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 Curious about
The equation was written using Microsoft Word 36
Gravity?
Dedicated to Curious
Start with about Gravity?
conservation of energy
Craftsmanship! Start
and the Cosmological of
with conservation energy and
Principle of
Absolute Encoders the Cosmological Principle
Uniformity. Derive the spatial of
Mach2GTO Power & Go Uniformity. Derive the spatial
change of space-energy. You change
now
Auto-Adjusting of space-energy. You now have the
have the gravity force for any
Gear Mesh gravity force for any collection of
collection of material bodies. It is:
12-24V DC material bodies. It is:
" 𝑳𝑳𝑳𝑳
𝐹𝐹𝐹𝐹! = 𝑁𝑁𝑁𝑁$ 𝑁𝑁𝑁𝑁" 𝐸𝐸𝐸𝐸%
# 𝑵𝑵𝑵𝑵 𝑹𝑹𝑹𝑹𝟐𝟐𝟐𝟐
𝑼𝑼𝑼𝑼

Where:
Where:NN1 1 = number of nucleons in
= number of nucleons
body 1. N = nucleons
in body 1.2 N2 in body
= nucleons 2. 2.
in body
En = mass-energy of a nucleon. L =
En = mass-energy of a nucleon. L =
Hubble distance
Hubble distance
NU = nucleons in the entire Universe.
NU = nucleons in the entire Universe.
R = distance between bodies.
R = distance between bodies.
What? Math ? Yes, dear reader.
What? Math
Gravity is best ?understood
Yes, dear when
reader.
Gravity is best understood
constrained by the rigor of math. when
constrained
Thus by thetells
this equation rigorusofthat
math.
the
Connectivity: GTOCP5 Thus this
strength of equation
gravity istells us that
diluted the
by the
nucleons
strength of
of the entire
gravity is Universe.
diluted byThat,
the
the space-energy
nucleons condensed
of the entire to make
Universe. That,
the
thenucleons determines
space-energy condensedgravity.
to make
www.astro-physics.com the nucleons determines gravity.
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 FEBRUARY
VOL. 49, NO. 2
2021

ON THE COVER

CONTENTS 24
Comet C/2020 F3 NEOWISE
stormed into our skies in July and
put on a spectacular — though
relatively brief — show. JOSE CHAMBO

FEATURES COLUMNS
16 COVER STORY 34 48 Strange Universe 14
Top 10 space Star Dome and Studying galaxies BOB BERMAN
stories of 2020 Paths of the Planets with amateur images Secret Sky 58
An international fleet of RICHARD TALCOTT; Advances in our STEPHEN JAMES O’MEARA
spacecraft set off for Mars, ILLUSTRATIONS BY ROEN KELLY understanding of galaxy
Crew Dragon carried formation aren’t just Binocular Universe 59
PHIL HARRINGTON
astronauts to the ISS, and 40 coming from large,
a global pandemic left Corona light professional telescopes. Observing Basics 60
its mark on astronomy. Missed last DAVID MARTÍNEZ-DELGADO GLENN CHAPLE
ALISON KLESMAN AND year’s annular AND R. JAY G A BANY
JAKE PARKS eclipse?
We’ve got you 54 7
24 covered with We review Celestron’s QUANTUM GRAVITY
New Mars rover some of the best 60th anniversary C8 Everything you need to
begins its mission shots out there. The NexStar Evolution 8HD know about the universe
Perseverance is more than just JAY PASACHOFF With StarSense, a limited this month: OSIRIS-
Curiosity’s double — it will edition telescope, combines REx overflows, a look at
hunt for ancient life, cache 46 all of Celestron’s fanciest the birthplace of stars,
samples, and pave the way for Spend some trappings to produce a superb, a twisted solar system,
human explorers. JIM BELL time in Auriga top-of-the-line instrument. and more.
With three Messier objects DAVID J. EICHER
32 and loads of other bright
Sky This Month targets, the Charioteer has a 62 IN EVERY ISSUE
Twilight planets delight. lot to offer. MICHAEL E. BAKICH Ask Astro From the Editor 5
MARTIN RATCLIFFE AND Galactic traffic jam.
Astro Letters 6
ALISTER LING
New Products 61
Advertiser Index 61
Reader Gallery 64
Breakthrough 66
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 FROM THE EDITOR

Editor David J. Eicher

A renewal for Design Director LuAnn Williams Belter

EDITORIAL
Senior Editor Mark Zastrow
Production Editor Elisa R. Neckar

stargazing Senior Associate Editor Alison Klesman

Associate Editor Jake Parks
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ART
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 ASTRO LET TERS

We welcome Teaching the teacher just making it up. Could that have been a “sighting” of
your comments
I taught high school biology for 42 years. I always men- Haidinger’s Brush? — Tim Geddert, Fresno, CA
at Astronomy Letters,
P.O. Box 1612,
tioned the sense of smell could evoke a strong memory
Waukesha, WI 53187; or emotional response, but I never knew why this was
or email to letters@ true. Then comes along Associate Editor Jake Parks, Thoughts on “Learning the hard way”
astronomy.com . who beautifully taught the teacher with his explana- My compliments to Jeff Hester
Please include your tion of how smell works in the sidebar for “What does on his article, “Learning the hard
name, city, state, and Titan smell like?” in the September issue. To my more way,” in the September issue. It was
country. Letters may
than 5,000 former students: I apologize for not explain- a very succinct explanation about
be edited for space
and clarity. ing “the why” of the issue as well as Jake Parks can. the workings of the virus, and it
— Jim McLeod, Charlotte, NC placed the blame without using
names. As a retired registered nurse, I especially appre-
ciated it, but was surprised to see a health article in an
Seeing colors astronomy magazine, even though it affects everyone.
Thank you, Stephen O’Meara, for introduc- Thanks for that very relevant article. — Alice Mack,
ing me to Haidinger’s Brush in the October Fort Myers, FL
issue. I had never heard of it but will
certainly watch for it. Decades ago, I had
a shirt, and I believe it had wide hori- Correction
zontal stripes of blue and white. When In the article “What does Titan smell like” in the
I picked up that shirt, I would often see September 2020 issue, the caption on page 31 incor-
yellow bands running vertically across rectly stated the diameter of Titan is about 1,600 miles
A composite image of the pattern. I’d mention it to others, and (2,600 kilometers). Rather, Titan’s radius is about
Titan, from the Cassini
mission. NASA I think they considered me either crazy or 1,600 miles (2,600 km).

ADVERTISEMENT

If Discoverer Ramesh Varma (India) had been academic qualified PhD scientist (not citizen scientist); discovery claim instead of being an advertisement, would have appeared
in all Science Journals as publication resulting to make it viral among the concerned. (Mode of new discovery information set by the Academic World is a curse on the mankind).

A new discovery claim

magnetic bar to North Pole to repeat the cycle (why is it not Ÿ Smell/Odour particles are the chemical particles
vise- versa?). Further; if South Pole of the magnetic compass released by the decomposition of the organic/ inorganic
is pointed towards the North Pole of the Bar-magnet it forms chemical matter so smell particles are also a state of the
over invisible state of the matter: the same pattern of magnetic rays as North Pole of the matter.
The entire Universe is materialistic; no pocket of the compass forms with the South Pole of the bar -magnet. Then Ÿ Gravity is not a wave or particle matter but it is directly
Universe is with absolute nothing. What we see, we why does the forward direction of the rays differs over North related to the matter of any kind including white-matter.
understand it a matter but whatsoever (particles and rays etc) and South Pole of the bar-magnet?. Pattern formed by the Scientists have claimed that they have detected
in the space we can’t see that too is matter (materialistic). magnetic rays must be the mirror reflection image pattern as gravitational waves emerging from clubbing (collision) of two
Fact: Whatsoever trillions and trillions of stars release in the shown below under the sketch ‘B’. nearby black holes. In fact it was not the gravitational waves
form of invisible matter (rays, particles, gases etc) by losing but were compressions and rarefactions created in the space
their mass in their respective galaxies or in the space that all is
Sketch-B occupied by the white matter as medium, like by the sound in
mixture of different kinds of the matter to be called as white air medium.
matter which has been falsely understood by the Scientists Ÿ Energy is not merely energy but it is a state of the
as dark matter. Further, presence of invisible matter in the matter (white matter), which acts as energy under
galaxies called as dark matter by the Scientists was noticed in specific conditions.
the year 1930s whereas Scientists came to know of the solar There is no dark energy, which is pulling the galaxies
wind in the 1940s. With the result it has been understood that Pattern of rays as understood by the Discovery Claimer and other celestial objects towards outer space (or expanding
Sun loses mass to generate whatsoever it ejects to solar Above stated fact and sketch ‘B’ and ‘C’ below confirms the Universe) but it is the outwards going white matter
space. It is an utmost surprise that until now no one has linked that magnetic particles rays ‘N’ and ‘S’ has been produced particles and rays generated and released by the stars,
mass lost by the stars to generate invisible white matter from the space matter NS by the magnetic matter (Bar planets and other objects that are pushing the celestial
(falsely understood as dark matter. magnet) acting as catalyst and rays ‘N’ and ‘S’ having the objects along with the galaxies towards the outer presumed
Ÿ Rays of all kinds are materialistic: A ray is composed property to re-unite again to form stable white matter NS. end of the Universe.
of finest form of spherical particles. All spherical particles The following sketch ‘C’ as understood by the Discovery Conclusion: Periodic table is for the visible states of the
by closely touching each other form a row or a ray. Claimer also justifies repulsion and attraction to bar magnets matter (solid, liquid and gases) but so far the World has not
Density, diameter and chemical properties of the by the magnetic rays ‘S’ and ‘N’ forming a mirror reflection been able to correctly understand physical, chemical and
spherical particles make a ray of different kind. image pattern. biochemical properties of the invisible matter. Correct
Ÿ Magnetic rays: are composed of finest form of the understanding of true states of the matter and particularly
particle matter. Iron or any other magnetic material acting the invisible matter by the Discovery Claimer has resulted to
as catalyst splits a kind of stable form of white matter of conclude that Prime and only one Fundamental of the
the space say ‘NS’ to two unstable forms of white matter Universe for its existence, formation and working is the
particles rays say ‘N’ and ‘S’; both rays intend to re-unite ‘Universe is materialistic’. Already understood four
to form again stable white matter ‘NS’. fundamentals of the Universe by the World are the sub-
Forward direction of the magnetic particles rays: fundamentals of it. As under the Religion belief there would be
Information taken from the academic books and Internet only one God (not so many). Similarly. there can’t be four
shows pattern of the magnetic rays as shown over the sketch ‘A’. Fundamentals. The said discovered and claimed Prime and
only one Fundamental would lead to replace all theories,
postulations, hypothesises and speculations with the facts.
Ÿ Must read discovery claim advertisements over Astronomy
and Light published in the magazine ‘ASTRONOMY’. which
Ÿ Electrons of an atom, lightning or of the electricity appeared in the issue Feb 2020 to August 2020 (7 Nos) and
are a state of the matter, which act as energy under over subject ‘Light’ (Physics) January 2021.
specific conditions. Generator generates electrons from Ÿ Much more over the discovery claim is over the website
www.newtonugeam.com under title MATERIALISTIC
a kind of the space’s white matter along with the UNIVERSE.
What does the Discovery claimer has understood? m a g n e t i c p a r t i c l e m a t t e r. I n c a s e t e r m i n a l s Ÿ After going through the discovery claim as stated above;
Understood pattern suggests that magnetism or (positive/negative) of the generator are not connected to please reply that why above stated discovered and claimed
magnetic rays are being generated at the North Pole and on any device or to the earth; produced electrons disappear facts are not correct.
entering as South Pole; magnetic rays travel through the to space in the form of white matter. E-mail: ramesh_varma @newtonugeam.com

6 ASTRONOMY • FEBRUARY 2021

 QG QUANTUM GRAVITY EVERYTHING YOU NEED TO KNOW ABOUT THE UNIVERSE THIS MONTH

SNAPSHOT

TREASURES OF THE COSMOS

X-RAY: NASA/CXC; OPTICAL: NASA/STSCI. BOTTOM FROM LEFT: ESO/M. KORNMESSER; NOBEL MEDIA. ILL. NIKLAS ELMEHED; NASA’S GODDARD SPACE FLIGHT CENTER/SDO/JOY NG

If humans could see beyond remnant of a powerful supernova that a powerful collision. And the Helix
just visible light, the universe exploded 160,000 years ago. On the Nebula (bottom right) is a planetary
might look like these images, other hand, Eta Carinae (bottom left) nebula, providing a glimpse at what
which combine observations is a binary star system still waiting to our own Sun might look like 5 billion
from NASA’s Chandra X-Ray go supernova. The Cartwheel Galaxy years in the future, after it expels
Observatory with data from (bottom center) was created after one its outer layers and becomes a white
telescopes that pick up different galaxy punched through another in dwarf. — HAILEY ROSE MCLAUGHLIN
parts of the electromagnetic
spectrum. This multiwave-
length approach to observing
helps researchers gain a fuller
understanding of how these
cosmic wonders behave in
the depths of space. M82 (top
left) is a galaxy facing Earth
edge-on, giving us a unique HOT SPAGHETTIFIED STAR NOBEL PRIZE LUNAR PHOTOBOMB
look at outflows of gas driven Astronomers using Three scientists whose On October 16, 2020,
by star formation and super-
BYTES ESO’s Very Large research focuses on NASA’s Solar Dynamics
Telescope and New black holes shared the Observatory spacecraft
novae. Abell 2744 (top center)
Technology Telescope 2020 Nobel Prize in tracked a stunning lunar
is a galaxy cluster millions got an unprecedented Physics. Half the award transit. At the transit’s
of light-years across, while look at a black hole went to Roger Penrose, peak, the Moon covered
SN 1987A (top right) is the devouring a star, finding while the other half about 44 percent of the
that such events send was jointly awarded to Sun’s disk.
out powerful blasts Reinhard Genzel and
of material that can Andrea Ghez.
obstruct our view.
WWW. ASTRONOMY.COM 7
QUANTUM GRAVITY

OSIRIS-REX OVERFLOWS
WITH SAMPLES
NASA’s daring asteroid mission collected so many
rocks that the craft couldn’t contain them all.

TOUCH AND GO.

OSIRIS-REx’s sample-
collection mechanism
makes contact with
the surface of Bennu
(left) and kicks up a
cloud of rocks and
dust (right). NASA/
GODDARD/UNIVERSITY OF ARIZONA

OSIRIS-REx is getting ready to Bennu is a dark rubble pile of an The spacecraft’s cylindrical sample-
come home — but like a lot of asteroid more than 200 million miles collection head, mounted to a robotic
travelers, it has collected more souve- (322 million kilometers) from Earth. arm, pressed into the regolith — the
nirs than will fit in its luggage. Launched in 2016, OSIRIS-REx arrived in surface layer of dust and rocks — for
This highly relatable problem is a late 2018 and began an intensive survey of six seconds. At the same time, it fired
good one to have, though. It means the 1,640-foot-wide (500 meters) world. a canister of nitrogen gas, kicking up a
the spacecraft’s Touch-And-Go (TAG) Right away, Bennu threw the mission cloud of material into a collecting area
attempt to collect rocks and dust for a loop. The team expected a smooth inside the rim of the sample head.
from the surface of asteroid Bennu surface, like gravel or beach sand. “I must have watched [the video of
October 20 was a smashing success. Instead, the landscape was strewn with the TAG attempt] about 100 times last
OSIRIS-REx — short for Origins, boulders, forcing a complete overhaul night before I finally got a little bit of
Spectral Interpretation, Resource of the craft’s landing software and a shuteye,” said Dante Lauretta of the
Identification, and Security-Regolith painstaking analysis of the asteroid’s University of Arizona, the mission’s
Explorer — is now the third mission to surface to identify a safe landing site. principal investigator, at a media
nick rocks from an asteroid and NASA’s Nearly two years of work came to frui- briefing on October 21. “I dreamed
first, following Japan’s two Hayabusa tion on October 20. First, OSIRIS-REx of a wonderworld of Bennu regolith
missions. navigated down to the surface of Bennu. particles floating all around me.”

8 ASTRONOMY • FEBRUARY 2021

 QUICK
TAKES
TWISTED SOLAR SYSTEM
READING TEA LEAVES
The planets in our solar system Cosmonauts aboard the
orbit the Sun on nearly the same International Space Station tracked
down a pesky minor air leak by
plane. But not every system is as

ESO/L. CALÇADA, EXETER/KRAUS ET AL.

tearing open a tea bag inside the
harmonious. GW Orionis con- affected module and watching the
tains three young stars sowing leaves drift toward the puncture.
chaos. Astronomers have known
for more than a decade that this PHOSPHINE ON VENUS?
system (right) is surrounded by Astronomers say they have
detected phosphine in the clouds
a disk of gas and dust, and new
of Venus. The molecule, which is
observations show that the stars’ gravitational meddling has formed three associated with biotic processes
distinct rings within the disk. The effects have driven the innermost ring on Earth, may be produced by
onto a entirely different plane as the others, shown in this artist’s concept some unknown chemical process
(left). The disks aren’t the only crooked objects — the orbits of the stars or even microbial life. (See “Top 10
space stories of 2020” on page 16
themselves are also misaligned in this skewed system. — CAITLYN BUONGIORNO
for more information.)

ALTERED REALITY
Paradox-free time travel is
CONTINGENCY PLANS On one hand, that probably means
mathematically possible, University
Two days after the TAG attempt, OSIRIS-REx collected even more
of Queensland researchers find.
mission engineers moved the collection material than is visible — perhaps
According to their calculations, if
head in front of the craft’s cameras to up to 4.4 pounds (2 kilograms), the you traveled back in time and
evaluate their haul. Rocks were plainly researchers estimate. “It’s very exciting, interacted with your past self,
visible inside the apparatus — at least very surprising, but overall excellent events would adjust themselves
14 ounces (400 grams), they estimated. news,” Lauretta told reporters on around you to ensure a
But the team also saw something con- October 23. consistent timeline.
cerning: The mylar flap meant to seal in Still, the leaking samples injected a
those precious rock samples was stuck sense of urgency into the mission. The DEARTH METAL
open. A handful of Bennu particles just team cancelled further evaluations Astronomers have found that stars
a few centimeters wide were wedged of their haul to avoid jostling more in the globular cluster RBC EXT8 in
between the flap and the sample head’s particles out of the open flap, instead the Andromeda Galaxy have, on
inner rim. Furthermore, time-lapse opting to stow it as soon as possible average, 800 times less iron than
imagery showed some of the invaluable to minimize losses. By October 28, our Sun, making it the most
pebbles escaping into space. It appeared the material had been secured inside metal-poor globular cluster known.
the collection head was stuffed full and the craft’s sealed capsule, ready for its
literally overflowing. journey back to Earth. MAIDEN FLIGHT
The team estimates that the sample China launched an experimental
head likely bled up to a few ounces of reusable spacecraft September 4
from the Jiuquan Satellite Launch
material while it was exposed to space.
Center. The craft, which deorbited
But the remainder still greatly exceeds
and landed after a two-day mission
the mission’s target of 2.1 ounces (60 g)
shrouded in secrecy, is rumored to
and is on track to become the largest
be a robotic spaceplane akin to the
set of asteroid samples ever returned to
U.S. Air Force X-37B.
Earth by a spacecraft.
Scientists hope scrutinizing the MAKING WAVES
samples will yield insight into the In late October, the LIGO and Virgo
formation of the solar system, as well observatories announced the
RUNNETH OVER. OSIRIS-REx’s sample as life on Earth. They expect to have discovery of 39 gravitational-wave
collection head is seen here with Bennu Bennu’s rocks in their labs shortly after
particles wafting out. The head’s mylar flap signals caused by binary black
(the faint white crescent on the left side of the craft delivers on September 24, 2023. hole or neutron star collisions. The
the inner rim) is visibly wedged open. NASA — MARK ZASTROW signals, received between
April and October 2019, add to
11 previous detections. — M.Z.

