winter was an amazing experience.

(Rae used a Canon EOS 5D Mark 4 camera, 16 mm f/2.8 lens, ISO 6400, 20 x 6-second exposures.)

The entrance of Luna Park, an abandoned amusement park in Sydney, Australia, is dark for just a few hours each night. That fleeting period of darkness allowed photographer Ed Hurst to capture this image of stars against the defunct human creation.

(Park used a Pentax 645Z camera, 25 mm f/4 DA lens. For the foreground: ISO 100, 60-second exposure at f/13; for the sky: ISO 1250, 3,004 x 1.6 second exposures at f/5.)

The sun sets on Mars in this shot made from images taken by the Curiosity Rover in 2015. The sun looks slightly smaller than it does on Earth, given Mars' greater distance from our nearest star. The photo is credited to John White.

Durdle Door, a coastal rock formation in Dorset, England, foregrounds the Milky Way in this shot taken in May 2020 by Anthony Sullivan. Saturn and Jupiter are visible above the horizon on the left side of the frame.

(Sullivan captured the images with a Canon 6D camera. For the foreground: 20 mm f/8 lens, ISO 100, 244-second exposure. And for the sky: 20 mm f/4 lens, ISO 1600, 4 x 240-second exposures.)

The setting sun lights up the clouds as the moon appears over the Lovell Telescope in northwest England. Matt Naylor snapped the image from Holmes Chapel on Dec. 29, 2020.

(Naylor used a Canon EOS 90D camera, Canon EF 100400 mm lens at 286 mm f/14, ISO 100, 1/15-second exposure.)

The Flame Nebula sits in the constellation Orion, between 900 and 1,500 light-years away from Earth. Steven Mohr took this composite image from Australia between November and December 2020.

(Mohr used a planewave CDK 12.5" telescope at f/8, Astrodon and Baader filters, AP900GTO mount, SBIG STXL-1100 + AOX camera, L-RGB-Ha composite, 23 hours total exposure.)

NGC 3981 is a galaxy 65 million light-years away in the constellation Crater. Here, its interaction with a nearby galaxy is clear the outer arms are being muddled and swept away by the gravity acting between the two objects.

(Photographer Bernard Miller used an ASA RC-1000AZ telescope at f/6.8, Astrodon filters, ASA Alt-Azimuth Direct Drive Mount, FLI PL16803 camera, L-RGB composite, 34 hours total exposure.)

NGC 6188 is a stunning nebula found within the constellation Ara, some 4,000 light-years from Earth. The Cielaustral team stitched together a mosaic of images taken over more than 250 hours to create this image of the gaseous region of space. The team of photographers included Jean-Claude Canonne, Didier Chaplain, Georges Chassaigne, Philippe Bernhard, Laurent Bourgon and Nicolas Outters.

(The image was captured with a CDK 20" homemade telescope at f/6.8, Paramount ME2 mount, Moravian G4 16803 camera, RGB-Ha-SII-OIII composite, 253 hours total exposure.)

This is a full-moon-size slice of the Dark Molecular Cloud found within Corona Australis, a constellation 554 light-years away. Within this cloud, new stars are born. On the left is NGC 6723, a globular cluster that sits a stunning 28,400 light-years away.

(Photographer Steven Mohr used a planewave CDK 12.5" telescope at f/8, Astrodon and Baader filters, AP900GTO mount, SBIG STXL-11000 + AOX camera, L-RGB-Ha composite, 82.58 hours total exposure.)

The moon travels over Paris in this photograph, which was taken from the flat of photographer Rmi Leblanc-Messager in the central part of the city during a period of pandemic curfew in February 2021.

(The photographer used a Canon EOS 6D camera, 28 mm f/6.3 lens, ISO 200, 1,080 x 15-second exposures.)

Fourteen-year-old Jashanpreet Singh Dingra took this image of the Pleiades star cluster over Punjab, India, in December 2020.

