Don't miss the top five astronomical events this winter

Many astronomical events this season will be visible right from your backyard without the use of a telescope although the chilly winter nights may require a few extra layers to keep warm.

Here are five astronomy events to mark on your calendar this winter:

1. Ursid meteor shower: Dec. 21-22

The first night of winter will feature the final meteor shower of 2017 as the Ursid meteor shower reaches its peak.

The Ursid meteor shower is considered minor, since it produces up to 10 meteors an hour during its peak on the night of Thursday, Dec. 21, into the early morning hours of Friday, Dec. 22.

Occasionally, the Ursids can have bursts of 100 meteors per hour, but an outburst like this is not expected this year.

Although no outburst is expected, this year will be a good year for viewing the Ursids since the shower peaks just days after the new moon. This means that there will be little natural light pollution for the meteor shower to contend with, allowing onlookers to see many of the dimmer meteors.

The best time for viewing the shower will be after midnight, with meteors appearing in all areas of the sky.

2. Quadrantid meteor shower: Jan. 3-4

Stargazers will be able to kick off the new year with a major meteor shower as the Quadrantids peak during the first days of 2018.

Unlike many major meteor showers, the Quadrantids peak over a short period lasting less than 24 hours. So, if you miss the shower on the peak night, then it may mean missing the shower completely.

In 2018, the meteor shower is anticipated to peak around Wednesday, Jan. 3, into the early morning of Thursday, Jan. 4.

Not only does the Quadrantid meteor shower have a short period of high activity, but it also brings a range of meteors visible per hour.

Onlookers have counted as many as 100 meteors per hour during the height of the Quadrantids, but that may not be the case this year.

Light pollution from the nearly full moon will make it difficult to see the dimmer meteors, reducing the hourly rate to around 25 to 50 meteors per hour.

3. The Super Blue Moon Eclipse: Jan. 31

January will feature an uncommon celestial occurrence as a blue moon coincides with a full supermoon.

Both of January’s full moons will be considered supermoons, appearing bigger and brighter than a normal full moon.

The full moon on Jan. 31 will also earn the nickname of a blue moon as it is the second full moon to occur in one calendar month. Contrary to the name, the moon will not actually appear blue.

A total lunar eclipse will also be visible for part of the world on the night of the super blue moon as the moon passes directly through the Earth’s shadow.

The total lunar eclipse will be visible across eastern Asia, Australia, Alaska and northwestern Canada. The rest of Asia and North America will be able to see a partial eclipse.

This is the first time that a total lunar eclipse occurred during a blue moon since Dec. 30, 1982.

4. Planetary alignment in the pre-dawn sky: March 8

Early risers will be greeted with a planetary alignment in early March as Jupiter, Mars and Saturn appear in a line each morning before dawn.

The Moon will fall in line with the planets on March 8, appearing directly between Jupiter and Mars in the southern sky.

This will be an excellent opportunity for people new to astronomy as the moon will serve as an easy reference point for finding the planets, all of which are visible to the unaided eye.

This planetary alignment will also help people find Pluto, which is too dim to see without the help of a telescope or pair of binoculars.

Pluto will fall in line with the other planets, appearing slightly lower and to the left of Saturn. March 12 may be the easiest day to find Pluto as it will appear just to the right of the crescent moon.

5. Mercury pairs up with Venus after sunset: March 15

One of the hardest planets to spot with the naked eye will be visible shortly after sunset during the middle of March.

Mercury can be difficult to spot due to its proximity to the sun, but on March 15, it will reach its greatest eastern elongation. This means that it will appear at its farthest distance from the sun allowing it to be visible after sunset.

To see Mercury, people will need to have a clear view of the western horizon and look before the planet drops below the horizon, which will occur around 75 minutes after sunset.

Venus will also appear in the western sky after sunset, making it easier to find the elusive Mercury.

Venus appears brighter than Mercury, so once Venus is visible in the sky, Mercury will be able to be spotted slightly higher and to the right.

These planets will appear near each other for several days shortly after sunset, so if clouds obscure the western horizon on March 15, there will be other opportunities to look for Venus and Mercury.

Courtesy: accuweather.com

Solar eclipses occur every day on Mars

If you think solar eclipses on Earth are cool, wait till you get a load of an eclipse on Mars. A person standing on Mars would see it cross the sky twice in one day. Because of its small size, it appears smaller than our own moon does to us.

Earth typically experiences four to seven eclipses a year, counting partial solar eclipses (when the moon doesn't fully obscure the sun) and lunar eclipses (when the earth's shadow partially obscures the moon).