WWW. ASTRONOMY.COM 9
QUANTUM GRAVITY

Tangled in a cosmic web But how did these galaxies and the
supermassive black hole find enough
Astronomers have long struggled to material to grow so soon after the Big
understand how supermassive black Bang? The key is likely the vast cosmic
holes could have formed in the early web. This universal scaffolding is woven
universe. Such cosmic goliaths must have through the entire cosmos, connecting
formed quickly — less than a billion years distant galaxies, galaxy clusters, and
after the Big Bang — defying our cur- galaxy superclusters through threads of
rent understanding of how fast a black faint gas known as filaments, which likely
hole can feed and grow. Additionally, formed around clumps of dark matter.
it remains unclear exactly where these The authors of the new study
giants found huge amounts of matter to think the supermassive black hole

ESO/L. CALÇADA
gorge on. and its surrounding galaxies, dubbed
New findings from the European SDSS J1030+0524, likely fed on gas
Southern Observatory’s Very Large that was stockpiled in a tangled knot
Telescope, published October 1 in SPIDER’S WEB. This artist’s concept shows six of cosmic web filaments.
Astronomy & Astrophysics, may provide recently discovered galaxies surrounding a “The cosmic web filaments are like
supermassive black hole in the early universe. It
the answer. is the first such tight-knit group of galaxies seen spider’s web threads,” said lead author
The paper outlines six newly discov- so soon after the Big Bang. Marco Mignoli in a press release. “The
ered galaxies spotted just 900 million galaxies stand and grow where the
years after the Big Bang, when the within the cosmos’ first billion years. And filaments cross, and streams of gas —
universe was only around 6 percent its at the center of this galactic mosh pit lies available to fuel both the galaxies and
current age. This is the first time such a a supermassive black hole a billion times the central supermassive black hole —
close grouping of galaxies has been found the mass of the Sun. can flow along the filaments.” — C.B.

PLANETARY SURFACE PRESSURES

UNDER PRESSURE. Surface pressure
is the pressure exerted on you by MERCURY VENUS EARTH MARS
the weight of the atmosphere above
your location. The composition and
thickness of a planet’s atmosphere
affects the pressure at its surface — a
thicker, heavier atmosphere translates
to a higher surface pressure. On
Earth, the surface pressure at sea level
is 1 atmosphere, which is equivalent
to 14.696 pounds per square inch
(1.033 kg/cm2). This is how the other
terrestrial planets compare to our
own, as a ratio of Earth’s surface
pressure. — ALISON KLESMAN 0 92 1 0.01
FAST FACT
This measurement is not possible for
ASTRONOMY: ROEN KELLY

the outer planets, whose volumes are mostly

gas and lack traditional surfaces. They do
have solid cores, but these are so deep that
their location is not exactly known.

10 ASTRONOMY • FEBRUARY 2021

 SOPHIA DAGNELLO, NRAO/AUI/NSF
Source of fast radio bursts revealed
PENT-UP ENERGY. A
magnetar emits a burst AFTER MORE THAN A DECADE of detective think, could trigger powerful shock
of radiation from one side
of its magnetic field in work, astronomers have found the waves with the stunning magnetic
this artist’s concept.
best evidence yet for the cause of fast properties needed to produce FRBs.
radio bursts, or FRBs. The culprit? However, we know of only a handful
Magnetars, according to three papers of magnetars in our Milky Way galaxy,
published in Nature November 4. and they all seem too tame to cause
FRBs have become one of the most these extreme signals. To know for
1/3000 exciting enigmas in astronomy. For
astronomers, the mystery began with
sure whether these stars could generate
FRBs, astronomers would have to catch
The carbon
a burst of radio waves that traveled a Milky Way magnetar in the act.
footprint
1.6 billion light-years and arrived In late April 2020, a magnetar
of the 2020 at Earth on July 24, 2001. Lasting dubbed SGR 1935+2154 began blasting
meeting of just five milliseconds, it carried as out X-rays near the center of our gal-
the European much energy in radio waves as the axy, some 30,000 light-years away. As
Astronomical Sun puts out in an entire month. interest in this object built, astrono-
Society — Incredibly, it went unnoticed until mers turned ground- and space-based
2006, when it was discovered in telescopes in its direction. They were
held virtually
archived data. Since then, radio obser- just in time to watch the activity build
due to the vatories have spied dozens of FRB to a crescendo: first X-ray bursts, then
coronavirus sources, but the nature of the objects gamma rays — and eventually, the
pandemic — producing them has proven elusive. blast of a fast radio burst. It was the
as a fraction Modeling has indicated that first FRB ever observed in our home
of the carbon magnetars could act as “engines” for galaxy, as well as the first FRB clearly
footprint of FRBs. Magnetars, short for “magnetic associated with a single object.
stars,” are highly magnetic remnants “This discovery paints a picture
the previous
of massive dead stars. As a magnetar that some — and perhaps most — of
year’s flares, it sends out blasts of energetic these fast radio bursts from other gal-
in-person particles. Its powerful magnetic field axies also originate from magnetars,”
meeting in then accelerates these particles around Christopher Bochenek, a graduate
Lyon, France. the star, where models suggest the student at Caltech and co-author
particles ram into material from previ- of one of the studies, said in a press
ous flares. Such collisions, researchers conference. — ERIC BETZ

WWW. ASTRONOMY.COM 11
QUANTUM GRAVITY

Simulations zoom in BIRTHPLACE

on dark matter OF THE
REPEATING HALOS.
Inside a simulated
region of the universe
STARS
2 billion light-years Stars are born within enor-
across, large blobs
of dark matter are mous clouds of gas and dust.
the size of galaxy While the Orion Nebula
clusters. By zooming
in — the first inset is is one of the most famous
700,000 light-years — and closest — examples,
across, while the
second inset is just the Carina Nebula is some
600 light-years 500 times larger, making it

INTERNATIONAL GEMINI OBSERVATORY/NOIRLAB/NSF/AURA ACKNOWLEDGMENT: PI: PATRICK HARTIGAN (RICE UNIVERSITY); IMAGE PROCESSING:
across — researchers
resolved clumps of another favorite for research-
dark matter roughly
ers. This new image from the

PATRICK HARTIGAN (RICE UNIVERSITY), TRAVIS RECTOR (UNIVERSITY OF ALASKA ANCHORAGE), MAHDI ZAMANI & DAVIDE DE MARTIN
the size of Earth.
Gemini Observatory captures
their surprise, the the western wall of the Carina
filament-and-clump
Nebula like never before, tak-
structure repeated
itself down to the ing advantage of a technique
J. WANG, S. BOSE/CFA

smallest scales known as adaptive optics,

they simulated, which allows astronomers to
where the dark compensate for the effects of
matter clumps are Earth’s turbulent atmosphere.
Dark matter is a mys- from China, the U.S., and only the size of Earth. In this image, researchers
terious material that Germany — began by The similarity isn’t
have already spotted a num-
makes up more than simulating a universe just visual: Analysis
80 percent of all mat- filled with dark matter. showed that the varia-
ber of unexpected structures,
ter in the universe. This The result was similar tion in density — from including a long series of
strange stuff permeates to those from previous their center to their parallel ridges possibly
and surrounds every computer simulations: a fringes — in small and produced by a magnetic field,
galaxy, and clumps of cosmic web of filaments large halos also mirrors evidence of a strong wind
dark matter, called halos, and clumps called dark each other. blowing off fragments from
are where galaxies tend matter halos. That information the cloud, and a possible jet
to form. Now, supercom- But the team then could aid the search for
being ejected from a newly
puter simulations have took their simulations a dark matter. While dark
found that these cosmic step further and focused matter does not interact
formed star. — C.B.
clumps of dark matter in on a small area, run- with normal matter, it
look surprisingly alike, ning the entire model should give off a burst
no matter their size — again for just that region. of gamma-ray light
whether they encompass The team repeated the when it collides with its
monstrous galaxy clus- process eight times, antimatter equivalent
ters or are mini-blobs the effectively zooming in and the particles anni-
size of Earth. each time to reveal finer hilate each other. This
The results of the and finer details. is most likely to happen
simulations, published Prior to these simu- at the centers of dark
September 2 in Nature, lations, astronomers matter halos, where
show some of the most expected the smallest the density is high. The
detailed models con- clumps of dark matter to simulations’ results can
structed to date of the look different from the now help astronomers
structure of dark matter. largest halos, which may understand how much of
The authors — a be the building blocks of this radiation they might
team of researchers some galaxy clusters. To be able to detect. — M.Z.

12 ASTRONOMY • FEBRUARY 2021

PLANET CAPTURED
IN THE LIGHT OF A

NASA/JPL-CALTECH/GODDARD SPACE FLIGHT CENTER

DYING STAR
RESEARCHERS HAVE FOUND a Jupiter-sized planet orbiting
the remains of an exhausted star some 80 light-years
away. The international team of astronomers spotted
the unlikely pair using NASA’s Transiting Exoplanet
Survey Satellite (TESS) and data from the retired
Spitzer Space Telescope. its outer layers and loses most of its mass, leaving
The dead star, dubbed WD 1856+534, is a white dwarf behind a smoldering stellar core. Distant objects
— the stellar ember of a Sun-like star — only 40 percent within a system, such as asteroids and comets, can
the diameter of Earth. That makes it seven times smaller be pulled inward by this disruptive death. But these
than the Jupiter-sized planet orbiting it, shown here objects are usually ripped apart by the star’s grav-
DWARFED. A Jupiter-sized planet
in an artist’s concept. The planet, WD 1856 b, speeds ity. This is the first time astronomers
dwarfs have
its host star, WD found
1856+534,
around its host every 34 hours. For comparison, it takes a planet that managed intothis survive with its
artist’s concept. Thehost
planetstar,
may have originated 50 times far-
Mercury 88 days to complete a single orbit. sweeping in toward thether star
awayduring
than its its final
current stage
orbit,
When a star similar to our Sun runs out of fuel, it of life. The finding alsobefore being swept
expands closer as the
the possibilities of
star threw off its outer layers,
balloons outward, forming a red giant that gobbles where life could manage to take
becoming holddwarf.
a white elsewhere in
up any planets in its path. Eventually, the star ejects the universe. — C.B.

Sprites and elves frolic in Jupiter’s skies

K8P0V4L

Lightning is familiar throughout the away from a cloud, leaving it negatively

solar system. But it isn’t the only electri- charged. This triggers sprites above the
cal outburst that can occur. Stunning, storm. Elves look more like expanding
evanescent events called sprites and doughnuts or rings and form when
elves are sometimes seen prancing electromagnetic pulses released during a
above thunderclouds on Earth. And thunderstorm slam into the ionosphere.
NASA’s Juno spacecraft appears to have Over the past four years, Juno’s
also captured these flashes on Jupiter Ultraviolet Spectrograph instrument
— the first time these events have captured 11 brief, bright flashes of
been observed on another planet. ultraviolet (UV) light lasting between
Both sprites (which stands 0.1 and 2.5 milliseconds. They are the
for Stratospheric/mesospheric first-ever lightninglike flashes recorded
Perturbations Resulting from Intense on Jupiter at UV wavelengths, and also
Thunderstorm Electrification) and the first TLEs spotted on another world.
elves (Emission of Light and Very The flashes originated exactly where
Low Frequency perturbations due to sprites and elves are assumed to form on
Electromagnetic Pulse Sources) are a Jupiter, above the water cloud layer where
type of transient luminous event, or lightning is generated. Scientists aren’t
TLE, lasting only milliseconds. sure which TLEs Juno saw — sprites or
Sprites typically have round, blobby elves — but now that they know what to
centers that sprout tendrils of light look for, the researchers think it will be
upward or downward. They occur when easier to spot these phenomena on Jupiter
NASA/JPL-CALTECH/SWRI

lightning bolts funnel positive charge and in the clouds of other planets, too. — A.K.
CHANGING COLORS. On Earth, sprites and elves appear red, thanks to the abundance
of nitrogen in our atmosphere. But in Jupiter’s hydrogen-dominated atmosphere, these
phenomena likely appear pink or blue, as in this artist’s concept.

WWW. ASTRONOMY.COM 13
 STRANGE UNIVERSE

The devil’s in the details

What should you really look for through the eyepiece?

This 2004 image of

Saturn shows clearly
the Cassini division — You’ve heard the cliché about details. But it’s Very cool, but not a fine-detail challenge, since
the dark gap between
the planet’s A and B celestially inaccurate, because details are observing them requires no more than a $5 toy telescope.
rings. Spotting details where we usually discover the sublime — or, Sharp-eyed observers have even claimed to see them
like this is what keep at least, they’re what lure our attention. So, what is it unaided. So if you did invest more than $5 and want to
us returning to the
eyepiece. NASA/JPL/SPACE that we crave to see, time and time again? “open ’er up” to see what the 440-horsepower engine
SCIENCE INSTITUTE For the sake of newbies who are just starting on this under your telescope’s hood will accomplish, you’ll want
epic adventure of exploring the universe, let’s more of a challenge.
help whittle down the long process of deciding But first, a reminder that whatever cosmic
where to look. Our theme this month is the wonder you’re after, optics alone aren’t enough.
exquisite detail that, I guarantee, you’ll keep Details are If someone gave you the keys to the two
trying to observe. where we 6.5-meter Magellan Telescopes (along with the
For example, everyone enjoys watching usually instruction booklet explaining how to detach
Jupiter’s four big moons form a straight line discover the all 30 cables from the echelle spectrograph and
with military band precision. As giant instead insert a nice 30mm visual eyepiece),
Ganymede circles back to its starting point
sublime. you’d still need a night of good seeing, or atmo-
once a week, Europa goes around exactly spheric stillness. Fine detail always requires
twice — to the second! And in that same good seeing. Where I live, excellent seeing
BY BOB BERMAN interval, Io completes four revolutions, again with conditions arrive as often as magnetic pole reversals. But
Bob’s newest book, one-second accuracy. They’re bright, easy to see, and when they do come — heralded when stars are not twin-
Earth-Shattering unique. And no other planet with satellites shares kling in the least — we excitedly look for cool details.
(Little, Brown and
Jupiter’s lack of axial tilt. Jove’s poles angle a negligible On Jupiter, that starts with the Great Red Spot, the
Company, 2019),
explores the greatest 3° from vertical. And since its satellites orbit its equator, comically understated name for the universe’s largest
cataclysms that have they must line up no matter where in their orbit they hurricane. (Official celestial names rarely serve as wor-
shaken the universe. happen to be. thy observing suggestions.) Jupiter’s coolest features may

14 ASTRONOMY • FEBRUARY 2021

be the unnamed cloud details: Between its main dark
belts, on the equator, diagonal white clouds contain
breaks where one can peer deeply down and see actual
blue sky, no joke. Some of us routinely seek out those
amazing unnamed cobalt sky patches.
On Saturn, most observers seeking fine detail first
try for the Cassini division. This inky gap between its
A and B rings highlights the yawning breach separating
the rings’ unique, epic beauty and their names, lazily
derived from the alphabet. We often give things letters,
like the six stars in M42’s stunning Trapezium and lunar
craters around larger ones (Copernicus A, B, C, etc.). It’s
not a bad idea, except where exceptional beauty cries
out, unanswered, to try to stir a poet on the International
Astronomical Union’s naming committee. As for that
Cassini break, its impossibly narrow, half-arcsecond
width somehow materializes whenever the air is steady.
In the entire universe, no other thin dark line is more
observed, sought after, or treasured.
You get the gist of my criteria. So, I’ll skip any further
literary flourishes and simply list 10 examples of details
telescopists try for when observing various celestial
objects:

1 Mars: The polar caps and dark surface

markings
2 Orion Nebula (M42): Those six
Trapezium stars
3 NGC 4575: A silhouetted black dust
lane running this edgewise galaxy’s entire
length
4 M51: The galaxy’s two spiral arms
5 The Moon: Six craterlets forming a
French curve inside Clavius

6 Sirius: Its “Pup” companion star

ABOVE: NGC 7000,
7 M87: A single jet of near-light-speed also known as the
North America
material issuing from the galaxy’s core Nebula, floats in the
upper left corner of
8 Mercury: The planet’s Moon-like this image. Can you
phases, slight orange color, and subtle dark see the faint outline
surface blotch of the continent for
which it is named?
9 NGC 7000: The outline of North America DENNIS HARPER

LEFT: M51 (on the

10 The Horsehead Nebula: Anything right) is a face-on
resembling the knight from your chess set spiral galaxy with
prominent arms that
attentive amateurs
But what about you? Is there some marvelous detail can glimpse through
the eyepiece.
you glimpsed long ago and have sought out ever since? STEPHEN RAHN
Some enchanting feature the rest of us should hunt for?
Share it! That’s the point of this column.
Let’s make it a contest — the winner gets to replace
the names of Saturn’s A and B rings with more inspira-
tional letters.

BROWSE THE “STRANGE UNIVERSE” ARCHIVE

AT www.Astronomy.com/Berman

WWW. ASTRONOMY.COM 15
 An international fleet of spacecraft set off for
Mars, Crew Dragon carried astronauts to the ISS,
and a global pandemic left its mark on astronomy.