(Equipment: Takahashi FSQ-85ED telescope at 450 mm f/5.3, Astrodon filters, Avalon M-Uno mount, QSI 660WSG-8 camera, L-RGB-Ha composite, 3 hours 3 minutes total exposure)

The Andromeda galaxy fills this image, taken by Hungarian photographer Pter Feltti in several exposures between October 2017 and January 2021.

(Equipment: SkyWatcher 200/800 Newton Astrograph telescope at f/4, Astronomik filters, SkyWatcher NEQ6 Pro mount, ZWO ASI183MM Pro, Moravian Instruments G3 16200 Mk II and Canon EOS 600D cameras, L-RGB-Ha composite, 14.1 hours total exposure)

The details of Saturn's rings stand out in startling beauty in this photograph taken by Damian Peach from Spain in July 2020. The planet's polar hexagon, a persistent cloud pattern, is seen near the pole.

(Equipment: ASA 500 mm Cassegrain telescope, SkyWatcher EQ-8 mount, ZWO ASI290MM camera, c.100,000 x 0.03-second exposures)

Sculptures in the Tengger Desert near Wuwei, China, reflect the light of the Milky way in this shot taken in August 2020 by photographer Wang Zheng. The metal columns that point skyward are called raindrops. To capture the image, Zheng placed the camera at a low spot in the center of the sculpture.

Stars trail across the sky over Lujiazui city in Shanghai's Pudong district. Light pollution makes this a difficult place to shoot, but a clear autumn night allowed the photographer Daning Kai to capture this reminder of the night sky above urban areas.

(Equipment: Sony ILCE-7RM3 camera, 16 mm f/5.6 lens, ISO 100, 305 x 15-second exposures)

Photographer Yang Sutie was driving on a mountain road in Tibet late one night when he noticed the Milky Way and the mountains lining up for the perfect shot. He set his camera to shoot automatically and climbed up the hillside to get into the frame himself.

(Equipment: Nikon Z 7II camera, 17 mm f/2.8 lens; car lights and figure: ISO 1000, 2 x 25-second exposures; sky and mountains: ISO 6400, 25-second exposure.)

Just a few minutes from the Lujiazui financial district in Shanghai, sunrise takes on a particular beauty. The photographer Jiajun Hua took four exposures from the same perspective to capture this image.

(Equipment: Sony ILCE-7RM3 camera, 403 mm f/9 lens, ISO 320, 4 x 1/320-second exposures)

A sunspot flickers in this image of the sun's chromosphere, part of the outer atmosphere of the star at the center of our solar system. Photographer Siu Fone Tang stacked several images together and enhanced them in Photoshop to show the contrast in this restless layer of the sun.

(Equipment: SkyWatcher Esprit 150 telescope at f/7, DayStar Quark Gemini lens, SkyWatcher EQ8Rh-Pro mount, ZWO ASI174MM camera, 2,000 x 16-millisecond exposures)

Dark and light contrast in this shot of the aurora borealis seen from a cave, which was taken by Markus van Hauten in January near Breidamerkurjkull, Iceland.

(Equipment: Canon EOS 5D Mark IV camera, 16 mm f/4 lens; foreground: ISO 100, 1/-800-second exposure; sky: ISO 800, 20-second exposure.)

The comet 2020F8 SWAN is a visitor from the Oort Cloud that surrounds the solar system. The comet may have disintegrated completely after it appeared in the southern sky in May 2020, but it left behind this indelible image of its gas-rich tail, captured by Gerald Rhemann from Austria.

(Equipment: ASA Astrograph 12" telescope at f/3.6, ASA DDM 85 mount, FLI ML16200 camera, LRGB composite, 21 minutes total exposure)

The crater Clavius in the southern highlands of the moon appears to harbor two eyes actually smaller craters illuminated by the rising sun, in this shot taken by Thea Hutchinson from London in February 2021.

