Latest Astronomy on Mars Stories
The annual Perseid meteor shower this week is predicted to be a grand event with peak viewing times Thursday night August 12 into the early pre-dawn hours Friday August 13. According to NASA, the shower may produce a display of up to 80 meteors an hour. For best views of the event, experts are urging spectators to get as far away from city lights as possible. The Perseid meteor shower has been ongoing for about a week and peak times were set for Wednesday night into Thursday morning, and then...
People living in the northern hemisphere will be able to go out any night this week an hour after sunset and see Venus, Saturn and Mars. The planet Venus will be located slightly north of west, in the constellation Gemini. To the left of Venus appearing in the constellation Leo, skywatchers will be able to spot Mars. Then, further to the left of Mars will be Saturn shining in the western part of the constellation Virgo. All three planets will appear across a 71-degree angle in the...
Tonight's full moon will be the biggest and brightest of the year. What is the reason for this larger than normal full moon? The moon is an average of 238,855 miles from Earth, but its orbit around our planet is an ellipse rather than a perfect circle. One side of the orbit is 31,070 miles closer than the other. Once the moon reaches its closest point to us in each orbit it is called perigee. Once or twice a year perigee coincides with a full moon making the moon bigger and brighter than...
For the very first time, the martian moons Phobos and Deimos have been caught on camera together. ESA's Mars Express orbiter took these pioneering images last month. Apart from their "˜wow' factor, these unique images will help the HRSC team validate and refine existing orbit models of the two moons.The images were acquired with the Super Resolution Channel (SRC) of the High Resolution Stereo Camera (HRSC). The camera took 130 images of the moons on 5 November at 9:14 CET over period of 1.5...
Because the first extrication drive for Spirit, on Sol 2088 (Nov. 17), stopped as soon as it began due to an exceeded tilt limit, the plan for an extrication drive on Sol 2090 (Nov. 19) will essentially be a repeat of the first drive plan, but with improved rover attitude knowledge. The updated attitude knowledge comes from the rover's measurement of its tilt on Sol 2088.In the Sol 2090 plan, the rover will be instructed to drive straight ahead in two steps. Each step will be a commanded...
NASA is alerting Earth-bound sky watchers to a rare event -- the ability to observe the asteroid Juno with only binoculars. It can usually be seen by a good amateur telescope, but the guy on the street doesn't usually get a chance to observe it, said Don Yeomans, manager of NASA's Near Earth Object Program Office at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory. This is going to be as bright as it gets until 2018. Juno is about 145 miles in diameter, or about one-fifteenth the diameter of the moon. It is...
It started out as a normal day. NASA astronomer and meteor expert Bill Cooke woke up, dressed, and went to his office at the Marshall Space Flight Center. Colleagues greeted him as usual, there was no hum of excitement. And then he checked his email."That's how I found out"”I'd slept through a meteor outburst!"During the dark hours before dawn on Sept. 9, 2008, a surprising flurry of meteors had showered the skies above Huntsville, Alabama. More than two dozen of them were...
Mark your calendar: The 2008 Perseid meteor shower peaks on August 12th and it should be a good show."The time to look is during the dark hours before dawn on Tuesday, August 12th," says Bill Cooke of NASA's Meteoroid Environment Office at the Marshall Space Flight Center. "There should be plenty of meteors--perhaps one or two every minute."The source of the shower is Comet Swift-Tuttle. Although the comet is far away, currently located beyond the orbit of Uranus, a trail of debris from the...
Not so long ago, anyone claiming to see flashes of light on the Moon would be viewed with deep suspicion by professional astronomers. Such reports were filed under "L" "¦ for lunatic. Not anymore. Over the past two and a half years, NASA astronomers have observed the Moon flashing at them not just once but one hundred times."They're explosions caused by meteoroids hitting the Moon," explains Bill Cooke, head of NASA's Meteoroid Environment Office at the Marshall Space...
December is the month of the winter solstice, which a large part of mankind associates with such festivals as the Nativity. Among the many varied customs linked with this special season for thousands of years, the exchanging of gifts is almost universal. The moment of the solstice occurred on Dec. 22 at 1:08 a.m. EST. The sun, appearing to travel along the ecliptic, reached that point in the sky where it is farthest south of the celestial equator. Mother Nature herself offers the...
Latest Astronomy on Mars Reference Libraries
Positional Astronomy -- Positional astronomy is the study of the positions of celestial objects. This is the oldest branch of astronomy and dates back to antiquity. Observations of celestial objects are important for religious and astrological purposes, as well as for timekeeping. Ancient structures associated with positional astronomy include: -- Chichn Itz -- The Medicine Wheel -- The Pyramids -- Stonehenge -- The Temple of the Sun The unaided human eye can...
Perseids Meteor Shower -- Like most meteor showers, the Perseids are caused by comet debris. As comets enter the inner solar system, they are warmed by the sun and peppered by the solar wind, which produces the familar tails that stretch across the night sky when a bright comet is close to Earth. Comet tails are made of tiny pieces of ice, dust, and rock which are spewed into interplanetary space as they bubble off the comet's nucleus. When Earth encounters these particles on its...
The Moon -- The Moon is the largest satellite of the Earth, and is occasionally called Luna (Latin for moon) to distinguish it from the general use of the word "moon". The Moon is distinguished from the satellites of other planets by its initial capital letter; the other moons are described in the natural satellite article. The words moon and month come from the same Old English root word. The Moon makes a complete orbit of the celestial sphere about every four weeks. Each hour the...
The Planet Mars -- in astronomy, 4th planet from the sun, with an orbit next in order beyond that of the earth. Physical Characteristics Mars has a striking red appearance, and in its most favorable position for viewing, when it is opposite the sun, it is twice as bright as Sirius, the brightest star. Mars has a diameter of 4,200 mi (6,800 km), just over half the diameter of the earth, and its mass is only 11% of the earth's mass. The planet has a very thin atmosphere consisting...
Mars' Moon Phobos -- in astronomy, innermost moon, or natural satellite, of Mars. Phobos orbits Mars at a distance of only 9,378 km (5,627 mi), closer to its planet than any other moon in the solar system. In fact, it is so close that the force of Mars's gravity is stronger than the force keeping the moon in its orbit, so the radius of Phobos's orbit is decreasing at the rate of about 1.8 m (about 6 ft) per century. In 40 million years, Phobos will either break apart into a ring...
![Rock Target \](/media/gallery/mars-exploration-rover-opportunity/thumbs/thumbs_pia16930_sol3262b_p2579_l257f.jpg "Rock Target \")
![Sky Gets Dustier Between Opportunity\](/media/gallery/mars-exploration-rover-opportunity/thumbs/thumbs_pia16814-sols3296and3301-hazcams.jpg "Sky Gets Dustier Between Opportunity\")
![Curiosity Mount Sharp MastCam \](/media/gallery/mars-science-laboratory/thumbs/thumbs_pia16768_mtsharpmosaic-sol45-wb_annotated-br.jpg "Curiosity Mount Sharp MastCam \")