TO P 10
SPACE STORIES
2020 OF

Mars and Venus

BY ALISON KLESMAN AND JAKE PARKS 9 are geologically
active
ON FEBRUARY 24, 2020,
2020 WAS A WILD YEAR. Astronomers kicked it off with researchers released the initial
the discovery of a distant galaxy group. Closer to home, they results of NASA’s InSight lander on
saw the Milky Way doing the wave and confirmed geologic Mars. Covering the first 10 months
activity on Mars. The star Betelgeuse underwent a strange and of the mission, the findings included
striking dimming event, while naked-eye Comet NEOWISE the conclusion that the Red Planet is
took our breath away. And a major announcement about seismically active.
Venus sparked intense interest; that researchers are still scruti- Of 174 marsquakes recorded from
nizing the result is a signal that science is working as it should. February to September 2019, scien-
tists traced two of the strongest to
In May, SpaceX’s Crew Dragon capsule ferried astronauts to Cerberus Fossae. This young region
the International Space Station from U.S. soil, the first such has undergone volcanism and other
trip in nearly a decade. Two months later, three new missions geologic changes in the last 20 million
launched for Mars to usher in a new era of robotic exploration. to 2.5 million years, says Suzanne
The global pandemic that defined much of the year changed Smrekar, deputy principal investiga-
how scientists worked and shuttered telescopes for months. But tor for InSight. “Mars’ surface is on
despite these challenges, our top 10 space stories show how we average several billion years old, so
pressed on with new, innovative ways to explore our universe. anything in the million-year range is
 Earliest galaxy
10 group found
THE COSMIC Vithal Tilvi of Arizona State
DARK AGES University, who is part of
began 380,000 years the Cosmic Deep And
after the Big Bang. At first, Wide Narrowband (Cosmic
no stars or galaxies existed DAWN) survey seeking
to emit light. But even after to understand this era.
these objects began forming, Astronomers also aren’t sure
their light remained shroud- how fast the transition from
ed because the universe was an opaque to a transparent
filled with a “fog” of neutral universe occurred. EGS77 (circled in green) is the earliest galaxy group ever discovered. The inset
artist’s concept shows how these galaxies are blowing bubbles of ionized
hydrogen atoms that absorb Then the survey found hydrogen around them during the era of reionization. NASA, ESA AND V. TILVI (ASU)
and scatter ultraviolet light. EGS77: three galaxies shining
Over time, energetic ultra- 680 million years after the
violet light from early objects Big Bang, when the universe light-years across. These bub- team to spot fainter galaxies
ionized these hydrogen atoms, was just 5 percent its current bles overlap, creating a larger, than could be seen if they
knocking away their elec- age. “[It’s] the most distant single region of space that’s were alone.
trons. This era of reionization group of galaxies — and free of cosmic fog, allowing In the future, Tilvi says,
ended 1 billion years after the therefore the earliest group of light to travel freely. “So far we using the same technique will
Big Bang, leaving the universe galaxies in the universe — we had [seen] individual galaxies allow researchers to discover
transparent to light. have ever seen,” says Tilvi, spread across the survey areas. more faint galaxies. That will
But astronomers aren’t whose team published their This is the first time we have ensure astronomers don’t
sure exactly what types of find February 27 in The found a group of galaxies” underestimate the number
objects — galaxies, black Astrophysical Journal Letters. making the universe transpar- of dim galaxies — which we
holes, or stars — were Each galaxy is generating ent, says Tilvi. By virtue of know outnumber bright ones
responsible for clearing the a bubble of ionized hydrogen being in a group, EGS77’s — responsible for bringing
fog during reionization, says about 2 million to 3 million combined bubbles allowed the about cosmic dawn.

super intriguing,” she adds. “Where’s the features called coronae, which scientists think
energy [for the activity] coming from? Why form when faults develop around areas where
there and not elsewhere on Mars?” rising magma lifts up the surface. By comparing
By late September 2020, InSight had 3D models of how coronae form and evolve
recorded about 500 quakes, roughly 50 of with observations of Venus’ surface, the team
which give clues about the planet’s deep inte- concluded at least 37 of the planet’s large coro-
rior, Smrekar says. By studying how seismic nae are still evolving — indicating the planet is
Cerberus Fossae is a young,
waves travel through the lower crust, scientists geologically active region of Mars geologically active.
have learned Mars’ crust is likely intact — responsible for at least two powerful Smrekar — who is also principal investigator
quakes detected by NASA’s InSight
“more like Earth’s than the Moon’s, where the lander. ESA/DLR/FU BERLIN, CC BY-SA 3.0 IGO
of the Venus Emissivity, Radio Science, InSAR,
crust has been pummeled and fragmented by Topography & Spectroscopy (VERITAS) mis-
impacts,” she says. “Overall, we are seeing a sion currently under consideration for NASA
level of seismicity within the predicted range,” funding, and who worked on the Magellan
Smrekar concludes — except when it comes to spacecraft that orbited Venus in the early 1990s
bigger quakes, which are rarer than expected. — isn’t surprised. Despite the fact that the idea
“It may be that we just need to be patient, or of Venus as a geologically dead planet has per-
maybe Mars is behaving in a way that we sisted, she says, “There [have been] a bunch of
didn’t anticipate.” recent studies that point to current, geologically
But Mars isn’t the only active inner planet. recent activity on Venus.”
The large, circular Aine Corona
On July 20, a paper in Nature Geoscience dominates this Magellan radar And research into Venus is gaining even
added evidence for recent volcanic activity on image of Venus’ surface. New more momentum, as evidenced by No. 2 on this
research suggests dozens of these
Venus. Researchers led by Anna Gülcher at features are still active on the
list. “I’m positive this will lead to great new sci-
ETH Zürich in Switzerland looked at circular planet. NASA/JPL ence,” Smrekar says.

WWW. ASTRONOMY.COM 17
 Solar science enters
7 a golden age
ALTHOUGH THE CLOSEST STAR to
Earth has been widely studied, the Sun still
maintains some secrets. But perhaps not for
long, as a veritable armada of solar science missions
may soon unlock the last mysteries.
“In my opinion, the most interesting and signifi-
cant solar discoveries have been coming from the
Parker Solar Probe,” says Russell Howard, head of
the U.S. Naval Research Laboratory’s Solar and
Heliospheric Physics branch in Washington, D.C.,
and principal investigator for Parker’s Wide-field
Imager for Solar PRobe (WISPR). Parker, which
launched in 2018, “has been making both in situ and
remote sensing observations from … much closer
to the Sun than ever before.” Recently, the probe
revealed that the Sun’s magnetic field is surprisingly
complex far from the star. The simple dipole (like a
bar magnet) structure researchers expected is there,

Betelgeuse blows its

8 nose in our direction
IN LATE 2019, Orion the Hunter began
having shoulder problems: Betelgeuse,
the red giant star that marks the figure’s
right shoulder, started dimming dramatically.
While astronomers know the star varies regularly over
time, this episode was both unexpected and unusually
SpaceX’s Crew
extreme, noticeable even to naked-eye observers. By Dragon capsule
mid-February 2020, the star was just one-third its normal prepares to
brightness and the astronomical community was abuzz — dock with the
International
could this signal an impending supernova explosion? Space Station
But, spoiler alert, Betelgeuse remains a fixture in our during the
Demo-2
night sky. It’s also back to normal brightness. So, what mission in this
happened? An August 13, 2020, paper in The Astrophysical artist’s concept.
SPACEX
Journal provides the explanation. Based on Hubble Space
Telescope observations leading up to the so-called
“Great Dimming Event,” the authors concluded the star
“sneezed” out a cloud of hot gas from its photosphere in
fall 2019. By the time it reached millions of miles from the
star, the cloud had cooled and condensed into dust grains
that temporarily obscured the star’s southern hemisphere
and made Betelgeuse appear dimmer.
According to study leader Andrea Dupree of the
Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics in
Cambridge, Massachusetts, events like this can
show astronomers how stars like Betelgeuse lose A NEARBY SUPERNOVA?
mass — a process that is poorly understood.
Despite its continued presence, questions still abound about what
we’ll see when Betelgeuse does finally end its life in a brilliant
explosion. To observers on Earth, “all this brightness would be
In late 2019, Betelgeuse sneezed out a cloud of hot gas. Over concentrated into one point,” says University of California, Santa
the next few months, that gas condensed into dust that Barbara, astronomer Andy Howell, whose answer is based on
blocked a portion of the star’s light, as shown in this artist’s
simulations run by two UCSB graduate students, Jared Goldberg and
concept. ESO, ESA/HUBBLE, M. KORNMESSER
Evan Bauer. “It would be this incredibly intense beacon in the sky
that would cast shadows at night, and that you could see during the
daytime. Everyone all over the world would be curious about it,
because it would be unavoidable.” — Eric Betz, A.K.
18 ASTRONOMY • FEBRUARY 2021
 SOLAR ORBITER/EUI TEAM/ESA & NASA; CSL, IAS, MPS, PMOD/WRC, ROB, UCL/MSSL
Sun in mid-June. Its 10 instruments are working as expected
— or better, says Howard, who is also principal investigator
of the Solar Orbiter Heliospheric Imager (SoloHI).
SoloHI appears less affected by stray light than estimated
and the magnetometer observed the signs of a coronal mass
ejection event. Ultraviolet images show never-before-seen
bright spots on the Sun. Small and ubiquitous, each is about
a millionth to a billionth the size of a traditional solar flare.
Researchers have christened them “campfires,” and suspect
they are either miniature solar flares or perhaps related to
nanoflares, which are thought to heat the Sun’s outer atmo-
sphere, the corona.
The more sensors in the solar wind, the better, Howard
Solar Orbiter snapped this ultraviolet image of the Sun from halfway between says, because that gives scientists a more comprehensive
Earth and our star. It is the closest photo of the Sun ever taken.
view. Parker and Solar Orbiter are also joined by the Solar
and Heliospheric Observatory, the two Solar Terrestrial
Howard says, but overlaid with other structures as well, Relations Observatory probes, the BepiColombo mission,
which scientists are now modeling to better understand. and the ground-based Daniel K. Inouye Solar Telescope.
Soon to observe in tandem with Parker is the European “I am extremely excited about this ‘golden age’ of solar
Space Agency/NASA Solar Orbiter spacecraft. After launch- observations from five different space probes and the
ing February 9, 2020, the probe made its first close pass of the ground-based observations,” Howard says.

The launch, which was due to the detection of low

streamed online and aired levels of a potentially toxic
by all major TV news net- propellant called nitrogen
works, was viewed live by tetroxide. After it was
some 10 million people. The purged from the spacecraft,
following day, the spacecraft the astronauts safely exited
docked with the ISS and its the sealed crew cabin,
passengers, astronauts proving the privately built
Doug Hurley and capsule’s worth.
Robert Behnken, migrated to On November 15, the
the orbiting research first official Crew
lab, where they Dragon mission,
spent the next dubbed Crew-1,
two months blasted off for
testing Crew the ISS. After
Dragon and docking with
carrying out the space sta-
science tion the next
experiments. day, NASA
Once their stint NASA/JSC astronauts Michael
on the ISS concluded, the Hopkins, Victor Glover,
pair hopped back into Crew and Shannon Walker, as
Dragon and set course for well as JAXA astronaut
home. Shortly after 1:48 P.M. Soichi Noguchi, boarded
Crew Dragon ferries CDT on August 2, Hurley the ISS, where, as of the

6 astronauts, a first
SINCE THE (ISS). But that’s not the case
and Behnken splashed down time of this writing, they
in the Gulf of Mexico. The
capsule was plucked from
continue to work.
Now that two Crew
RETIREMENT anymore. In a historic first, the water by the recovery Dragon spacecraft have
of the Space Shuttle the private spaceflight com- ship Go Navigator shortly successfully delivered
Program in 2011, NASA pany SpaceX launched two thereafter. Out of an abun- astronauts to the ISS, the
astronauts have depended American astronauts into orbit dance of caution, the future once again looks
on Russia for rides to the May 30 as part of the Crew astronauts’ departure from bright for American crewed
International Space Station Dragon Demo-2 mission. Crew Dragon was delayed spaceflight.

WWW. ASTRONOMY.COM 19
 LEFT: Comet NEOWISE’s twin tails
spread across the sky over West
Texas. Now on its way back to
the outer solar system, NEOWISE
won’t return for nearly 7,000 years.
JAMES LOWREY

eagerly awaited C/2019 Y4

(ATLAS), whose mid-May
glow astronomers predicted
would be rivaled only by
Venus. But on April 11,
amateur astronomer
Jose de Queiroz snapped
a photo that showed the
comet breaking up. Hubble
images on April 20 and 23
confirmed the comet had
fragmented into several
pieces — an interesting turn
A triple comet surprise of events for researchers,

5
but one that quashed any
WHEN IT WAS after its December 8, 2019, chances of ATLAS achiev-
DISCOVERED perihelion pass. ing “great comet” status.
August 30, 2019, John Noonan of the Fortunately, C/2020 F3
the second-known Lunar and Planetary (NEOWISE) stepped up. It
interstellar visitor to our solar Laboratory at the University flared to naked-eye visibility
system, Comet 2I/Borisov, of Arizona, Tucson, was part between magnitude 1 and 2
hadn’t yet made its closest of a team that observed after rounding the Sun on
pass to the Sun (called peri- Borisov with the Hubble July 3, just over three months
Our solar system’s second helion). Unlike 1I/2017 U1 Space Telescope in late after its discovery. The comet
identified extrasolar visitor,
Comet Borisov, appeared much ‘Oumuamua, which was spot- December and early January. quickly developed a pictur-
more cometlike than ‘Oumuamua. ted only after it had already They looked for carbon esque pair of gas and dust
This Hubble image was snapped
shortly after Borisov made its rounded our star, astrono- monoxide (CO) sublimating, tails that ultimately stretched
closest approach to the Sun in mers were able to watch or turning directly from solid more than 30° across the sky
December 2019. NASA, ESA AND Borisov before, during, and ice to gas, off the surface. and offered an ideal target
D. JEWITT (UCLA)
“[CO] sublimates at very low for astrophotographers.
temperatures. So, if you see NEOWISE spent several
carbon monoxide, that tells weeks delighting skywatch-
you something has been cold ers as the brightest Northern
THE COVID-19 PANDEMIC for a very long time,” he says. Hemisphere comet since
The coronavirus pandemic impacted astronomy in 2020 in many On Borisov, “there was C/1995 O1 (Hale-Bopp).
ways, from major observatories shuttering their scopes to mass more carbon monoxide than “What a great little comet!”
transitions to remote work. More than 100 of Earth’s largest tele- there was water, which is astrophotographer John
scopes closed at some point during the year. Jet Propulsion pretty much unheard of” for Chumack wrote in an email
Laboratory engineers, unable to take their high-performance com-
comets in our own solar sys- on July 29 to Astronomy.
puters and virtual reality setups out of the lab, drove Curiosity on
Mars from home using plastic red-blue 3D glasses to visualize the tem, Noonan says. The By then, the comet was a
rover’s complex environment. And scientists launching missions out-of-whack ratio means 4th-magnitude target low in
such as Solar Orbiter and Mars 2020 faced unique challenges Borisov “very clearly formed the northern sky. “Over the
imposed by travel restrictions to reduce the spread of disease. in a system … very different last few weeks, NEOWISE
Fall 2020 saw a rash of telescope reopenings as conditions in
than our own.” That place put on a nice show for us
some locations improved. The Very Energetic Radiation Imaging
Telescope Array System in Arizona and the Las Campanas could have been around a red Northern Hemisphere
Observatory in Chile had reopened by October 8. dwarf star — stars smaller observers. Some of my
Telescopes at Kitt Peak in Arizona, and Cerro and cooler than our Sun, and astronomy friends in the
Pachón and Cerro Tololo in Chile, also began commonplace throughout Southern Hemisphere have
reopening at that time. By late October, the
the galaxy. now got to glimpse it and
Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter
SARAYUT THANEERAT/DREAMSTIME

Array was also readying for reopening As Borisov faded from they are reporting it still
and a new round of South Pole headlines, comet enthusiasts fading,” he said.
Telescope observers had gone into
quarantine to prevent carrying the
virus to Antarctica. — A.K., E.B.

20 ASTRONOMY • FEBRUARY 2021

 First midsized black hole detected FAST FACTS
4 BLACK HOLES COME in
a variety of sizes, ranging
scientists at the Laser Interferometer
Gravitational-wave Observatory (LIGO) Stellar-mass black holes:
a few to 100 solar masses
from a few to billions of times and the partnering Virgo site received
the mass of the Sun. Although the first convincing sign: gravitational Intermediate-mass black holes:
there is ample evidence for stellar-mass waves that point to the violent birth of 100 to 1 million solar masses
and supermassive black holes, there is an intermediate-mass black hole (IMBH).
surprisingly little proof of their middle- After spending more than a year scru- Supermassive black holes:
weight brethren. But on May 21, 2019, tinizing the signal (called GW190521), millions to billions of solar masses
which lasted just a tenth of a second, on
September 2, 2020, an international team
An IMBH is born of researchers released two papers detail- 85 solar masses, so the larger one firmly
ing their results: The gravitational waves falls in the “pair-instability mass gap.”
originated halfway across the universe and When most massive stars die, they leave
were produced when two hefty black holes behind a black hole. But when a star
GW190521 merged to create an IMBH about 142 weighs 130 to 200 solar masses, photons
times the mass of the Sun. Their collision in its core become so energetic they
GW150914 also released a stupendous amount of morph into electron-antielectron pairs,
energy, equivalent to roughly eight solar which can’t fully combat gravity. The star
GW170608 masses, as gravitational waves. becomes extremely unstable and, after
Although this detection confirms that going supernova, leaves nothing behind.
IMBHs exist, it also raises questions. The “This event opens more questions
GW190814 progenitor black holes weigh in at 66 and than it provides answers,” LIGO member
Alan Weinstein, professor of physics at
GW190521 signaled the birth of an intermediate- Caltech, said in a press release. “From the
mass black hole. But it didn’t sound like a typical
“chirp” — it was more like a “bang.” D. FERGUSON, K. JANI,
perspective of discovery and physics, it’s a
D. SHOEMAKER, P. LAGUNA, GEORGIA TECH, MAYA COLLABORATION very exciting thing.”