(Equipment: Celestron C11 HD Schmidt-Cassegrain telescope at f/10, Baader filter, Celestron CGE Pro mount, ZWO ASI174MM camera, 1,200 x 5.895-millisecond exposures)

The full moon rises over Hodynka, a park in Moscow that was once an airfield. Moscow often has cloudy weather, but the sky cooperated with photographer Anna Kaunis in this July 2020 shot.

(Equipment: Nikon Z6 camera, 200500mm lens at 500 mm f/22, ISO 400, 0.25-second exposure)

Magnetic field lines shimmer on the sun in this image that was originally captured in black and white. Andrew McCarthy captured this shot after a large solar flare in November 2020.

(Equipment: Coronado Solarmax III telescope at f/5, Hobym Traveller mount, ZWO ASI178MM camera, 6-millisecond exposure)

The stars sparkle above the village of Hongcun near Huangshan Mountain in Anhui province, China. Hongcun has been populated for at least 900 years and is a World Heritage Site. Zhang Xiao captured this photo after 1 a.m. when the streetlights had gone out.

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These are the best astronomy images of the year - Livescience.com

Ennead Architects has unveiled its completed Shanghai Astronomy Museum, the celestial object-focused new branch of the landmark Shanghai Science and Technology Museum in the citys Pudong district. (The Perkins&Will-designed Shanghai Natural History Museum at Jingan Sculpture Park is the museums other main satellite location.) Spanning 420,000-square-feet, the expansive facility, which opens to the public on July 18, is the largest astronomy (only) museum in the world.

As detailed by the firm, which opened its Shanghai-based office in 2014 and was tapped for the project a year later, the building uses scale, form, and the manipulation of light to heighten awareness of our fundamental relationship to the sun and the earths orbital motion. Notably, the design of the structure features nary a straight line or right angle, to reflect the geometry of the universe and the dynamic energy of celestial movement.

In making this building, we wanted to create a place where the institutional mission is fully enmeshed with an architecture that itself is teaching, and finds form in some of the fundamental principles that shape our universe, explained Thomas J. Wong, design partner at Ennead Architects, in a statement. Leading the project, which broke ground in November 2016, alongside Wong was Ennead management partner, V. Guy Maxwell.

The big idea of the Shanghai Astronomy Museum was to infuse a visceral experience of the subject matter into the design, and to deliver that before you even enter the building, added Wong. And at the end of your visit, there is this culminating moment directly with the sky, which is framed and supported by the architecture.

As further detailed by the firm, Wong was inspired by the three-body problem in physics and looked to the intricate choreographies created by gravitational attraction of multiple bodies within solar systems. The resulting structure features a spiraling facade and a building envelope that traces a series of arcing paths that are visibly influenced by gravitational pull: the heart of the central atrium, the forward momentum at the entry, and the planet-like sphere that envelopes the planetarium theater.

Featuring exhibits and interactive elements divided into three thematic areas (Home, Cosmos, and Odyssey), the museum is defined by a trio of core architectural components that pull double-duty as functional astronomical instruments that track the sun, moon, and stars: The Oculus, the Inverted Dome, and the Sphere.

Suspended directly above the museums main entry point, the Oculus creates a veritable time piece by tracking a circle of sunlight on the ground opposite the museums entry plaza and reflecting pool. At noon during the summer solstice, there is a full circle, which aligns with a circular platform within the Museums entry plaza, explained Ennead.

Situated at the buildings roofline above the central atrium and the 720-degree spiraling ramp, the Inverted Dome takes the form of an inverted glass tension structure where visitors can congregate and crane their necks upwards to enjoy unobstructed views of the heavens above. As noted by the firm, the culmination of the exhibit journey, this space cuts the view of the horizon and adjacent urban context and focuses the visitor on the all-encompassing skya real encounter with the universe to conclude the simulated experience within.