On Mars, however, solar eclipses are practically a daily event. Mars has two moons - tiny, potato-shaped satellites named Phobos and Deimos, after the Greek deities of fear and dread, respectively.
But Mars's moons orbit at a much closer distance than our own Moon orbits ours. While the moon is about 238,000 miles away from Earth (give or take), Phobos is only about 6,000 miles away from the surface of Mars.

Among other things, that proximity causes it to rotate incredibly fast, circling around Mars in under eight hours. A person standing on Mars would see it cross the sky twice in one day. Because of its small size, it appears smaller than our own moon does to us.

Phobos's close, fast orbit makes it cross paths with the sun fairly often - near-daily. But because the moon is so small it never fully occludes the sun to create a total eclipse. Part of the sun's disc is always visible.

What about the other Martian moon? Deimos orbits more than twice as far away from Mars and is smaller to boot, making it much less visible in the Martian sky. When Deimos crosses paths with the sun, it's more properly called a transit, rather than an eclipse.

Other planets experience eclipses, too, although we haven't observed any of them from the ground up. Here, for instance, is a Hubble telescope image of Jupiter's moon Io casting a shadow on Jupiter's surface.

From Jupiter, the sun appears much smaller than it does in our own sky. A number of the planet's moons obscure it completely, creating not an eclipse but an occultation - an astronomical term for when one object is completely hidden by another one of much larger apparent size. Because Jupiter has at least 69 moons, it sometimes experiences multiple eclipses and occultations simultaneously.

A similar situation holds on Saturn, Uranus and even faraway Neptune. Eclipses can happen on Pluto, too.

But our own total eclipses on Earth are one-of-a-kind. Because of the similarity between the apparent sizes of the moon and sun when viewed from Earth, our total eclipses block out the entirety of the sun's disc while leaving the luminous corona - the sun's fiery atmosphere - plainly visible in the darkened sky.

That event happens nowhere else in the solar system - not even on Mars.

Solar eclipse on Aug 21: Biggest since 1979 for North Americans

An image of the March 9, 2016, total solar eclipse as visible from Indonesia. Photo by ROBERT BAER AND SARAH KOVAC / ASSOCIATED PRESS

On Monday, August 21, 2017, all of North America will be treated to an eclipse of the sun. Anyone within the path of totality can see one of nature’s most awe-inspiring sights - a total solar eclipse, reports NASA.

This path, where the moon will completely cover the sun and the sun's tenuous atmosphere - the corona - can be seen, will stretch from Salem, Oregon to Charleston, South Carolina. Observers outside this path will still see a partial solar eclipse where the moon covers part of the sun's disk.

NASA has created a website to provide a guide to this amazing event. Here you will find activities, events, broadcasts, and resources from NASA and our partners across the nation.

Science shows the rare celestial event is part coincidence, but it was often misunderstood in ancient times.

Imagine you lived thousands of years ago, knew nothing of the planets and solar system, and the sun suddenly disappeared for a few minutes.  Cornell Astronomy Professor Phil Nicholson says it would be a surprise.

If you somehow miss the Aug. 21 eclipse, don’t feel too bad: You’ll have another chance seven years from now.

A total solar eclipse is expected to be visible across North America on April 8, 2024.

In fact, the 2024 eclipse should be even more dramatic for Windsor-Essex: The region will be in the “path of totality,” with 100 percent coverage of the sun.

Indian scientists discover new galaxy 1000 times brighter than the Milky Way

A team of Indian astronomers has discovered an extremely large supercluster of galaxies -- as big as 20 million billion suns -- which they have named Saraswati, Pune-based Inter University Centre for Astronomy and Astrophysics (IUCAA) said.

This is one of the largest known structures in the neighbourhood of the universe, 4,000 million light-years away from Earth and roughly more than 10 billion years old, IUCAA said. Its mass extends over the scale of 600 million light years, it said.

Scientists of this institute were also involved in the path-breaking discovery of gravitational waves last year.

The supercluster was discovered by Shishir Sankhyayan, a PhD student at the Indian Institute of Science Education and Research (IISER), Pune, Pratik Dabhade, IUCAA research fellow, Joe Jacob of the Newman College, Kerala, and Prakash Sarkar of the National Institute of Technology, Jamshedpur. Their findings were published in the latest issue of The Astrophysical Journal, the premier research journal of the American Astronomical Society.