The Milky Way does the wave star-forming regions that make up the Wave. That work

3
involved combining observations of the way intervening dust
BECAUSE WE ARE EMBEDDED within the and gas makes starlight appear redder with accurate distance
Milky Way Galaxy, mapping its large-scale struc- measurements to those stars from ESA’s Gaia spacecraft.
ture is challenging. That is especially the case for “Since this effect [reddening] is observable throughout our
galactic star-forming regions, huge clouds of gas solar neighborhood, it allowed us to determine the distances
and dust whose distance is difficult to measure because to a huge sample of star-forming regions, using the same
they aren’t points like single stars. But new work by Harvard technique, for the first time,” Zucker says. “Previous distance
University astronomers published January 7, 2020, in Nature techniques were piecemeal, obtained inhomogeneously on a
dramatically increased the accuracy of distance measurements cloud-by-cloud basis.”
to nearby star-forming regions. It also uncovered something Her technique revealed, to a factor of five times better
unexpected: the Radcliffe Wave. than previous measurements, the distances to nearby
Nearly 9,000 light-years long and 400 light-years wide, this star-forming regions — and the Radcliffe Wave. “In the
snaking line of interconnected star-forming regions rises above future, this will force us to reframe our understanding of star
and dips below the plane of our galaxy. It lies less than 500 formation on small scales (i.e., within individual molecular
light-years from Earth at its nearest point and connects molec- clouds) in a larger galactic context,” she says.
ular clouds in Orion, Taurus, Perseus, Cepheus, and Cygnus.
“Prior to the discovery of the Radcliffe Wave, star-forming
regions were studied in relative isolation. The Radcliffe Wave
showed that all these regions are connected on the grandest
of scales, via tendrils of filamentary gas, which is something
we never knew before,” says Catherine Zucker, whose Ph.D.
work at Harvard led the effort to pin down distances to the

The Radcliffe Wave (shown in red; the location of our Sun appears in yellow) is
a sinuous structure thousands of light-years long and hundreds of light-years
wide. It connects several star-forming regions and likely forms the densest part
of the spiral arm in which the Sun resides. IMAGE FROM THE WORLDWIDE TELESCOPE, COURTESY OF
ALYSSA GOODMAN
 Researchers think
they’ve detected signs
of a biosignature,
phosphine (left), in
Venus’ clouds. But that
claimed detection has
since come under
1
heavy scrutiny. ASTRONOMY:
ROEN KELLY; ALMA (ESO/NAOJ/NRAO),

Missions to
GREAVES ET AL. & JCMT (EAST ASIAN
OBSERVATORY)

MARS
Astronomers spy phosphine on Venus
2 VENUS IS A SIZZLING
world thought by many
others remain skeptical. Chemical com-
pounds each have a unique spectrum, or
AS USUAL,
THE RED
to be inhospitable to life. fingerprint, that depends on the wave- PLANET
Surface temperatures are lengths of light they absorb. Although the has had quite HOPE
hot enough to melt lead — almost researchers detected this fingerprint of a year. Not only
900 degrees Fahrenheit (480 degrees phosphine with two independent tele- did NASA’s InSight lander detect
Celsius) — while the pressure at scopes at different times, they only saw it hundreds of marsquakes shaking
ground level is more than 90 times that at a single wavelength — one that sulfur the planet, but ESA’s Mars Express
of Earth at sea level. But that hasn’t dioxide happens to absorb as well. orbiter found more signs that the
stopped some, including Carl Sagan, “As a geochemist, I always worry world has several underground
from proposing that life could exist about detection from one peak,” says saltwater lakes buried beneath its
in the more temperate clouds of our Justin Filiberto of the Lunar and south pole. Perhaps most impor-
sister planet. And now, there could be Planetary Institute. “A single line is a tantly, however, 2020 saw three
evidence to support that hypothesis — coincidence, not a detection,” adds new spacecraft set forth for the
albeit controversial evidence. astrobiologist Kevin Zahnle of NASA Red Planet, taking advantage of a
In a paper published September 14 Ames Research Center in California. Still once-every-26-months alignment
in Nature Astronomy, researchers pre- others are concerned about the quality that shortens the time and distance
sented observations of an inexplicable of the noisy data itself, which means required to get from Earth to Mars.
surplus of the rancid gas phosphine in many groups are already reanalyzing it. As its first interplanetary mis-
the clouds of Venus. On Earth, microbes But if the detection holds up, “it sion, the United Arab Emirates
produce most phosphine, though it can demands follow-up,” says Bethany launched an orbiter named al-Amal
also be created abiotically under great Ehlmann, a planetary scientist at Caltech (meaning “Hope”) July 19. The craft
temperatures and pressures. Measured who was not part of the discovery team. is equipped with both an infrared
at a level of some 20 parts per billion, “The top three destinations to look and ultraviolet spectrometer — the
the researchers behind the new paper for life in the solar system are Mars, former meant to investigate dust,
say no known geological activity or Enceladus, and Europa — and now we
exotic catalysts — such as lightning or should perhaps add Venus to the list.”
meteorites — can explain the strength
of their observed signal.
“We are not claiming we have found
life on Venus,” said co-author Sara Stories to watch for in 2021
Seager, an MIT planetary scientist, in a
press conference. However, she added, The missions NASA’s Double Because of
they can’t explain the phosphine’s origin. that left Earth Asteroid Redirection technical
for Mars in 2020 Test, or DART difficulties and
Many find the unexplained biosig- — the UAE’s mission, will launch the ongoing
nature, or potential evidence for past Hope, China’s July 22, 2021, to binary coronavirus
or present life, tantalizing. However, Tianwen-1, asteroids Didymos pandemic, NASA
and NASA’s and Dimorphos. has updated its
Alison Klesman and Jake Parks are Perseverance The agency’s Lucy target launch date
— will all reach spacecraft is scheduled for the James
associate editors of Astronomy. They sure the Red Planet in to launch October 16, Webb Space
hope 2021 is better than 2020. February 2021. 2021 — the first mission Telescope to
to Jupiter’s Trojan October 31, 2021.
22 ASTRONOMY • FEBRUARY 2021
asteroids.
 Three Mars missions from
three different countries took
advantage of an alignment
between Earth and the
Red Planet in 2020. The
missions will teach us more
about Mars’ atmosphere, seek
out signs of past and present
life, and even cache rock
samples for their future return
to Earth. NASA/JPL-CALTECH

water, and ice in Mars’ lower atmo- present life. Then the orbiter will enter a
sphere and the latter meant to study polar elliptical orbit around Mars.
oxygen and carbon monoxide in the There, it will serve as a communica-
upper atmosphere. Additionally, the tion relay for the rover and lander, as
craft carries a multiband camera that well as use its seven science instruments
can achieve resolutions better than to remotely study Mars’ environment
5 miles (8 kilometers) per pixel. and map its surface.
TIANWEN-1
Altogether, Hope aims to paint a more Finally, on July 30, NASA launched
comprehensive picture of the Red the Perseverance rover as part of its Mars
Planet’s atmosphere. 2020 mission. This car-sized rover, based life once existed in Mars’ Jezero Crater.
China jumped into the fray next, largely on Curiosity’s design, has ambi- The rover also comes with a few proof-
launching an orbiter, lander, and rover tious plans. Equipped with instruments of-concept experiments: an oxygen-pro-
trio to Mars July 23. Tianwen-1 (which that can create spatial maps showing the duction device called MOXIE and a
means “heavenly questions”) is the elemental and mineralogical com- solar-powered helicopter named
country’s first fully homegrown Mars position of rocks, Perseverance Ingenuity. Last but not least, Perseverance
mission. Engineers plan for the orbiter will seek evidence that ancient plans to find, collect, and seal rock and

ALL ILLUSTRATIONS: ASTRONOMY: ROEN KELLY

to release the lander/rover combo soil samples that will ultimately be
after a few months orbiting the PERSEVERANCE returned to Earth for closer inspection
Red Planet. It will touch down with sophisticated lab equipment.
near Utopia Planitia in the With all these missions expected to
northern hemisphere to reach the Red Planet in February, 2021
seek signs of past or is bound to be a big year for Mars.

Also delayed due The ESA and First light for the Both the Parker The uncrewed
to coronavirus, Roscosmos’ robotic 8.4-meter Simonyi Solar Probe and Artemis I mission,
the Indian Luna-25 lander Survey Telescope Solar Orbiter will the first in NASA’s
Space Research aims to put Russia at the Vera C. Rubin make flybys of plan to return
Organisation’s back on the Moon Observatory in Venus in 2021: humans to the
Chandrayaan-3 with an anticipated Chile is expected Parker will make Moon, is scheduled
mission, which launch date in in October 2021. two, Solar Orbiter to launch in 2021.
comprises a October 2021. will make one. This first mission
lander and rover, will combine the
is now scheduled new Space Launch
to launch for the System rocket and
Moon in late 2021. Orion crew capsule.
NEW
MARS
ROVER
begins its mission

24 ASTRONOMY • FEBRUARY 2021

Perseverance is more than just Curiosity’s
double — it will hunt for ancient life,
cache samples, and pave the way for
human explorers. BY JIM BELL
EVERY 10 YEARS, planetary scien- collectively known as Mars Sample
tists put their collective minds together Return. Perseverance takes its first driving test on
December 17, 2019, in a clean room at NASA’s Jet
to develop mission recommendations Now, nine years later, that Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California.
for the decade ahead. The most recent of ambitious journey is about to begin. NASA/JPL-CALTECH

these decadal surveys, published in 2011, The Mars 2020 mission launched from
had a clear top priority for NASA: to Cape Canaveral on July 30, 2020, and is
collect samples from the surface of Mars scheduled to land in Jezero Crater on
and return them to Earth. February 18, 2021. If all goes well, the
The concept of returning samples rover will embark on a mission lasting
from Mars has been something of a holy at least a full martian year (equivalent
grail for planetary scientists. As intrepid to 687 days on Earth). In addition to its
as NASA’s previous robotic explorers own explorations, it will also collect and
have been, their analyses of the rock and cache samples that will later be returned
soil they rove have always been limited to Earth — revealing the mysteries of
by the equipment they carry. When you that once-habitable place on Mars.
ship a rover to Mars, the cost of every
extra ounce is colossal. And rover A clone is born
instruments — marvels of engineering In December 2012, just four months
though they are — are no substitute for after the Curiosity rover landed
a fully equipped laboratory on Earth. on Mars, NASA announced a new
That’s why, in the 2011 Decadal wheeled explorer that would address
Survey, scientists recommended NASA the top goal of the most recent decadal.
Perseverance lifts off on July 30, 2020, atop a
design a flagship mission to “collect, It was scheduled to launch during a United Launch Alliance Atlas V rocket at the
document, and package samples for favorable Earth–Mars alignment in Space Launch Complex-41 on Cape Canaveral.
UNITED LAUNCH ALLIANCE
future collection and return to Earth.” 2020. This Mars 2020 rover would
In other words, the community be designed and built by a team at
strongly recommended that NASA NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory
finally greenlight a set of missions (JPL) in Pasadena, California — a team
that included many of the engineers,
managers, and others who had built
The Perseverance rover is NASA’s follow-up to the Curiosity, as well as previous Mars rov-
successful Curiosity rover and will rove Jezero
Crater in search of chemical or textural evidence ers Sojourner, Spirit, and Opportunity.
of past microbial life. NASA/JPL-CALTECH To fit NASA’s tight budget and
reduce the mission’s complexity,
90 percent of the Mars 2020 rover,
cruise stage, and sky crane landing
system would be built from spare parts
left over from Curiosity. Mars 2020

With social distancing in effect, senior engineers

in Southern California conducted their final
inspections remotely via a video feed from a
smartphone at the Kennedy Space Center in
Florida. NASA/JPL-CALTECH
 MARS SAMPLE RETURN

WHILE NO MISSIONS have yet been approved or funded, several space agencies around
the world are deep in the planning stages for a Mars sample-return mission. For example,
NASA and the European Space Agency (ESA) are discussing a concept for joint missions
A ROVER’S
that would find, collect, and return the samples cached by the Perseverance rover. And the
Chinese National Space Agency is looking into potential robotic sample-return missions as
JOURNEY
follow-ons to their Tianwen-1 mission, which launched July 23, 2020, and will land a rover in
the Utopia Planitia region of Mars in February 2021.
The NASA/ESA plan as currently envisioned would involve the launch of two missions in
2026. The first is a dedicated NASA lander carrying an ESA-built “fetch” rover and a small
rocket known as the
Mars Ascent Vehicle
NASA sample ESA Earth (MAV). The fetch rover
retrieval lander Return Orbiter 6 would collect the cached
rocket rocket ERO travels to sample tubes left by
near-Earth orbit Perseverance on Mars’
and releases the
samples to Earth.
surface and bring them
back to the MAV, placing
them inside a soccer
5
ball-sized sample cap-
ESA’s Earth Return
Orbiter (ERO) picks sule. The MAV would
up the samples. then launch them into
Mars orbit, where an
ESA Earth-return orbiter
4
— the second launch of
The Mars
Ascent Vehicle 2026 — would be waiting
(MAV) to capture the sample
launches the capsule. That orbiter
sample tubes
into Mars orbit. would then depart Mars
and return to Earth, jetti-
soning the capsule for a
3 parachute-assisted land-
The fetch rover ing in the Utah desert in
places the 2031. — J.B.
tubes inside an
ascent vehicle.
1 2
Perseverance collects the
samples and deposits them
ESA’s “fetch” rover
carries the tubes to the
Midway
in tubes on the ground. sample retrieval lander.

ASTRONOMY: ROEN KELLY. SPACECRAFT MODELS: NASA, ESA

would thus be a clone, of sorts — looking and weather of its field site. However,
a lot like Curiosity on the outside, but Perseverance also has a number of new and
costing at least $700 million less than unique objectives. Perhaps the most impor-
Curiosity’s $2.8 billion price tag. tant is to seek the signs of ancient life.
On the inside, however, the Mars 2020 Ancient means not focusing on any This map shows a hypothetical course that
Perseverance might take, based on scenarios plotted
rover would sport some entirely new potential living organisms on the surface by mission scientists. The actual route will of course
equipment to help it carry out the sample- of Mars today (which are highly unlikely differ, depending on where Perseverance happens
caching job the decadal had outlined. to exist, given the harsh radiation, low to touch down within the landing ellipse. The prime
mission is to explore Jezero Crater; if the rover survives
The mission’s announcement kicked off surface pressure, and frigid temperature). to tackle an extended mission, it may trek up and out
what NASA Associate Administrator for Instead, Perseverance will seek evidence of the crater west to another site, dubbed Midway.
ASTRONOMY: ROEN KELLY. BASE MAP IMAGE: ESA/FU-BERLIN; ROVER PATH (PRIME
Science John Grunsfeld called “seven of organisms that may have lived billions MISSION): SANJEEV GUPTA AND BRIONY HORGAN; ROVER PATH (EXTENDED MISSION):
years of innovation” to develop that of years ago, during a time early in Mars’ RICHARD OTERO, ERISA STILLEY, NATHAN WILLIAMS, ALLEN CHEN, ET AL.

equipment, along with some completely history when the surface environment was
new tools. In early 2020, nearing the end a lot more like Earth’s.
of the seven-year sprint, the rover finally These signs could come in the form of
received its name: Perseverance. preserved physical or chemical evidence, ago, back in the Precambrian era, organ-
or textures left imprinted on rocks. isms didn’t develop shells or skeletons that
In search of ancient life Finding these biomarkers, however, is could easily leave behind fossil remains
Many of the Mars 2020 mission’s goals no small task. Geologists have a similar until about 550 million years ago.
are similar to those of previous Mars struggle on Earth: Though life began on Among the prime examples of ancient
rover missions, like studying the geology our planet some 3 billion to 4 billion years biomarkers on Earth are stromatolites,

26 ASTRONOMY • FEBRUARY 2021

 Delta
Delta
remnants
Delta
surface

Delta
Crater base
rim Western Eastern
landing site landing site
Lake
margin Jezero Crater
landing ellipse

Crater floor
N

Prime mission
Extended mission

2 miles

3 kilometers

which are rock and mineral structures geological or geochemical processes.

built up by coordinated groups of simple Rather, samples must often be taken back
single-celled organisms, especially cya- into sophisticated laboratories with the
nobacteria (formerly called blue-green most advanced equipment that exists.
algae). Finding structures like those in This is one of the main motivations
ancient rocks on Mars would be an excit- for making Mars 2020 the first step of an
ing and potentially profound discovery. international Mars sample-return pro-
But definitively confirming these gram. Barring the unambiguous (and
structures will be difficult with unlikely) discovery of biomarkers like
Perseverance’s toolkit alone. Taking a fossils, the only way to confirm signs of
cue from terrestrial geologists, planetary life might be to bring those samples back This reconstructed mosaic view of Jezero Crater’s
magnificent river delta from above looks west, out to
scientists have realized that equipment to Earth so they can be studied in much the crater rim. The steep slopes of the delta in the
used in the field often cannot tease out greater detail. As Carl Sagan famously foreground stand up to 350 feet (107 m) above the
crater floor. NASA/MSSS/USGS
whether the samples truly provide evi- noted, “extraordinary claims require
dence of biological action, or only extraordinary evidence.”

WWW. ASTRONOMY.COM 27
 uncovered outcrop rocks with interesting landings sites have to meet certain engi-
silica-bearing minerals and nodular neering requirements: close enough to
shapes a decade earlier; some researchers the equator to avoid extreme cold; low
think these are potential biosignatures, enough in elevation that a descending
as similar features can be found in some rover’s parachute has thick enough air
places on Earth. to grasp; and free enough of large rocks,
The other three sites all sat within less slopes, and other potential obstacles to
than 100 kilometers of each other. Two of avoid crashing into them.
them, near the famous dark region Syrtis But sites with large rocks and slopes
Major, had abundant deposits of clay and are often some of the most scientifically
On September 4, while Perseverance was en route carbonate minerals, potentially indicat- rewarding landscapes. So, clever engi-
to Mars, JPL moved the rover’s twin — a full-scale ing an ancient habitable environment. neers from JPL and elsewhere have
engineering model dubbed OPTIMISM (Operational The final option was Jezero, a 31-mile- worked to develop more intelligent soft-
Perseverance Twin for Integration of Mechanisms
and Instruments Sent to Mars) — to its “Mars Yard” wide (50 kilometers) impact crater on ware to guide Perseverance’s landing
test area. Engineers can test rover commands and the western margin of Isidis Planitia stage to a touchdown in Jezero Crater.
operations using OPTIMISM in an environment that
simulates the Red Planet to better understand what that hosts clays, carbonates, and a well- One upgrade makes the descent stage
Perseverance is experiencing on Mars. NASA/JPL-CALTECH exposed ancient river delta. more aware of when and where to deploy
The workshop participants and Mars its parachute. And once the parachute
2020 science team ultimately recom- is jettisoned and the rover and descent
mended Jezero — named after a small stage are in powered retrorocket flight, a
Mars 2020 also has a number of new town in the Balkan nation of Bosnia- new hazard-avoidance system helps avoid
experiments that are designed to help Herzegovina — as their top choice, and rocks and other large obstacles, guiding
engineers develop technology for future NASA officially chose the site as the win- the rover to a height of about 25 feet
robotic and human Mars missions. For ner in November 2018. (7.6 meters) over a safe landing site.
example, the rover carries a device Jezero will be among the most chal- Then, the sky crane system — pioneered
designed to extract small amounts of lenging martian terrains that NASA by Curiosity — lowers the rover to the
oxygen (O2) by splitting carbon dioxide has yet attempted to land on. All rover ground via cables for a soft touchdown.
(CO2) molecules with electricity. Larger
systems based on this technology could Jezero will be among the most challenging
generate oxygen for future human crews
on Mars. martian terrains that NASA has yet
Perhaps Perseverance’s most famous
tech demo is a small four-blade helicop-
attempted to land on.
ter drone named Ingenuity. Early in the
mission, engineers will program it to
conduct three to five test flights to learn The experimental helicopter drone
more about operating drones on Mars. Ingenuity will become the first
On future missions, such drones could aircraft to take powered flight on
another world. Though it won’t be
serve as scouts or sample delivery able to wander far — it will stay
systems. less than 0.6 mile (1 km) from the
Perseverance rover to remain in
wireless communication (right) —
Choosing a target future drones could serve as more
capable scouts. At left, Ingenuity
From 2014 to 2018, NASA and the plane- receives its final inspection at the
tary science community carefully studied Kennedy Space Center in Florida
options for where to land Perseverance. before being mounted to
Perseverance for its journey
Just as for previous NASA rover mis- to Mars. NASA/JPL-CALTECH
sions, a series of open community work-
shops brought together scientists, JPL
mission engineers, technology experts,
and even members of the general public
to discuss and debate which site would
offer the best chance of accomplishing
the mission’s goals.
By the time of the fourth workshop in
October 2018, the competition had boiled
down to four sites. One option was a
return to the Columbia Hills in Gusev
Crater, where the Spirit rover had