Finally, the Sphere, instantly reminiscent of Enneads Hayden Sphere at the Rose Center for Earth and Space at the American Museum of Natural History in New York, is home to the museums half-submerged planetarium theater. The Sphere derives its shape not only from the requirements of the programmatic element it contains, but as an abstract manifestation of a primary celestial form explained Ennead. Embedded in the roof plane of the lower Museum wing, as if rising out of the Earth-bound horizon, the sphere gradually emerges into view as one rounds the building, the drama unfolding as though one were approaching a planet from one of its moons, allowing visitors to experience it as a weightless mass from below.

Other major programming elements and buildings located at the Shanghai Astronomy Museums park-like campus in the Nanhui New City (formerly the Lingang New City), a booming free trade zone southeast of the central business district, include: A crowd-drawing range of temporary and permanent exhibits, a 78-foot solar telescope, an observatory, an optical planetarium, an education and research center, and Digital Sky Theater. Per Ennead, the museums programming will showcase immersive environments, artifacts and instruments of space exploration, and educational exhibitry.

While the Shanghai Astronomy Museum officially opens to the public later this month, some guests have already toured the vast space during a preview run. One early visitor told the Global Times that she was overwhelmed by the museums augmented and virtual reality-heavy exhibitions because the demonstrations of astronomy are so realistic.

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Ennead Architects' Shanghai Astronomy Museum opens this month as the largest in the world - The Architect's Newspaper

Using AI driven data analysis to peel back the noise and find the actual shape of the Universe. Credit: The Institute of Statistical Mathematics

Japanese astronomers have developed a new artificial intelligence (AI) technique to remove noise in astronomical data due to random variations in galaxy shapes. After extensive training and testing on large mock data created by supercomputer simulations, they then applied this new tool to actual data from Japans Subaru Telescope and found that the mass distribution derived from using this method is consistent with the currently accepted models of the Universe. This is a powerful new tool for analyzing big data from current and planned astronomy surveys.

Wide area survey data can be used to study the large-scale structure of the Universe through measurements of gravitational lensing patterns. In gravitational lensing, the gravity of a foreground object, like a cluster of galaxies, can distort the image of a background object, such as a more distant galaxy. Some examples of gravitational lensing are obvious, such as the Eye of Horus. The large-scale structure, consisting mostly of mysterious dark matter, can distort the shapes of distant galaxies as well, but the expected lensing effect is subtle. Averaging over many galaxies in an area is required to create a map of foreground dark matter distributions.

But this technique of looking at many galaxy images runs into a problem; some galaxies are just innately a little funny looking. It is difficult to distinguish between a galaxy image distorted by gravitational lensing and a galaxy that is actually distorted. This is referred to as shape noise and is one of the limiting factors in research studying the large-scale structure of the Universe.

To compensate for shape noise, a team of Japanese astronomers first used ATERUI II, the worlds most powerful supercomputer dedicated to astronomy, to generate 25,000 mock galaxy catalogs based on real data from the Subaru Telescope. They then added realist noise to these perfectly known artificial data sets, and trained an AI to statistically recover the lensing dark matter from the mock data.

After training, the AI was able to recover previously unobservable fine details, helping to improve our understanding of the cosmic dark matter. Then using this AI on real data covering 21 square degrees of the sky, the team found a distribution of foreground mass consistent with the standard cosmological model.

This research shows the benefits of combining different types of research: observations, simulations, and AI data analysis. comments Masato Shirasaki, the leader of the team, In this era of big data, we need to step across traditional boundaries between specialties and use all available tools to understand the data. If we can do this, it will open new fields in astronomy and other sciences.

Reference: Noise reduction for weak lensing mass mapping: an application of generative adversarial networks to Subaru Hyper Suprime-Cam first-year data by Masato Shirasaki, Kana Moriwaki, Taira Oogi, Naoki Yoshida, Shiro Ikeda and Takahiro Nishimichi, 9 April 2021, Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society.DOI: 10.1093/mnras/stab982

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Astronomers Use Artificial Intelligence to Reveal the Actual Shape of the Universe - SciTechDaily