After spending the 1850s at Harvard Observatory calculating orbits, Asaph Hall became an assistant at the U.S. Naval Observatory at Washington, D.C., in 1862. He was quickly promoted, and by 1873 had not only held several scientific discussions with Abraham Lincoln during the president’s visits to the observatory, but had also been put in chargeContinue reading "Aug. 11, 1877: Asaph Hall discovers Deimos"

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Looking for a sky event this week? Check out our full Sky This Week column.  August 10: Open cluster NGC 7243 In the evening sky, Venus is reaching dichotomy, the moment when it is exactly half-lit. You’ll find magnitude –4.4 Venus some 20° high in the west as the Sun sets. It’s so bright, it will beContinue reading "The Sky Today on Tuesday, August 11: Venus, half-lit "

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Rocket launches this week On Monday, Aug. 10, a Long March 7A rocket carrying an undisclosed payload broke apart roughly one minute and 27 seconds after lifting off from Wenchang Space Launch Site at 8:02 a.m. EST. Footage from online livestreams captured the failure in real time; Chinese state media had not released any informationContinue reading "A Long March 7A failure opens a week of Starlink launches"

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Some 1.3 billion years ago, when multicellular organisms were just emerging on Earth and life was still confined to the ocean, two behemoth black holes smashed together in a far-flung galaxy. The collision was so powerful that it jolted the universe, creating a ripple in the fabric of space-time that traveled across the cosmos atContinue reading "How gravitational waves transformed our universe"

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Which naked-eye star is richest in metals and what is the estimated mass of the metal contained therein? ThomasMineral, Virginia In astronomer-speak, metals refer to elements heavier than helium. The first stars that lit up the universe were very metal-poor, since hydrogen and helium were just about the only materials around after the Big Bang. TheseContinue reading "Which naked-eye star is richest in metals?"

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On Aug. 10, 1990, the Magellan orbiter arrived at Venus and was inserted into orbit. Its goal was to map the surface of the planet, using radar to peer beneath the cloudy atmosphere. Launched aboard the Space Shuttle Atlantis in May 1989, Magellan was the first deep space probe launched from a shuttle. Budget constraintsContinue reading "Aug. 10, 1990: Magellan enters venusian orbit"

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Looking for a sky event this week? Check out our full Sky This Week column.  August 9: The Moon and Mars This evening, the small constellation Lacerta sits just below cross-shaped Cygnus in the eastern sky after dark. The zig-zagging outline of the Lizard lies roughly 20° east (to the lower left early in the evening) ofContinue reading "The Sky Today on Monday, August 10: Open cluster NGC 7243 "

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Anushtup Roy Choudhury from Kolkata, India Looming over the Himalayas in this vista are the Rho Ophiuchi cloud complex and the Blue Horsehead Nebula (IC 4592). The former’s blue reflection nebulae, red clouds of emission, and dark dust lanes spread across Ophiuchus and Scorpius some 460 light-years away. The latter, lit by the blue subgiantContinue reading "A colorful cosmic canvas"

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