28 ASTRONOMY • FEBRUARY 2021

A crater to explore
When Perseverance takes in the land-
scape inside Jezero Crater for the first
time, it will send back images that show
the hills of the crater rim rising 2000 feet
above the crater floor. If the rover lands
close enough to it, early images could
also show the 150- to 350-foot-tall edge
of one of the most exciting aspects of
Jezero: its beautiful western river delta.
On Earth, deltas are fan-shaped splays
of sediments where rivers gently deposit
sand and silt, forming layers of sand-
stone and mudstone that can trap and
preserve organic materials. Jezero Crater
preserves several deltas along its inner
In the spring of 2020, as the COVID-19 pandemic took hold around the world, mission staff persevered and
rim, showing that it was clearly a shallow adapted to working from home in the runup to the Mars 2020 launch on July 17. Clockwise from upper left:
crater lake sometime early in Mars’ his- lead mobility systems engineer Rich Rieber (with son Ben); deputy project scientist Katie Stack Morgan;
mission system verification and validation supervisor Ruth Fragoso; mission design and navigation manager
tory. If life emerged on Mars long ago, Fernando Abilleira (below mission logo); staff assistant Monica Hopper; systems engineer Heather Bottom;
evidence of it might be preserved in project chief engineer Adam Steltzner; guidance and control systems engineer Swati Mohan; Entry, Descent
those delta sediments. and Landing phase lead Al Chen (with son Max); project manager John McNamee; and Entry, Descent and
Landing systems engineer Cj Giovingo. NASA/JPL-CALTECH
What that lake looked like billions of
years ago remains unknown, but there
are many possibilities. Perhaps waves
were lapping at its shores, around what is A major goal of the mission is to drive size of the grain particles, and how
now the crater rim. Or, if the climate was the rover up to and perhaps even onto quickly the sediment builds up. The rover
too cold for surface water, Jezero may that delta, to search for geologic, miner- team could try to systematically explore
have been a vast frozen expanse, with all alogic, and chemical evidence of its past the equivalent of these different zones on
the river and delta-building action hap- environs. On Earth, different kinds of Jezero. This strategy could maximize the
pening below. It’s tempting to speculate, traces of life can appear in different areas chances of finding regions where poten-
but instead of making wild guesses, the of a river delta depending on the speed of tial biosignatures might be preserved.
best recourse is to go there and find out. the water that deposits the sediment, the After exploring and sampling the
delta, the team might drive the rover to
the foothills at the boundary of the crater
floor and rim, where orbital measure-
ments show a “bathtub ring” of clay and
carbonate minerals — indicators of a past
watery environment that dried out as the
lake waters receded. From there, the team
might drive the rover up the crater rim
— charting a course along the safest
slopes — to more closely explore the orig-
inal ancient rocks from which the delta
sediments originated.
If the rover team can successfully get
Perseverance completely out of Jezero
Crater, just 10 miles (16 kilometers)
beyond the western rim lies one of the
rejected landing sites, dubbed Midway.
It’s also rich with ancient clay and car-
bonates, but many of those mineral
deposits could have been created by
groundwater coursing through the rocks,
rather than surface water. The chance to
explore a very different, but also poten-
tially once very habitable, ancient mar-
tian environment as part of an extended
mission is an exciting prospect.

WWW. ASTRONOMY.COM 29
 Caching the samples
PERSEVERANCE’S TOOLKIT Of course, Perseverance’s scientific
legacy will also depend on the samples it
NASA SELECTED PERSEVERANCE’S scientific payload of six instrument systems in collects for return to Earth. To perform
a competition between dozens of proposals that researchers submitted in 2014. The this task, the rover’s designers carved
winners include three instruments on the rover’s mast: a pair of panoramic, zoomable
out a significant amount of space for the
3D cameras called Mastcam-Z; a camera and spectrometer called SuperCam that
zaps rocks and soil with a laser to analyze their chemical makeup; and a weather- Sampling and Caching Subsystem (SCS).
monitoring station called the Mars Environmental Dynamics Analyzer (MEDA). For the The SCS drill, mounted on the rover’s
most part, these are enhanced versions of systems on the Curiosity rover. However, in arm, will take core samples of martian
a first, SuperCam includes a high-fidelity microphone designed to record sounds on rock and soil. Its carousel of bits includes
Mars — either from the instrument and other rover subsystems, or potentially from the
six bits for drilling rock core samples,
winds of Mars itself.
The rover carries three new science investigations as well. A ground-penetrating one “regolith” bit for collecting soil, and
radar system called the Radar Imager for Mars’ Subsurface Exploration (RIMFAX) will two abrading bits for grinding rocks
probe underground layers of rock — and potentially water ice. The Planetary or other surfaces for analysis with the
Instrument for X-ray Lithochemistry (PIXL) will analyze samples on microscopic rover’s instruments. There’s also a tool
scales by focusing a beam of X-rays and taking images of the resulting glow. And an
that can blow puffs of nitrogen gas onto
instrument called Scanning Habitable Environments with Raman and Luminescence
for Organics and Chemicals (SHERLOC) will put samples under a magnifying glass, a sample to remove dust or drill tailings.
so to speak, with a microscopic imaging subsystem called Wide Angle Topographic The rover also houses a tiny robotic
Sensor for Operations and eNgineering (WATSON). Together, the pair of devices will arm that can capture samples delivered
use an ultraviolet laser and spectrometer to search for biomarkers in organics and into the rover’s body, document them,
minerals. PIXL, SHERLOC, and WATSON are all mounted on the rover’s hefty robotic
seal them in titanium tubes, and then
arm; RIMFAX is mounted to the rover’s lower aft deck.
In addition to its science instruments, Perseverance is outfitted with engineering- drop them onto the surface for later col-
focused cameras and other subsystems. These include cameras for basic navigation, lection and return to Earth. Perseverance
as well as front- and rear-mounted cameras for avoiding hazards. There are also seven is carrying a total of 43 of these dry-erase-
simple, largely “off-the-shelf” cameras mounted on the rover and the spacecraft stages marker-sized tubes to Jezero. During the
that will carry it to the surface. These will record images and video of the landing pro-
prime mission, the science team hopes to
cess. And, for the first time, there will be sound to go with it — a microphone will be
recording audio during the landing. In all, Perseverance, its descent stage, and the fill up to 38 of them with the most com-
Ingenuity helicopter are loaded with 25 cameras, making it the most photo-capable pelling and potentially revealing rock
spacecraft ever sent to the Red Planet. — J.B. and soil samples as possible.
However, the remaining five are just
as critical: They are specifically designed
to provide “witness samples” that charac-
SuperCam
terize any organic or other chemical
NaDCams

Mastcam-Z

WATSON
SHERLOC
MEDA

Rear
HazCams

RIMFAX

PIXL

MOXIE Front HazCams

NASA/JPL-CALTECH; ASTRONOMY: ROEN KELLY

30 ASTRONOMY • FEBRUARY 2021

contaminants that might have been
brought to Mars from Earth, despite the HITTING THE MARK
team’s best efforts at sterilizing the sam-
MARYLAND Baltimore
ple tubes. Instead of being filled with WV
samples, they will go through a full
“mock coring” process and be handled 2020
2022 ExoMars Perseverance
and sealed by the rover’s SCS systems just 120 × 19 km 13 × 7 km
like the actual samples. This provides a Annapolis
way to check whether any organic mate- 2008 Phoenix
2012 Curiosity
19 × 6.5 km
rials or other contaminants coming from 100 × 19 km Washington D.C.
the rover itself have been able to sneak 2004 Spirit
and Opportunity
into the actual Mars samples, too. 2018 InSight

Che
150 × 19 km
130 × 27 km
Ready to rove

sap
VIRGINIA
After several years of design, the rover 1997 Pathfinder

eak
201 × 71 km
instruments and subsystems finally

e B
1976 Viking
began taking shape in 2016. Engineers at 280 × 100 km

ya
JPL assembled the rover in 2019 and put 0 10 20 30 miles
it through extensive tests through the 0 25 50 kilometers
first half of 2020, simulating the harsh
The landing ellipse is the area in which mission planners estimate a lander could touch down — i.e., the
thermal conditions on Mars and the margin of error they must account for. Improvements to Perseverance’s landing system make its landing
vacuum of space. ellipse smaller and allow engineers to consider targeting more challenging and scientifically interesting
The final stages of assembly, testing, terrain. This figure compares the landing ellipses of several Mars missions plotted over the more familiar
territory of Washington, D.C. ASTRONOMY: ROEN KELLY, AFTER PAJOLA ET AL. (2019)
and installing the craft atop the launch
vehicle occurred in the midst of the
COVID-19 pandemic. By mid-April,
90 percent of the team at JPL was working
from home, but mission-critical personnel
were still needed to at the Kennedy Space
Center in Florida to prep the rover itself.
Following clean protocols was not a
challenge for the team, as those are nec-
essary for preparing any lander to avoid
contaminating the worlds they visit. But
they improvised to minimize the number
of people needed inside the clean room
itself. For instance, the final “walkdown”
inspection of the spacecraft — in which
experts in each spacecraft system give
the rover one last check — took place
remotely, with a technician in Florida
This aluminum plate bearing the staff of Asclepius — the Greek deity of healing and medicine — was
using a smartphone to send a video feed installed on the rover to commemorate the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic and to pay tribute to health
to senior engineers at their homes. care workers. NASA/JPL-CALTECH
The window for Mars 2020 to actually
launch in 2020 ran from July 17 through
August 15. If the mission missed that
window, it would have had to wait until and issues related to COVID-19. Mars. And many of us are eagerly look-
September 2022. The challenges that the Considering the cost overruns that have ing forward to the day when we can see
coronavirus presented made the efforts plagued many past NASA flagship-class those rover-collected samples — not just
of all involved — including at JPL, missions, a 12-percent overrun could be through the lenses of our sophisticated
NASA’s Kennedy Space Center, United considered something of a minor victory. robotic avatar, but with our own human
Launch Alliance (the manufacturers of Now, the anticipation is building. eyes.
the Atlas V rocket), and other NASA and Who knows what discoveries await us all
subcontractor facilities — to make the in Jezero, what new secrets about Mars Jim Bell leads the Mastcam-Z camera team
launch window especially impressive. will be revealed by the images and other on the Mars 2020 mission’s Perseverance
The ambitious rover did go over its data the rover will collect. Everyone rover. He is an astronomer and planetary
original 2012 budget — but only by involved is extremely excited about what scientist at Arizona State University and
around 12 percent, partly due to delays we will learn from the rover’s mission on president of The Planetary Society.

WWW. ASTRONOMY.COM 31
 Visible to the naked eye

SKY THIS MONTH Visible with binoculars

Visible with a telescope

THE SOLAR SYSTEM’S CHANGING LANDSCAPE AS IT APPEARS IN EARTH’S SKY.

BY MARTIN RATCLIFFE AND ALISTER LING

This month you’ll find

several planets hiding

FEBRUARY 2021 in twilight. Careful

observers can even
follow Venus (pictured

Twilight planets delight

here) and Jupiter into
daylight. JAMIE COOPER

Be ready to catch while. Mars dominates the eve- Morning triad

the early morning ning sky and enters Taurus this
appearance of four planets: month. Although distant from Altair
Mercury, Venus, Jupiter, and Earth and showing a tiny disk,
Saturn. They appear in the it will remain in our evening
brightening morning twilight skies for a long while yet. AQUIL A
and some are challenging. Attentive observers may
Jupiter passed Saturn last catch Mercury February 1 in Nunki Kaus
December and now stands to bright twilight after sunset. It’s SAGIT TARIUS Australis
its east. Both gas giants rise a challenging view now, follow- CAPRIC ORNUS
earlier each morning as they ing its greatest eastern elonga- Mercury Saturn
increase their elongation from tion late last month. Begin your Jupiter
the Sun, preparing for a fine attempt 30 minutes after sunset. 10°
spring lineup before dawn. Can you spot the magnitude 0.9
Venus is heading to superior planet 6° high in the western
conjunction with the Sun and sky? Watch with binoculars for February 20, 30 minutes before sunrise
is briefly visible in the dawn 15 to 20 minutes as the sky Looking southeast
sky. Mercury is near the end of darkens and Mercury dips Early risers can catch Mercury forming the apex of a triangle with Saturn and
its morning apparition. lower. The planet descends Jupiter shortly before sunrise on February 20. ALL ILLUSTRATIONS: ASTRONOMY: ROEN KELLY
The evening skies of quickly and 15 minutes before
February carry the distant it’s gone, it stands 2° high — luck. Locations with the best a clear view to the west.
giants Neptune and Uranus tough to spot at such a faint chance are those with fine Mercury passes through infe-
— Neptune is lost quickly in magnitude, but some observers atmospheric transparency rior conjunction February 8
twilight, but Uranus lingers a with clear skies may have good offered by a high altitude and and springs into the dawn sky

32 ASTRONOMY • FEBRUARY 2021

 RISING MOON I Lunar strongmen
PROMINENTLY PAIRED CRATERS Atlas and
Hercules and Atlas
Hercules rule the lunar northeast. Without com-
pare in strength, these mythological musclemen
Mare
have appropriately striking features named after
Humboldtianum
OBSERVING them.
HIGHLIGHT Their chiseled forms seem to pop out on the Atlas
16th, lit by a rising Sun in the lunar sky. Atlas, the
MERCURY, SATURN, and
JUPITER share the dawn sky one closer to the limb, sports a rough floor and
this month. Catch them central peak. Just to the west, Hercules straddles
February 20, forming a Hercules
the day-night line, the terminator. Over the next
triangle a mere 30 minutes
before sunrise.
few hours, watch the long shadows slowly
retreat. The western inner walls face the N
brilliant Sun, while their eastern sides
remain dark. Return on the 17th to see E
the floor of Hercules — surprise! It's a
pool of frozen lava with the barest hint The striking Atlas and Hercules craters
along with Jupiter — more on of a central peak and a sharp crater just should draw your attention in mid- to
late February. CONSOLIDATED LUNAR ATLAS/UA/LPL.
that later. off the bull’s-eye. INSET: NASA/GSFC/ASU
Neptune makes a brief Each bowl is surrounded by an apron of
appearance early in February as debris. Under the low Sun angle, can you tell as it bobs up and down in its orbit around Earth,
a binocular object in Aquarius. which one drapes over the other? Researchers we see it from slightly different points of view.
It lies less than 20° high once disagree over which formed first. It may help to Astronomers call this apparent nodding motion
the sky is dark. The magnitude look with reversed lighting, when the setting of our satellite libration.
7.8 planet lies slightly less than Sun illuminates the craters’ eastern flanks on Any time after First Quarter (the 19th), we’re
2° northeast of Phi (ϕ) Aquarii, March 1, a few days after Full. close to lunar high noon for both Atlas and
a dim 4th-magnitude star, on Luna slowly turns its nose up at us beginning Hercules. Without the shadows, Atlas practically
on the 17th. Key in on the limb northeast of disappears. In contrast, Hercules’s lava lake
February 1. The pair’s angular
Hercules and watch the dark floor of Mare stands out well against its neighboring light-
separation increases as the
Humboldtianum shift out of sight from night to hued crater. Pay close attention — Luna reveals
month progresses. By mid-
night. The Moon’s axis does not actually tilt — a different face every night.
month, the planet is too low to
3-6-1-6-6-7-5-1-3

find, and it’s telescopically dis-

appointing due to turbulence in
our atmosphere muddying the
view. It will reappear in the METEOR WATCH I A dim, dusty glow
morning sky later in the spring.
Mars and Uranus begin the WITH NO MAJOR SHOWERS,
False dusk
month about 6.5° apart in the February is traditionally a quiet
constellation Aries the Ram. month for meteors. The average
Uranus is only visible with bin- sporadic (random) rate for meteors
oculars for most observers. At is seven per hour and there are occa-
magnitude 5.8, it may be visible sional fireballs — meteors that break
to the naked eye under excep- up and achieve a brilliance of Venus
tionally clear sky conditions. It or greater. These are, of course, rare,
lies 10.5° south of Hamal, the but worth spending time under a
night sky ready for their appearance.
brightest star in Aries. A wax-
The zodiacal light begins to make
ing crescent Moon lies within
an appearance during moonless
5° of Uranus on February 17
nights in February, March, and April.
and skips next door to sit 4°
The evening view of this subtle
south of Mars on the 18th. glow, which arises from the meteor-
Through a telescope, Uranus itic dust that fills the plane of our
displays a fine 3.5"-wide disk solar system, gets better as the
with a greenish hue on nights Moonless February evenings are perfect for spotting the glow of the
ecliptic becomes more steeply zodiacal light from a dark location. BARRY BURGESS
when stars are not twinkling inclined to the horizon. The first two
badly — a sure sign of good weeks of February are favorable, with the Moon in the morning sky. As soon as the Milky Way becomes
seeing conditions. visible — arching from high up in Perseus through Orion and toward the southern horizon — look for a
Mars shines as a brilliant faint, cone-shaped glow of light reaching up from the western horizon through Pisces, Aries, and into
beacon among the faint stars of Taurus at its narrowest. The zodiacal light is never seen from cities or towns, but is visible from country
— Continued on page 38 locations with dark skies to the west.

WWW. ASTRONOMY.COM 33
 N

STAR DOME
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HOW TO USE THIS MAP
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This map portrays the sky as seen

N
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near 35° north latitude. Located γ EPH
inside the border are the cardinal ι
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directions and their intermediate η α
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MINO
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use optical aid to gather more light

S
BEGINNERS: WATCH A VIDEO ABOUT HOW TO READ A STAR CHART AT
www.Astronomy.com/starchart.
 FEBRUARY 2021
SUN. MON. TUES. WED. THURS. FRI. SAT.
μ
ζ β
TA α 1 2 3 4 5 6
ER

W
δ C

N
LA

7 8 9 10 11 12 13

ILLUSTRATIONS BY ASTRONOMY: ROEN KELLY

14 15 16 17 18 19 20
α
A

γ
ED

CA η
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21 22 23 24 25 26 27
31

δ
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Note: Moon phases in the calendar vary in size due to the distance
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from Earth and are shown at 0h Universal Time.

M33
β
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α
β
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Alg

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ρ

CALENDAR OF EVENTS
PISCES
ε

β
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2 Asteroid Melpomene is at opposition, 2 A.M. EST

ARIES

γ
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3 The Moon is at perigee (229,980 miles from Earth), 2:03 P.M. EST
ζ

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c l i p t ic
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Path of
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4 Last Quarter Moon occurs at 12:37 P.M. EST

Uranus
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ε

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s

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de
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Hya

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a
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New Moon occurs at 2:06 P.M. EST

δ
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S
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ID
γ

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18 The Moon is at apogee (251,324 miles from Earth), 5:22 A.M. EST
X
A

The Moon passes 4° south of Mars, 6 P.M. EST

N
R
FO

19 First Quarter Moon occurs at 1:47 P.M. EST

SW

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21 Asteroid Amphitrite is at opposition, 11 P.M. EST
M
ELU 27 Full Moon occurs at 3:17 A.M. EST
α α
UM
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H OR

WWW. ASTRONOMY.COM 35
PATHS OF THE PLANETS
UMa

LAC LYN
LYR HER CVN
CYG
BOÖ Asteroid Amphitrite e
COM reaches opposition Iren GEM
VUL
February 21 CNC
CrB ic)
(eclipt
DEL e Sun
PEG
SGE
LEO of th
Path Eunomia
SER Vesta
EQU CMi
AQL SER VIR
Celestial equator OPH
Asteroid Melpomene
AQR
Su n SEX reaches opposition
Mercury oon
Saturn eM February 1/2
SCT of th
Path CRV CRT HYA

Pluto
Jupiter
CA P ANT CMa
Venus LIB
PsA PYX
PUP
MIC CrA
S GR LUP
G RU SCO
CEN
Dawn Midnight
Moon phases

13 12 11 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

To locate the Moon in the sky, draw a line from the phase shown
for the day straight up to the curved blue line.
28 27 26 25 24 23

Uranus
THE PLANETS THE PLANETS IN THE SKY
IN THEIR ORBITS These illustrations show the size, phase,
Arrows show the inner and orientation of each planet and the two
planets’ monthly motions brightest dwarf planets at 0h UT for the dates
and dots depict the Jupiter in the data table at bottom. South is at the top
Neptune
outer planets’ positions to match the view through a telescope.
Saturn
at midmonth from high
above their orbits.

Venus
Mercury Mars
Pluto
Ceres
Mercury
Inferior conjunction
is February 8

Mars
PLANETS MERCURY VENUS
Earth Ceres Date Feb. 28 Feb. 1
Magnitude 0.3 –3.9
Angular size 8.0" 10.1"
Venus
Illumination 45% 98%
Distance (AU) from Earth 0.843 1.652
Distance (AU) from Sun 0.440 0.728
Jupiter
Right ascension (2000.0) 21h01.6m 20h05.0m
Declination (2000.0) –16°12' –20°58'

36 ASTRONOMY • FEBRUARY 2021

 This map unfolds the entire night sky from sunset (at right) until sunrise (at left). Arrows

JULY 2021
and colored dots show motions and locations of solar system objects during the month. FEBRUARY 2021
CAS

LAC Callisto
PER AND 1
CYG
AUR
TRI 2 Ganymede
Europa

ARI 3
Mar PEG
s DEL Io
Uranus 4
ORI PSC EQU
TAU
5 Callisto
Ganymede
Neptune
CET 6
AQR
Ce Sun
res
JUPITER’S 7 Jupiter
MOONS
LEP ERI CAP Dots display 8 Io
SCL
FOR PsA positions of
COL Galilean satellites
G RU MIC 9 Europa
CAE at 6 A .M. EST on
the date shown.
Early evening 10
South is at the
top to match the
view through a 11
telescope.
12

13
22 21 20 19 18 17 16 15 14 13 12 11

14

15
S
Jupiter
16
W E
Saturn

N 17

18
10"
19

20

Uranus Neptune Pluto

21

22

23

MARS CERES JUPITER SATURN URANUS NEPTUNE PLUTO

24
Feb. 15 Feb. 15 Feb. 28 Feb. 28 Feb. 15 Feb. 15 Feb. 15
0.7 9.3 –2.0 0.6 5.8 7.8 15.1 25

7.0" 0.4" 33.0" 15.4" 3.5" 2.2" 0.1"

26
89% 99% 100% 100% 100% 100% 100%
27
1.329 3.732 5.972 10.811 20.072 30.831 35.065
1.567 2.941 5.076 9.978 19.766 29.926 34.221 28
3h08.4m 0h03.1m 21h14.9m 20h42.5m 2h18.7m 23h22.9m 19h50.3m
19°03' –8°21' –16°34' –18°41' 13°24' –5°09' –22°18'
 WHEN TO
SKY THIS MONTH — Continued from page 33 VIEW THE
PLANETS
week of the month, but the
tiny disk makes them hard to EVENING SKY
spot except under optimum Mars (southwest)
seeing conditions. Skilled Uranus (southwest)
Neptune (west)
observers who practiced video
capture during last year’s MIDNIGHT
opposition can still bring them Mars (west)
out if conditions cooperate.
Four planets congregate in MORNING SKY
Mercury (east)
the dawn twilight this month. Venus (east)
Some events are difficult to Jupiter (east)
catch due to their proximity Saturn (east)
to the Sun. For example, on
February 6, Venus stands less
Although no meteor showers take place in February, keep your eyes on the sky than a Moon’s-width southeast
for sporadic meteors, including the occasional fireball. MIKE LEWINSKI of Saturn, but they rise only Venus, on its way to a late
half an hour before the Sun. March superior conjunction,
Aries, beginning the month at most observers in the U.S. Even at magnitude –3.9, Venus passes 26' due south of Jupiter
magnitude 0.5 and dipping to The lack of albedo features is will be hard to see. Saturn is February 11. They’re located just
0.9 by the end of February. The apparent during mid-February, not visible at a much dimmer 10.5° east of the Sun. Jupiter
Red Planet this month has as desert regions transit the magnitude of 0.6. shines at magnitude –2; the pair
competition from Aldebaran, martian disk during our eve-
the brightest star in Taurus the nings. Solis Lacus and Sinus
Bull, which glows at magnitude
0.8. Can you tell which night
they are both equal brightness?
Meridiani, two distinctive dark
features, are on view in the last 0.3 Between February 1 and 28, Mars retreats
nearly 0.3 AU from Earth.

Mars moves into Taurus

February 23 and ends the COMET SEARCH I Challenge versus chance
month nearly 14° northwest of
Aldebaran and nicely placed COMET ENTHUSIASTS are used to excitement, disappointment, and satisfaction all in one month. No
about 3° southwest of the con- one can be sure which it will be this spring. As Earth circles the inner solar system, some comets coin-
trasting blue stars of the cidentally arc behind the Sun, popping into visibility with only three months’ notice before they peak,
Pleiades (M45). missing our publication deadline.
The Red Planet presents a Surprising us twice since its discovery, 17P/Holmes has outburst to 2nd magnitude. Cruising in front of
tiny disk through telescopes as the circlet of Pisces, will it shine anew? Meanwhile, as 141P/Machholz 2 sails from Cetus to Orion, its last
its distance from Earth contin- fragment might flare up to
ues to increase apace. Its 10th magnitude for a final show.
With great but not absolute Comet 88P/Howell
gibbous phase is a distinctive
90 percent lit. On February 1, confidence, we expect Comet
δ
it’s already 1.2 astronomical 88P/Howell to present a challenge ε N θ
units from Earth (1 astronomi- for an 8-inch scope under a dark ι
cal unit, or AU, is the average sky. Once you’ve confirmed the
Earth-Sun distance). That dis- starfield is right, pump up the PISCES
λ γ
tance increases to nearly magnification to about 200x. Get Path of
comfortable, dark adapt as much Mar 2 Comet Howell
1.5 AU by February 28. The 25
as possible, and patiently scan for E
disk’s angular size shrinks CETUS 20
a very small fuzz — picture a 15
from nearly 8" to 6.4" over the
13th-magnitude elliptical galaxy. 10
course of the month.
Tapping the scope gently can 5
Features so familiar during leverage our eyes’ low-light Feb 1 φ
Mars’ opposition late last year motion-detector system, while NGC 157
AQUARIUS Neptune
are now tougher to spot. also suppressing “phantom ψ1
ι
During the first five days of galaxies” produced by a noisy η
February, the darkest — visual cortex. 2°
Syrtis Major — swings into The best comet hunting this A challenging 88P/Howell skims through Pisces on its way from Aquarius to
view in the evening between month is during the moonless first Cetus this month. The location of Neptune is shown on February 7. Should
sunset and local midnight for half of February. they flare up, 17P/Holmes is west of this field and 141P/Machholz 2 is east.

38 ASTRONOMY
 LOCATING ASTEROIDS I
Buzzing the Crab
IT’S TWO-FOR-ONE asteroids this month. Floating only one
Bull crossing field apart, 18 Melpomene and 60 Echo track across southern
Cancer. The celestial crab is well placed one-third of the way up
the eastern sky once darkness sets in. This aquatic constellation
Betelgeuse
ORION Aldebaran Pleiades boasts the splashy Beehive Cluster (M44); start with this show-
piece, then shift a few degrees south to Alpha (α) Cancri and M67.
Mars
Sirius TAURUS From the 5th to the 8th, magnitude 10 Echo shares the
CANIS medium-power field with the well-studied cluster M67.
M AJOR Hamal Melpomene is just over 1° to the north and is a bit brighter at
Rigel ARIES magnitude 9.5. Crank the power to the max on M67 and test your
Uranus
limiting magnitude against the chart in the Royal Astronomy
LEPUS Menkar Society of Canada’s Observer's Handbook or one generated online
at the American Association of Variable Star Observers’ website,
ERIDANUS www.aavso.org.
Until much brighter 4 Vesta arrives in spring, we must be
CETUS meticulous in our identification of these main-belt asteroids.
Starhop carefully, sketch a field in the expected area, then come
10°
back a night or two later to see which dot has moved. The orange
star FX Cancri varies only slightly from magnitude 6.7, making a
February 28, 8 P.M. nice reference in the same field.
Looking southwest Thanks to the longer nights of February, you might be able to
see these small worlds move slightly over a four-hour session.
Mars crosses into Taurus February 23 and ends the month beneath the
Pleiades (M45). Uranus floats nearby in Aries and is visible with binoculars
or a telescope.
Double feature

may be seen in binoculars planets’ visibility improves ξ γ

N
20 minutes or so before sunrise, each consecutive morning.
but will be very challenging. Try on the morning of M44
Observers, be very cautious — Saturday, February 20, to spot
δ ζ2
you can easily lose track of time all three planets in a triangle:
CANCER
as the Sun comes up. Protect Saturn and Mercury rise
Mar 2
yourself by setting an alarm to together 4.4° apart around E 25
go off several minutes before 5:40 A.M. local time, followed Path of 20
π
sunrise. Never scan the skies by Jupiter 7° east of Saturn Melpomene 15
10 Mar 2
after sunrise, because an acci- about 22 minutes later. 5 FX 25
Feb 1
dental view of the Sun through Mercury and Saturn match α 20
15
binoculars will cause lasting in magnitude February 22, M67 10
κ 5 Path of Echo
damage to your eyes! when they stand almost 5° high Feb 1
Tarf
Observers with clear, trans- 40 minutes before sunrise. 2°
parent daytime skies and an Jupiter stands less than 1° high,
accurately aligned telescope but its brilliance makes it more Asteroids Melpomene and Echo travel together this month through
Cancer. Close by is the sparkling Beehive Cluster (M44).
on February 11 can use their easily visible. It lies about
go-to device to find Venus and 5° east (lower left) of Mercury,
Jupiter in daylight. while Saturn stands 4° to
On February 15, Saturn Mercury’s southwest (right). — all three planets are cur- Saturn are full. Jupiter spans
and Mercury rise together in The triangle formed by rently on the far side of the 33" and is accompanied by its
the eastern sky, but remain this trio of planets flattens as Sun. Mercury is closest to four Galilean moons, just vis-
difficult objects due to their Mercury drops in declination Earth at 0.85 AU, while Jupiter ible in the shimmering haze.
relative faintness in twilight. in late February, brightening as is at 6 AU and Saturn is a dis- Saturn’s disk is 15" wide and its
By February 18, they stand it does so. On February 28, it tant 10.8 AU away. bright ring system spans 34" at
roughly 3° high 45 minutes shines at magnitude 0.3 and If you’re able to swing a its widest.
before sunrise. Mercury has stands only 3° west of Jupiter, telescope towards these plan-
brightened to magnitude 1.2, with Saturn 5.5° to Mercury’s ets, you’re in for a visual — Martin Ratcliffe is a
while Saturn remains easier west. It’s amazing to get this though short-lived — treat, planetarium professional and
at magnitude 0.6. The two view across the solar system since twilight is advancing enjoys observing from Wichita,
quickly. Mercury displays a Kansas. Alister Ling, who
GET DAILY UPDATES ON YOUR NIGHT SKY AT 46-percent-lit disk spanning lives in Edmonton, Alberta, is a
www.Astronomy.com/skythisweek. 8", whereas both Jupiter and longtime watcher of the skies.

WWW. ASTRONOMY.COM 39
 Corona
light
Missed last year’s annular eclipse?
We’ve got you covered with some of the best shots out there.
BY JAY PASACHOFF

BACKGROUND: The Mango

Education Group experienced
annularity during clear weather
from Dehradun, which is the
most populous city in the Indian
state of Uttarakhand. That
fortunate weather allowed them
to capture this crisp shot of the
thin circle created by the Sun’s
disk stretching out just beyond
the Moon’s silhouette. HARINDRA
BARAIYA (WILDLIFE INSTITUTE OF INDIA/MANGO
ASTRONOMY CLUB); IMAGE FORWARDED BY STEPHEN
INBANATHAN (AMERICAN COLLEGE IN MADURAI)

RIGHT: On June 21, the Moon was

relatively far from Earth thanks to
its slightly elliptical orbit. That
meant its angular size was
smaller than usual. Therefore, it
couldn’t fully block the solar disk
when the Sun, Moon, and Earth
aligned, or entered syzygy, as
shown in this artist’s illustration.
ASTRONOMY: ROEN KELLY AFTER ERNEST T. WRIGHT
(NASA’S SCIENTIFIC VISUALIZATION STUDIO)

40 ASTRONOMY
T
he wild year of 2020 otherwise. And although I don’t keep in
boasted two solar eclipses: constant contact with every one of them,
an annular eclipse on when an eclipse passes overhead anywhere in
June 21 and a total solar the world, I have a good chance of hearing
eclipse on December 14. from some of my old friends who are eager
Travel restrictions pre- to share their new pictures.
vented North Americans, At the time of this writing, the next solar
as well as many others in the Western eclipse to be seen from Earth will be total,
Hemisphere, from viewing the path of annu- with its peak occurring near the border of
larity that stretched from Africa through the Argentina and Chile on December 14, 2020.
Middle East to Pakistan, India, mainland Be sure to keep an eye out for images of
China, and Taiwan. Fortunately, local eclipse December’s total solar eclipse in future issues
viewers who managed to get beneath the of Astronomy.
Moon’s shadow captured wonderful images Meanwhile, the next annular eclipse will
of the breathtaking event. be on June 10, 2021. Its path will trek from
The following is a smattering of shots southern Canada over the North Pole and
from last June’s annular eclipse, which I down to the Russian Far East. Observers in
monitored into the wee hours of the morn- the northeastern United States will be happy
ing with the help of email, the web, and to learn that partial phases of this annular
livestreams from the Middle East and Asia. eclipse will be visible to them in the early
My decades-long interest in eclipses, and the morning. So, make sure to get your filtered
resulting expeditions I have taken to view solar eclipse glasses now, available at
them, have allowed me to meet many fasci- MyScienceShop.com.
nating people whom I never would have And don’t forget: Share what you see!

A RINGED ECLIPSE
The word annular comes from annulus, which means “ring.” So, when the Moon is just far
enough away from Earth that it leaves the outer perimeter of the Sun’s disk unobscured, the
result is often referred to as a “ring-of-fire” eclipse. At maximum coverage, this outer band of
sunlight is up to a few percent of the solar disk’s diameter. So, technically, it could be called
a “ring-of-photosphere” or a “ring-of-sunlight” eclipse.
The term “ring-of-fire” has murky origins dating back at least 150 years, but its modern
usage in reference to annular eclipses has been around for at least a few decades, when it
started popping up in various publications. However, “ring-of-fire” is somewhat misleading ter-
minology, and it is disliked by many professional and amateur astronomers, or so-called
umbraphiles (the umbra is the dark part of a shadow). Contrary to common conception, there
is no chemical fire on the Sun. Rather, we owe the warmth and light we receive from the Sun
to the clean thermonuclear fusion of hydrogen gas safely occurring some 93 million miles
(150 million kilometers) away.

IMAGES: JAY PASACHOFF. COMPOSITE: MUZHOU LU

WWW. ASTRONOMY.COM 41
 1

The Moon’s shadow

1 first touched the Republic of
Congo during the June 21 annular
eclipse. After it departed Africa, it
went through the Middle East, then
passed through southern Pakistan,
northern India, mainland China, and
Taiwan before vanishing southeast
of Guam. The annular eclipse path,
which stretched 9,058 miles (14,578
km), was just 13 miles (21 km) wide
and maximum eclipse (99 percent)
lasted only 38 seconds. MICHAEL ZEILER
AN UNFILTERED VIEW LEADS TO A REVISION
The path of annularity also
2 grazed Saudi Arabia, resulting
in a partial eclipse for many. The June 21 annular address to remember: eclipses.info. The working
Abouazza Elhamdi of the Astronomy eclipse also group also serves as a clearinghouse for profes-
and Physics Department of King traced a path sionals pursuing international eclipse expeditions,
Saud University captured this through coordinating such matters as visas, customs, and
sequence of partial phases in the
early morning from Riyadh. I am
Pakistan, where the shipping of equipment.
working with Abouazza, Marcos the cloud-cover For these images, Zia and Kentrianakis forwent
Peñaloza-Murillo of Venezuela, and forecast was filters in order to capture detailed views of Baily’s
Michael Roman of England to not as favorable beads, which occur when sunlight peeks through
analyze how eclipse darkening as in the lower valleys along the lunar limb. This allowed them to
impacts the local temperature Arabian Peninsula. successfully detect the solar chromosphere, and
and humidity in desert climates.
ABOUAZZA ELMHAMDI
Fortunately, it turned even the inner solar corona.
out to be very clear. Prior imaging of Baily’s beads taken during pre-
LEFT: Unlike central Saudi From Sukkur — a city in vious total solar eclipses led to discussions
3 Arabia, observers in Izki, Oman,
did see annularity. Alaa Ibrahim and
the Pakistani province of Sindh — Talha Moon Zia, between me, Xavier Jubier, and Ernest T. Wright of
who is a research astronomer at Pakistan’s NASA’s Scientific Visualization Studio. We con-
Zach Ioannou of the Astronomy
National Center for Big Data and Cloud Computing/ cluded that the IAU’s nominal solar diameter — the
Group in the Department of Physics
at Sultan Qaboos University NED University of Engineering & Technology, defined size of the Sun’s photosphere, which is
captured a series of images with obtained these wonderful unfiltered views of the used for predicting the length of eclipse totalities
the aid of a hydrogen-alpha filter, annular eclipse. The shots were created by stacking down to a fraction of a second — needed a minor
including this single short exposure. several short-exposure images and were taken revision. By comparing our observations to simula-
RIGHT: Made by stacking 210 under the guidance of Michael Kentrianakis, the tions by Jubier of the expected Baily’s beads for this
images, this view reveals solar
prominences, or bright tendrils of
former project manager of the American eclipse, which were based on high-resolution 3D
chromospheric-temperature plasma Astronomical Society’s 2017 U.S. eclipse efforts and mapping of the lunar surface obtained by NASA’s
that extend into the corona. During a member of our International Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter and the
the event, the observers tracked Astronomical Union’s (IAU) Working Japanese Kaguya mission, we found
changes in ambient temperature Group on Solar Eclipses. our suspicions were confirmed.
and humidity. Before the eclipse, Our IAU group focuses on being Zia’s observations, as well as
it was 113 degrees Fahrenheit
(45 degrees Celsius), which caused a central resource for anyone Jubier’s simulations, show the
some equipment to overheat. But as looking to find out more about true size of the Sun’s photo-
the Moon blotted out most of the past or upcoming solar eclipses. sphere is slightly larger than
Sun’s disk, the temperature dropped To do this, we maintain a web- previously thought.
down to 90 F (32 C). LEFT: A.I. IBRAHIM. site at the easiest possible
RIGHT: A.I. IBRAHIM/I.A. ALSHAIKH BOTH IMAGES: NCBC-NEDUET
4

Rafay Kazmi, a student

4 at Williams College in
Williamstown, Massachusetts,
observed a partial eclipse from his
home in Islamabad, Pakistan. Here,
he and his sister are seen viewing
the eclipse through special solar
filters, one of thousands left over
from the 2017 Great American
Eclipse and available through
Astronomers Without Borders.
RAFAY KAZMI

Clouds only served to add

5 mystique to this view of the
eclipse from the city of Sirsa in the
northern Indian state of Haryana,
taken by Neelam and Ajay Talwar.
NEELAM & AJAY TALWAR

This series of images, showing

6 the partial eclipse as seen from
Coimbatore, a city in the south
Indian state of Tamil Nadu, was
captured by members of the Mango
Astronomy Club. OBULI CHANDRAN

The Talwar team also captured

7 this series of images tracking
the progress of the annular eclipse
over Sirsa. Even through the
clouds, one can identify Baily’s
beads, the solar chromosphere,
and, perhaps, even the solar
corona. NEELAM & AJAY TALWAR

WWW. ASTRONOMY.COM 43
 8 ECLIPSE RESOURCES
Many observers who were unable to personally see
the annular eclipse dim the skies during the daytime
instead opted to monitor images and livestreams of the
event aired during the middle of their local night — an
option not available to eclipse enthusiasts just a few
decades ago.
Now, worldwide communication and online eclipse-
mapping tools, like those from Xavier Jubier of France
(http://xjubier.free.fr/ase2020map) and retired astro-
physicist Fred Espenak (EclipseWise.com), provide
detailed eclipse data for any location on Earth.
Additionally, cartographer Michael Zeiler of New
Mexico has meticulously created high-quality eclipse
maps, while cloudiness statistics over the decades
have been gleaned and put into context by Jay
Anderson of Canada. (Anderson and I jointly authored
the Peterson Field Guide to Weather, which is being
published in summer 2021.)
All of these resources are linked on the website for
the International Astronomical Union’s Working Group
on Solar Eclipses (http://eclipses.info), which I chair.
Additionally, observations of the 75 or so solar eclipses
I worked on in the past are posted to the Williams
College Eclipse Expeditions website (https://sites.
williams.edu/eclipse).

10

Amateur astronomer Zhou

8 Guanhuai (left), with whom I
have previously corresponded
about earlier eclipses, sent an
image of the partial eclipse (right)
as seen from Jinan, Shandong
province, China. Here, the partial
eclipse reached its greatest
coverage at 15:55 local time with
67 percent of the Sun’s disk
blocked. ZHOU GUANHUAI

Due to travel restrictions

9 related to the COVID-19
pandemic, I was unable to venture
to Europe. This image, however,
came from Thessoliniki, Greece.
It was captured by Aris Voulgaris,
with whom I closely work on total
solar eclipses. ARIS VOULGARIS

Near the end of the path

10 of annularity in Guam, the
eclipse was visible with 97 percent
coverage, as seen in this eerie shot.
The path of annularity continued
about 50 miles (80 km) out to sea —
briefly tempting me to fly to the U.S.
territory for a quarantined glimpse
from a boat. DEAN PATRICK SERVITO

44 ASTRONOMY • FEBRUARY 2021

 11

A camera mounted to the

11 outside of the International
Space Station captured this shot
of the Moon’s shadow racing
across Earth (near the border of
Kazakhstan and China) during
the June 21 annular eclipse. In
the foreground, a Japanese
cargo spacecraft is visible.
NASA/ISS EXPEDITION 63

The X-ray telescope on

12 the Japanese Hinode
spacecraft captured this series of
shots, which have been rescaled
and colored, showing the Moon
blocking the Sun’s disk during the
12 June eclipse. Astronomer Taro
Sakao of the Japan Aerospace
Exploration Agency (JAXA) took
13 advantage of Hinode’s vantage
point to observe how plasma
moves within the high-speed
solar wind stream, using the lunar
silhouette for calibration of stray
Jay Pasachoff is Field light. JAXA/HINODE (THANKS TO ALPHONSE
Memorial Professor of STERLING OF NASA’S MARSHALL SPACE FLIGHT
CENTER, AND KATHY REEVES AND LUCAS GULIANO
Astronomy at Williams OF THE HARVARD-SMITHSONIAN CENTER FOR
College in Williamstown, ASTROPHYSICS)

Massachusetts, and
The passage of the Moon’s
chair of the International 13 shadow across Earth’s
surface was also tracked by the
Astronomical Union’s
European Meteosat-8 and the
Working Group on Solar Japanese Himawari-8 spacecraft.
Eclipses. He has worked Here we see a Meteosat view of
Moon’s shadow over northeast
on 75 solar eclipses and Africa, the Red Sea, and the
written about the Sun for Arabian Peninsula. The next
Astronomy since its very annular solar eclipse will occur
June 10, 2021. EUMETSAT
first issue. His research is
sponsored by the NSF.

WWW. ASTRONOMY.COM 45
With three Messier objects and loads of other bright targets,
the Charioteer has a lot to offer. // BY MICHAEL E. BAKICH
he constellation

T
N
Auriga (pronounced
or-EYE-guh) the
NGC 2126
Charioteer, a star
pattern known by this name
for several thousand years, is
easy to recognize primarily Capella
because of its brightest star, α
Capella (Alpha [α] Aurigae). AURIGA NGC 1664
ε
β
This luminary is the sixth-
brightest nighttime star and
shines with an intense yel- ρ η ζ
NGC 2281
low light. The constellation’s λ
Beta star, magnitude 1.9
ν τ μ
Menkalinan, is 40th brightest. NGC 1857 ω
The Charioteer is visible E σ
θ υ
in the evening from mid- NGC 1778
autumn through winter in M38
NGC 1907
the Northern Hemisphere. NGC 1931 IC 405
ι
Its center lies at R.A. 6h01m M36 IC 410
M37
and Dec. 42° north. Auriga χ NGC 1893
ranks 21st in size out of the Barnard 29
88 constellations, covering
26
657.44 square degrees κ
(1.59 percent) of the sky. Its 5° β
size is a bit of a hindrance to
ASTRONOMY: RICHARD TALCOTT AND ROEN KELLY
its visibility, however. It lies in
the middle of the constella- midnight. With respect to Auriga contains three its borders for you to point a
tion ladder (43rd) in terms of visibility, anyone living north Messier objects (all open clus- telescope at. Good luck!
overall brightness. of latitude 34° south can see ters) and several other open
The best date each year to the entire figure at some time clusters and emission nebulae. Michael E. Bakich is a
see Auriga is December 21, during the year. And it’s com- Because it lies along the Milky contributing editor of Astronomy
when it stands opposite the pletely invisible only to those Way, it doesn’t contain any who enjoys slowly moving his
Sun in the sky and reaches who live at latitudes south of galaxies. As you can see, how- telescope through a single
its highest point at local 62° south. ever, lots of targets lie within constellation.

1 Open cluster NGC

2281 glows at
magnitude 5.4 and
2 NGC 1664 is an
attractive open
cluster 2° west of
measures 14' across. magnitude 3.0 Epsilon
It lies 0.8° south- (ε) Aurigae. It glows at
southwest of magnitude magnitude 7.6 and
5.0 Psi⁷ (ψ ⁷) Aurigae. spans 18'. A 4-inch
Through a 4-inch scope scope at 100x reveals
at 100x, you’ll spot two three dozen stars. The
dozen stars. Four stars background star field is
forming a parallelogram rich, but you’ll have no
sit at the center of the trouble picking out the
cluster. ANTHONY AYIOMAMITIS cluster. JASPAL CHADHA

46 ASTRONOMY • FEBRUARY 2021

3 NGC 1778 is a magnitude 7.7 open
cluster with a diameter of 8'. You’ll
find it 2° east-southeast of magnitude
4 Barnard 29 is a dark nebula that
lies 2.4° southeast of magnitude
2.7 Iota (ι) Aurigae. Through a 12-inch
5.1 Omega (ω) Aurigae. Through a scope, B29 appears as a gray, mottled
4-inch scope, you’ll see two dozen region that blends gradually into its
stars unevenly spread across this starry surroundings. The darkest area
cluster’s face. Double the aperture
to 8 inches, and you’ll raise that star
count to 50. MARTIN C. GERMANO
appears 15' across. MARTIN C. GERMANO
5 The Flaming Star Nebula (IC 405) appears as a dim 30' by 20' wisp of light.
To observe it, first find AE Aurigae, which lies 4.2° east-northeast of Iota.
Through a 6-inch scope, the nebula appears triangular. ALISTAIR SYMON

6 Open cluster NGC 1857 sits 0.8°

south-southeast of magnitude 4.7
Lambda (λ) Aurigae. It glows at mag-
7 IC 410 is a large (40' by 30') emis-
sion nebula 2.4° west-northwest
of magnitude 4.7 Chi (χ) Aurigae. The
8 NGC 1907 is a magnitude 8.2 open
cluster that spans 6'. A 4-inch
scope at 100x shows about a dozen
9 The Starfish Cluster (M38) is
the westernmost and faintest
(magnitude 6.4) of the three Messier
nitude 7.0 and measures 5'. Through nebulosity glows brightest in an area stars. Use a low-power eyepiece and open clusters in this constellation.
an 8-inch scope, you’ll see 25 stars 5' in diameter on the northwestern you’ll sweep up an even-brighter open A 4-inch scope will reveal three
around 13th magnitude. The exception edge. Use a 12-inch scope with an cluster: M38, 0.5° to the north- dozen stars in an area 20' across.
is SAO 57903, a magnitude 7.4 yellow Oxygen-III filter and this object will northeast. MARTIN C. GERMANO ANTHONY AYIOMAMITIS

star at the center. MARTIN C. GERMANO knock your socks off. MARK HANSON

10 Emission nebula NGC 1931

sits 0.8° east-southeast of
magnitude 5.1 Phi (ϕ) Aurigae. An
11 The Pinwheel Cluster (M36) is
the least spectacular of the
Messier trio in Auriga. At magnitude
12 The Salt and Pepper Cluster
(M37) displays an even
distribution of stars — a rarity in open
13 NGC 2126 lies midway between
magnitude 1.9 Menkalinan (Beta
[β] Aurigae) and magnitude 3.7 Delta
8-inch scope at 200x shows the 6.0, however, it still outshines 99.99 clusters. A 3-inch scope reveals 50 (δ) Aurigae. It glows at magnitude
nebula, which spans 4'. It orients percent of the sky’s star clusters. stars. Through a 10-inch scope, you’ll 10.2 and spans 6'. Through a 6-inch
northeast to southwest and shows Through a 4-inch scope, you’ll see count 200, and a 16-inch will reveal telescope, you’ll see about 20 stars.
non-uniform brightness across its several dozen stars strewn across an 500. M37 glows at magnitude 5.6 and The magnitude 6.0 star SAO 40801
face. AL AND ANDY FERAYOMI/ADAM BLOCK/NOAO/ area 12' wide. ANTHONY AYIOMAMITIS is 20' across. ANTHONY AYIOMAMITIS lies 3' northeast of the cluster.
AURA/NSF MARTIN C. GERMANO

WWW. ASTRONOMY.COM 47
 These computer-generated images
from the Copernicus Complexio
cosmological simulation show stellar
halos of Milky Way-like galaxies. The
visible streams result from tidally
disrupted satellite galaxies. A.P. COOPER
(NATIONAL TSING HUA UNIVERSITY, TAIWAN)/W. HELLWING
AND THE VIRGO CONSORTIUM

This discovery image of a giant,

low-surface-brightness, looplike stellar
structure around edge-on spiral
NGC 4013 was obtained with a 20-inch
amateur telescope. The marked redder
color of the stream material compared to
the outer parts of the disk suggests that
this loop did not originate from the disk
itself, but rather is the tidal stream of a
dwarf galaxy being destroyed by its
interaction with NGC 4013. R. JAY GABANY

48 ASTRONOMY
 STUDYING
GALAXIES
with amateur images
Advances in our understanding of galaxy formation aren’t just
coming from large, professional telescopes.
BY DAVID MARTÍNEZ-DELGADO AND R. JAY GABANY

F
FROM THE TIME amateur astronomers
Galileo first peered into his equipped with modest
telescope until the middle instruments as well. One
of the 19th century, profes- such amateur was sanitary
sional telescopes required engineer Andrew Common.
the observer to look In 1883, he took the first
through an eyepiece. As a photograph of faint struc-
result, astronomers manu- tures in the Orion Nebula
ally logged mountains of (M42) that were not visible
information and telescopic through an eyepiece.
drawings in journals. Others, photographing a
Then came photography. plethora of objects, quickly
Almost from its inception, followed.
photography offered the
tantalizing prospect of serv- Paving the way
ing as a tool to discover and As the 21st century
document new, hitherto- dawned, the digital imag-
unseen phenomena. In fact, ing technology that had
by the beginning of the already replaced chemical
20th century, advancements photography at professional
in photography enabled observatories began to
career astronomers to lay trickle down into consumer
down their pencils and products. This enabled
trade their telescope amateur astronomers to
eyepieces for glass plates purchase, at a reasonable
coated with photographic cost, computer-controlled
emulsions. charge-coupled device
In addition to appealing (CCD) cameras expressly Dwarf galaxy Donatiello I was captured through a Takahashi FSQ-106 refractor
to professional astronomers, designed for use with small at f/3.6 and a commercial CCD camera at the Avalon Merlino, the personal remote
observatory of Avalon Instruments. The total exposure time was 24,300 seconds
this potential captured the telescopes. At the same through a luminance filter. The zoomed-in panel shows a red-filtered image of
imagination of resourceful time, motorized mounts Donatiello I from the 10.4-meter Gran Telescopio Canarias in La Palma, Spain. G. DONATIELLO

WWW. ASTRONOMY.COM 49
 driven by electronic maps of
the sky enabled amateurs to
place any celestial object at
the center of an electronic
imaging chip and track it
with high precision.
As a result, modest equip-
ment became a tool for
obtaining ultra-deep images
that could capture the
outskirts of nearby massive
galaxies and survey vast areas
of the sky with unprecedented
depth. This enabled a new
type of collaboration between
world-class amateur astroim-
agers and international teams
of professional astronomers
exploring one of the funda-
mental questions in modern
astrophysics: How did massive
galaxies like our Milky Way
come to be?
The standard model of the
universe’s formation predicts
that the elegant galactic spirals
we see today, including our
own Milky Way, arose hierar-
chically. They did this by
capturing much smaller gal-
axies, some only composed of
dark matter. State-of-the-art
computer models indicate the
Local Group and its neighbors
should still contain evidence
of this ancient galactic
cannibalism.
During the last decade,
This wide-field mosaic of the amateur telescopes have
Magellanic Clouds was taken through revealed, in many cases for the
a Canon EF 50mm f/1.4 USM prime
lens from La Silla Observatory, Chile. first time, an assortment of
YURI BELETSKY large-scale tidal structures
The Small Magellanic Cloud
around nearby massive galax-
shows a lot of detail through a Canon ies. They also have imaged
EF 200mm f/2.8L lens from Hacienda formerly unknown nearby
Las Condes, Chile. A faint, shell-like
structure composed of young stars is low-surface-brightness star
visible on the northeast side (upper systems. And amateurs using
left in this image) of the galaxy.
YURI BELETSKY/FABIAN NEYER/BERNHARD HUBL
telephoto lenses have traced
interactions between the
Magellanic Clouds and other
Milky Way satellite galaxies.
All of these amazing images
have provided evidence to
support our understanding of
galactic evolution as predicted
by current simulations.

50 ASTRONOMY • FEBRUARY 2021

Amateurs at work target using high-throughput variations from different
Ultra-deep observations of luminance (clear) filters for sources. These artifacts com-
nearby spiral galaxies and visible-light imaging. To plicate or mask the detection This discovery image of a stellar
regions around them have capture fuzzy emission line of faint structures, and their stream in the halo of the nearby dwarf
starburst galaxy NGC 4449, located
been obtained by world-class structures in galactic halos, correction adds significant 12 million light-years away in the
American, European, and imagers use narrowband observing time overhead to constellation Canes Venatici,
was detected with deep, integrated-
Chilean amateur astroimag- Hydrogen-alpha filters. the data-gathering process. light images from a 20-inch amateur
ers. They operate privately These observations demon- telescope. R. JAY GABANY
owned observatories that strate in several ways the fea-
use high-quality apochro- sibility of smaller telescopes to
matic and Ritchey-Chrétien detect very faint diffuse struc-
telescopes with apertures tures in large fields around
between 4 and 32 inches (0.1 nearby galaxies. First, small
and 0.8 meter). Each observ- short-focal-length telescopes
ing location features spectac- combined with single-chip
ularly dark, clear skies with cameras cover a larger field
typical seeing less than 1.5". of view. Second, the use of
These modest telescopes single-chip detectors also
— and, in some cases, makes it easier to flatten the
telephoto lenses — are coupled external regions around
with off-the-shelf CCD cam- galaxies in comparison to
eras equipped with the latest standard multi-chip detector
generation of imaging chips. arrays used with professional

THE STANDARD MODEL OF THE

UNIVERSE’S FORMATION PREDICTS
THAT THE ELEGANT GALACTIC SPIRALS
WE SEE TODAY, INCLUDING OUR OWN
MILKY WAY, AROSE HIERARCHICALLY.

They can probe vast sky areas

with unprecedented depth —
approximately three magni-
tudes fainter than either classic
photographic plate surveys
like the Palomar Observatory
Sky Survey or more recent
digital surveys like the Sloan
Digital Sky Survey (SDSS).
Camera sensitivity, fast
operation, and lack of the
competition for observing
time typical of professional
observatories places these
low-cost robotic amateur
facilities at the front line of
ultra-deep imaging. They Stellar streams around M63 are
allow high-impact research the remnants of a satellite galaxy
that was disrupted by the large
of structures in nearby telescopes. Finally, observa- Searching for stellar spiral. Their presence was confirmed
low-surface-brightness galax- tions with large telescopes are streams in this image, taken with a 20-inch
ies. Doing so requires mul- sometimes subject to glare Computer simulations pre- amateur telescope located high in
the Sacramento Mountains of
tiple seven- and eight-hour from nearby bright stars and dict that the stellar halos of New Mexico. R. JAY GABANY
exposures of each galactic significant sky background massive galaxies contain an

WWW. ASTRONOMY.COM 51
 These clear luminance filter
images of nearby galaxies from the
Stellar Tidal Stream Survey show
large, diffuse light structures in their
outskirts. A color inset of the disk of
each galaxy has been over-plotted
for reference. D. MARTÍNEZ-DELGADO/
R.J. GABANY/K. CRAWFORD/K. TEUWEN/A. BLOCK/
J. SCHEDLER/M. HANSON

Located in the constellation

Leo, extensive debris shells from
the accretion of one or more
long-gone satellite galaxies
encompass spiral galaxy NGC 3521
like a bubble. Data for this image
were collected through a 20-inch
amateur telescope. R. JAY GABANY

many thousands of light-years

into space, often on both sides
of the host galaxy.
We have also found iso-
lated shells, giant clouds of
debris floating within halos,
jetlike spikes emerging from
galactic disks, giant plumes,
and large-scale diffuse struc-
tures. All of these are possibly
related to the remnants of
ancient satellites that are now
thoroughly disrupted.
One important highlight
of this survey was the discov-
ery of a stellar stream around
NGC 4449, an isolated irreg-
ular galaxy similar to the
Large Magellanic Cloud. This
is the lowest-mass galaxy with
a verified stellar stream. Such
a discovery suggests satellite
assortment of tidal debris requires long-exposure, faint structures is compelling accretion also can play a sig-
streams that long exposures wide-field images encom- evidence that supports the nificant role in building up
should reveal. The most spec- passing the outskirts of the hierarchical nature of galaxy stellar halos around low-mass
tacular examples are those host galaxies. Working with formation predicted by the galaxies as well as possibly
that wrap around the host amateur astroimagers over standard cosmological model. triggering starbursts.
galaxy and roughly trace the the last decade, we have In addition to circular fea-
orbit of the progenitor satellite imaged nearby spiral galaxies tures similar to the Sagittarius Discovering satellite
galaxy that created them. as part of the Stellar Tidal stream surrounding the galaxies
These streams cannot be Stream Survey. Milky Way, our data have Searching for stellar streams
resolved into individual stars This observational effort revealed enormous structures with deep amateur images
and thus appear as elongated, has discovered almost 50 resembling open umbrellas has also led to the discovery
diffuse light features with previously undetected tidal with long, narrow shafts. of numerous faint dwarf sat-
an angular extent of several streams around our targets. These terminate in a giant ellite galaxies around a hand-
arcminutes. Detecting them The extraordinary variety of shell of debris extending ful of nearby spirals. This is

52 ASTRONOMY • FEBRUARY 2021

intriguing because sophisti- This image presents in
outstanding detail an extended stellar
cated computer simulations tidal stream wrapping around the
predict a large number of edge-on spiral galaxy NGC 5907,
located about 53 million light-years
small dark matter halos in the away in the constellation Draco the
local universe. But our theory Dragon. This picture shows how the
of galaxy formation is still accretion of a low-mass satellite
galaxy can produce an interwoven,
unclear as to how many of rosettelike structure of debris
these are in the form of lumi- dispersed in the halo of its host
galaxy. R. JAY GABANY
nous star systems. Therefore,
astronomers want to conduct
a full inventory of dwarf gal- low-cost telephoto lenses to
axies, both those orbiting as obtain deep images of the
satellites and isolated dwarfs Clouds. One panoramic view
that are in the vicinity of revealed a never-before-seen,
nearby massive galaxies. The dense, shell-like area of stars
only way to detect them is by in the outskirts of the Small
surveying vast regions with Magellanic Cloud.
deep images. Research using photomet-
Only a few organized astro- ric observations from the
imaging groups are searching Survey of the Magellanic
for low-surface-brightness Stellar History revealed the
satellite galaxies. Some mem- shell is mainly composed of
bers of the Stellar Tidal young stars. It suggests the
Stream Survey are also structure resulted from a
involved in the Dwarf Galaxy star-formation event, likely
Survey with Amateur triggered by gravitational
interaction with the Large
ISOLATED DWARF SPHEROIDAL GALAXIES ARE MADE Magellanic Cloud and/or the
Milky Way about 150 million
EXCLUSIVELY OF OLD STARS WITH LITTLE GAS TO FUEL
years ago. Recent studies
STAR FORMATION. with the Hubble Space
Telescope found the two
Telescopes. Additionally, the astroimager Giuseppe the Milky Way’s two larg- Magellanic Clouds had a
Tief Belichtete (Very Long Donatiello during a visual est galactic satellites, the head-on collision about
Exposed) Galaxies project is inspection of a deep image Magellanic Clouds, through the same time.
run by German and Austrian produced with a 5-inch mapping their outskirts.
imagers. These groups look refractor. The discovery was These regions should still Can amateurs
for dwarf galaxies in subsequently confirmed with contain clues about past inter- contribute?
long-exposure images using SDSS images and follow-up actions between the Clouds Based on these results, it’s
software that searches for observations by the 3.6-meter that left visible imprints such clear that advances in our
likely candidates and then Galileo and the 10.4-meter as distortions, clumps, arcs, understanding of galaxy for-
extracts their photometric Gran TeCan telescopes, both and dense stellar areas. mation needn’t be obtained
and structural characteristics. located in the Canary Islands. With that purpose in only by large, professional
Isolated dwarf spheroidal This low-surface-brightness mind, we performed a deep, instruments. Important sci-
galaxies are made exclusively stellar system, located about wide-field imaging survey entific results that further
of old stars with little gas to 1° from Mirach (Beta [β] of the periphery of the our understanding of how
fuel star formation. These Andromedae), is suspected Magellanic Clouds. Inspired the universe formed can be
distant star systems are of to be the most isolated dwarf by the photographic plate obtained when amateurs with
huge interest because they galaxy in the Local Group. work of French astronomer modest telescopes collaborate
act as laboratories where Gérard de Vaucouleurs in the with professionals with big
astronomers can study why Magellanic Cloud ’50s, this modern project used objectives.
they stopped forming stars interactions
about 10 billion years ago. Another important approach David Martínez-Delgado is an astrophysicist at the Instituto de
For example, Donatiello I to understanding the for- Astrofisica de Andalucia in Spain who detects galactic fossils around
is a dwarf spheroidal galaxy mation and evolution of nearby galaxies. R. Jay GaBany is an award-winning California
discovered by Italian dwarf galaxies is studying astroimager.

WWW. ASTRONOMY.COM 53
We review

Celestron’s
60th
WHEN I WAS A TEENAGER, new
to observing the sky, I spent a year wan-
dering across the Milky Way armed with
nothing more than a pair of 7x50 binocu-
lars. Then a miracle happened: I received
a Celestron 8, 1976 vintage, as a birthday
present. It changed my universe forever.
From the cornfield behind our Ohio
subdivision, the telescope opened up
completely new vistas — star clusters,
nebulae, and galaxies. Not only could I
see hundreds of spectacular sky objects,
but I was seeing things like the Veil Nebula,
which the old-fashioned literature of the
time contended was beyond the reach of an
8-inch scope.
Now I feel like I have undergone another
telescope revolution. Last year Celestron
celebrated its 60th anniversary. As part of
their festivities, they produced a new 8-inch
Schmidt-Cassegrain Telescope (SCT), one
that rolls all of the company’s fanciest fea-
tures into one package.
With a built-in wide-field camera, it
aligns itself in a matter of minutes, requiring

The telescope’s carbon-fiber tube is both lightweight and

very strong, giving this model a high-tech appearance.

Celestron’s most sophisticated 8-inch SCT ever features a

revolutionary system that aligns itself so that users can simply
punch in object names and designations on a keypad and slew
to thousands of targets.
The NexStar Evolution 8HD With StarSense, a limited-edition telescope,
combines all of Celestron’s fanciest trappings to produce a superb, top-of-the-line
instrument. BY DAVID J. EICHER // IMAGES BY CELESTRON

anniversary C8
minimal knowledge on the part of the Out under the stars
user. It then slews to any of 40,000 targets PRODUCT INFORMATION The first thing you need to do with this
within its onboard computer’s database. scope is set it up on level ground and run
Its multicoated optics are of the highest Celestron Limited-Edition a program that enables the StarSense unit
caliber, and the three included eyepieces NexStar Evolution 8HD Telescope to calibrate itself. Included instructions
are sensational. This is the ultimate With StarSense, and a link to an online video tutorial
8-inch SCT of its time, and I was happy 60th Anniversary Edition make that very simple. That first night
to be able to put it through its paces over Type: Schmidt-Cassegrain reflector I was in a hurry, so I set it up on my
the past few weeks. Aperture: 8 inches (203 mm) driveway to give it a quick run-through.
Focal length: 2,032 mm Although a portion of the sky was
Setup and inspection Focal ratio: f/10 blocked by a tree and the house, I was
Assembly was relatively straightforward, Optical tube length: 17 inches (43.2 cm) curious to see what would happen.
and a helpful booklet walks owners Weight: 42 pounds (19 kg) fully So began my adventure with StarSense
through the process. I went slowly, read assembled Autoalign. The camera mounts atop the
everything carefully, and within an hour Price: $2,599 scope’s tube with a heavy bracket and
had everything set up in my living room Contact: Celestron plugs into a port on the mount. To begin
for inspection, charging of the onboard 2835 Columbia St. the calibration procedure, you start with
battery, and preparation for a night of Torrance, CA 90503 the scope’s tube positioned horizontally.
observing. 310.328.9560 A hand controller allows you to input
With the telescope assembled, I www.celestron.com choices and, once the scope is aligned,
couldn’t help but be struck by its quality target countless objects. I uncorked the
and elegance. It features a scope’s mirror, the StarSense cam-
carbon-fiber tube; multicoated, era’s cover, and the diagonal’s
high-transmission optics (what cover before plopping a very nice
Celestron calls “Edge HD”); a E-lux 32mm Celestron eyepiece
sturdy single-arm mount; and, of into the diagonal.
course, the alt-azimuth mounting I powered the scope on, chose
enabled by the computer control of “Align” on the hand controller, set
the scope. The company seemingly the time, date, and time zone,
spared no details: The machining then stepped back and watched.
is top-notch and the hardware is Over the course of about
solid, a 2" focuser and star diago- 10 minutes, the scope slewed to
nal came along with the package, and fro and occasionally noted on
and the tripod is heavy duty. The the controller that it had imaged a
onboard battery holds a charge for certain number of stars. Would
Celestron supplies an array of accessories with
more than 10 hours at a time. The this scope, allowing users to enjoy a luxurious
this work with the handicap I gave it in
included eyepieces are very nice, with a telescopic experience. my rush to test the scope? After a short
2" 32mm “porthole” for deep-sky observ- time, “Alignment complete” came up on
ing and higher-power 1¼" eyepieces of objects manually for years. Would this the controller.
15mm and 9mm focal lengths. computer-controlled system with its Next, I followed the protocol by cali-
The StarSense system was really what database of tens of thousands of objects brating on a known star. I punched in
intrigued me. I am an old-school, — which it would apparently use to align “Vega” and the scope immediately slewed
star-hopping guy who has taken great itself before hopping between galaxies upward, capturing Vega’s position. When
pride in learning the sky and finding — win me over? I peered into the eyepiece — low power,

WWW. ASTRONOMY.COM 55
no doubt — the star was dead center. The makes one spoiled quickly. There was
final step is a calibration on the star itself the Trifid, glowing faintly; the unmis-
(Vega in my case), and this can be done takably bright Omega Nebula popped
with a high-power eyepiece to maximize fiercely, and the delicate light of the
precision. You can then realign the Eagle Nebula appeared well defined.
StarSense and, in another few minutes, The computer-controlled database
the mount is ready to use all night; you makes punching in some of the
can simply punch in targets and let the lesser-known objects like clusters M23,
scope slew to them. M25, and NGC 6603 easy. I worked my
This full calibration procedure needs way up to M11, which was incredible,
to be performed only once, when the and then viewed some globulars — M22
StarSense Autoalign is first attached to the in particular was a killer, looking quite
telescope’s tube. From there, a full calibra- photographic.
tion is not needed unless the StarSense is I turned toward some favorite plan-
bumped or the bracket removed. etary nebulae I hadn’t viewed in a while.
Wow. Here is the kind of telescope The Dumbbell Nebula, high in the sky,
that could revolutionize astronomy. This knocked my socks off — it looked like a
is a telescope that anyone can use without glowing photo in a rich starfield of col-
any knowledge of old-style polar align- Celestron’s StarSense system uses a remarkable orful suns. What incredible beauty. But
wide-field camera to image star patterns around the
ment. It is really quite amazing to see this sky, allowing the telescope to understand where it is Cygnus and Aquila had many other
work just as magically as is advertised, and how it’s aligned before automatically slewing to treasures, and I viewed NGC 6781,
a target.
with objects showing up dead-centered, NGC 6894, NGC 7008, and NGC 6826
just as requested from the database. (just to name a few). They all appeared
quite well defined, with the blue-green
Computer-controlled colors showing well, and were visible at
heavens low powers, growing more spectacular as
I gave this telescope a more thorough I increased magnification.
test run from my backyard in Wisconsin, I then took a shot at some widely scat-
where I can see the Milky Way and a tered objects just to see the range of
good smattering of faint stars. The tele- views the telescope could provide. The
scope performed most impressively. I Andromeda Galaxy appeared bright and
can’t wait to get it underneath a really oval, with well-defined dust lanes close
prime sky like that of southern Arizona. to the nucleus. The Owl Cluster in
I commenced my journey with Jupiter Cassiopeia, with its bright deep yellow
and Saturn, each looking really fine, with chief sun, was an old friend I revisited.
nice cloud details, even at low power. All Double stars like Mizar and Albireo were
the moons that should have been present simply stunning, set in black starfields,
were, and the higher-power eyepieces and galaxies like M81 and M82 floated
provided a splendid view early on, even majestically in space.
though the seeing had not fully settled As the night went on, I found this
down for the evening. The scope’s standard visual back employs a telescope to deliver on everything I had
2" star diagonal and can accommodate both 2"
But I was eager to tour deep-sky objects and 11/4" eyepieces. hoped for: The optics are sharp, the
and so I plopped the 32mm eyepiece back accessories luxurious, the tripod over-
in and went to work. Everything I looked The Lagoon Nebula did not disap- built and very stable, the craftsmanship
at showcased the quality of the telescope’s point, with its gauzy areas of bright of the optical tube and the electronics
optics — the views were crisp and well gray-green nebulosity and the sparkly, first-rate. I have a soft spot for the old
defined, and I saw all the details in clus- well-populated star cluster NGC 6530. 1976 Celestron 8, with which I made my
ters, nebulae, and galaxies that I would For a time, I walked up the line of bright initial thousands of observations, and
expect to see from a suburban site. The clusters and nebulae in Sagittarius and which is now in my basement. But
32mm eyepiece provides a sharp, flat field, Serpens. Only needing to input the there’s a new Celestron in town, and this
yielding crisp stars all across the view. numbers of Messier and NGC objects magnificent model is going to be hard
for any such portable instrument to
overcome. This is a telescope for a new
At press time, Celestron had announced that they have sold out of this exclusive anniversary
age of amateur astronomy.
model. However, almost exactly the same telescope — without the carbon-fiber tube and a few
bells and whistles — is available. The Celestron NexStar Evolution 8HD With StarSense functions
in exactly the same way as the anniversary edition. You can find out more about it here: David J. Eicher is editor of Astronomy
www.celestron.com/products/nexstar-evolution-8-hd-telescope-with-starsense. and has been using telescopes for more
than 40 years.

56 ASTRONOMY • FEBRUARY 2021

 S! e
NU th 21
BOide toky 20
Gu ht S
Nig
HOW TO WATCH
METEOR SHO THE COO
WERS OF THELEST
YEAR p. 48
DECEMB ER
Protect
Your
2020

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ice giant planets

PLUS
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p. 40
Preserve your
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library of Astronomy
nebulae p. 28 on the best
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The world’s 14 abest-selling
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WWW. ASTRONOMY.COM 57
 SECRET SK Y
LEFT: On June 10, 2020, an with only a partial penum-
Earth-sized sunspot, AR bra that doesn’t completely

A sunspot bino 2765, from brewing solar

cycle 25 could be seen
through handheld 8x42
binoculars. RIGHT: Two
surround the core; and fully
dressed sunspots, which are
Earth-sized and feature a

challenge days later, when the

spot’s umbra was smaller
and less apparent, it was
difficult to see, even when
the author braced the
dark core, an umbra, and a
penumbra.
I began systematically
Search for small spots with both eyes. binoculars. North is up obser ving the Sun on
and east to the left. SDO/HMI
June 10, 2020. That day, I
used handheld 8x42 binocu-
lars to see without difficulty
a fully dressed Earth-sized
sunspot labeled AR 2765.
(AR stands for active region.)
The evolved spot was in the
Sun’s southern hemisphere
and had already sailed past
the central meridian.
Two days later, the fore-
shortened spot appeared both
For safe binocular smaller and less apparent,
solar viewing, you can
make a simple device
The long-awaited next solar cycle is showing making it more difficult to detect. Only when I braced
using certified signs of awakening, and so is the time for the binoculars against a wooden post could I resolve the
eclipse-viewing observers to search for naked-eye sunspots. spot, which looked more smoky gray than black.
glasses, scissors, and
glue or tape. Cut and But at the beginning of a new cycle, the first spots to A similar situation occurred July 25, when another
fit the glasses into a appear are generally too small to be detected without Earth-sized sunspot (AR 2767) appeared in the Sun’s
cardboard box large optical aid. Using safe solar filters in front of binoculars southern hemisphere. As for AR 2765, handheld 8x42
enough to fit over
the front of your will help bring some of these devilishly delightful spots binoculars easily brought it into view. It remained vis-
binoculars. Make sure into view. Unfortunately, the task is not easy. ible until July 31, when the spot’s highly foreshortened
the fit is secure and umbra diminished in apparent size enough that it
that there are no light
leaks. STEPHEN JAMES Cycle 25 brewing? became a challenge to see through the binoculars. It
O’MEARA In their February 2020 article in Research Notes of the vanished from view the next day.
American Astronomical Society, Dibyendu Nandy from By August 5, a more challenging spot (AR 2770) in
the Center of Excellence in Space Sciences India and his the Sun’s northern hemisphere had slid into binocular
colleagues argue that solar cycle 25 may be dawning. view. That day, the foreshortened spot was difficult to
No one knows exactly how a new solar cycle starts, but see even with braced 10x50 binoculars. I had to know
it’s thought to be based in a complex interaction of ion- exactly where to look to pick it out. Sighting AR 2770
ized gas and the Sun’s magnetic field. We do know that was similar to spotting Venus in the daytime — if you
spots in a new cycle will have their magnetic poles look away for an instant, it’s gone.
reversed from those in the last cycle — in this case, cycle Two days later, however, the Earth-sized spot was a
24, which ended around December 2019. cinch through handheld binoculars. I finally lost sight
Since November 2019, solar astronomers have been of it on August 11, the day after an enigmatic light
observing new sunspots with reversed polarity around bridge had split the spot in two, and before it had
25˚ north and south latitudes. And this happens to be dwindled into a naked pore.
exactly where they expected new spots from solar cycle
25 to appear. