April 2020 – Page 2 – Astronomy Now

Beginners’ astronomy: That bright light you can see in the western sky? That’s Venus

17 April 2020 Keith Cooper

During the warm evenings and clear skies of recent weeks, you may have noticed a brilliant, shining beacon towards the west, far brighter than anything else in the night sky other than the Moon. That’s the planet Venus.

Star’s orbit around black hole more proof Einstein was right

16 April 2020 Astronomy Now

After decades of observation, researchers confirm the orbit of a star in close orbit around the Milky Way’s central black hole obeys Einstein’s predictions.

Observations show shock waves likely key to nova’s brightness

15 April 2020 Astronomy Now

Observations indicate the visible brightness of a nova is driven by gamma ray emissions from shockwaves in the post-explosion environment.

’Oumuamua was a unique object. Now astronomers think there could be trillions just like it

14 April 2020 Keith Cooper

The mysterious interstellar object 1I/‘Oumuamua, and trillions of others like it, could have formed when its parent body was pulled apart by gravitational tides from a star, resulting in elongated shards being ejected into interstellar space.

The Universe may not look the same in all directions after all

13 April 2020 Astronomy Now

X-ray observations of more than 800 galaxy clusters suggest the expansion of the universe may be faster in some regions than in others.

Seek out 1998 OR₂, the brightest predicted near-Earth asteroid encounter of 2020

12 April 2020 Ade Ashford

A near-Earth object (NEO) and potentially hazardous asteroid (PHA) with the catchy official name of 52768 (1998 OR₂) passes just 16.4 lunar distances (6.3 million kilometres) from Earth at 09:56 UT on Wednesday, 29 April 2020. Here’s our guide to locating this fascinating asteroid in 15-cm (6-inch) aperture telescopes and smaller from the UK this month.

BepiColombo flies by Earth, completing first leg of journey to Mercury

12 April 2020 Stephen Clark

Working with a reduced staff due to coronavirus-related restrictions, European Space Agency flight controllers monitored the BepiColombo spacecraft during a flyby of Earth on Friday, a maneuver that used our planet’s gravity to steer the mission on a course toward Mercury.

Swarm of NASA nanosats to probe source of solar eruptions

10 April 2020 Stephen Clark

NASA has selected a mission to dispatch six CubeSats, each the size of a toaster oven, to an orbit more than 32,000 kilometres from Earth to study massive particle ejections from the sun.

See the waning crescent Moon meet the dawn planets, 15–16 April 2020

9 April 2020 Ade Ashford

There’s a lot of planetary activity in the dawn sky in mid-April. If you’re an early riser in the British Isles, let the waning crescent Moon be your guide to the naked-eye planets Jupiter, Saturn and Mars on 15 and 16 April 2020. Typical 7×50 or 10×50 binoculars will show these attractive conjunctions well, while the smallest of telescopes also reveal some of Jupiter’s bright Galilean moons.

Event Horizon Telescope reveals inner workings of quasar’s jet

8 April 2020 Astronomy Now

One year after capturing an image of a black hole’s shadow, the Event Horizon Telescope captures best view yet of a quasar’s powerful jets.