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Astronomers detect orbital motion in a pair of supermassive black holes

The picture above is an artist’s conception of the pair of supermassive black holes at the centre of the galaxy 0402+379, 750 million light-years from Earth. Credit: Josh Valenzuela/University of New Mexico.

Astronomers have detected the orbital motion in a pair of supermassive black holes in a galaxy some 750 million light-years from Earth. The two black holes, with a combined mass 15 billion times that of the Sun, are likely separated by only about 24 light-years, extremely close for such a system.

Astronomers made this discovery using the supersharp radio “vision” of the National Science Foundation’s Very Long Baseline Array. This is considered the first pair of black holes to be seen as separate objects that are moving with respect to each other, and thus makes this the first black-hole ‘visual binary.’”

Supermassive black holes, with millions or billions of times the mass of the Sun, reside at the cores of most galaxies. The presence of two such monsters at the center of a single galaxy means that the galaxy merged with another sometime in the past. In such cases, the two black holes themselves may eventually merge in an event that would produce gravitational waves that ripple across the universe.

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Every full moon is different!

The so-called 'Strawberry Moon' rises behind Glastonbury Tor on in June 2016.  Credit: Matt Cardy/Getty Images & The Telegraph

The Moon is the largest and brightest object in our night sky and has enchanted and inspired mankind for centuries.

Here's everything you need to know about Earth's only natural satellite, including all its different names and the dates you can spot the next one, including June's Strawberry Moon.

How often does a full moon occur?

A full moon occurs every 29.5 days and is when the Moon is completely illuminated by the Sun's rays. It occurs when Earth is directly aligned between the Sun and the Moon.

Why do full moons have names?

The early Native Americans didn't record time using months of the Julian or Gregorian calendar. Instead tribes gave each full moon a nickname to keep track of the seasons and lunar months.

Most of the names relate to an activity or an event that took place at the time in each location. However, it wasn't a uniform system and tribes tended to name and count moons differently. Some, for example, counted four seasons a year while others counted five. Others defined a year as 12 moons, while others said there were 13.

Colonial Americans adopted some of the moon names and applied them to their own calendar system which is why they're still in existence today, according to the Farmer’s Almanac.

January: Wolf Moon

This moon was named because villagers used to hear packs of wolves howling in hunger around this time of the year. It's other name is the Old Moon.

When? January 12

February: Snow Moon

Snow moon is named after the white stuff because historically it's always been the snowiest month in America. It's also traditionally referred to as the Hunger Moon, because hunting was very difficult in snowy conditions.

When? February 11

March: Worm Moon

As temperatures warm, earthworm casts begin to appear and birds begin finding food. It's also known as Sap Moon, Crow Moon and Lenten Moon.

When? March 12

April: Pink Moon

April's full moon is known as the Pink Moon, but don't be fooled into thinking it will turn pink. It's actually named after pink wildflowers, which appear in the US and Canada in early spring.

This moon - which you can see around 07:08 on Tuesday April 11 -  is also known as Egg Moon, due to spring egg-laying season. Some coastal tribes referred to it as Fish Moon because it appeared at the same time as the shad swimming upstream.

This moon is important because it used to fix the date of Easter, which is always the first Sunday after the Pink Moon appears. This year, Easter falls on Sunday, April 16.  The Pink Moon also heralds the beginning of Jewish Passover.

When? April 11

May: Flower Moon

Spring has officially sprung by the time May arrives, and flowers and colourful blooms dot the landscape.

This moon is also known as Corn Planting Moon, as crops are sown in time for harvest, or Bright Moon because this full moon is known to be one of the brightest. Some people refer to it as Milk Moon.

When?  May 10

June: Strawberry Moon

This moon is named after the beginning of the strawberry picking season. It's other names are Rose Moon, Hot Moon, or Hay Moon as hay is typically harvested around now.

This moon appears in the same month as the summer solstice, the longest day of the year (June 21st) in which we can enjoy approximately 17 hours of daylight.

When? June 9

July: Thunder Moon

Named due to the prevalence of summer thunderstorms. It's sometimes referred to as the Full Buck Moon because at this time of the year, a buck's antlers are fully grown.

When? July 9

August: Sturgeon Moon

Tribes in North America typically caught Sturgeon during this month, but also it is when grain and corn were gathered so is also referred to as Grain Moon.

When? August 7

September: Harvest Moon

It was during September that most of the crops were harvested. This moon also gave light to farmers working through the night. Some tribes also called it the Barley Moon.

The Harvest Moon can sometimes occur in October - whichever Moon is closest to the autumnal equinox.

When? September 6

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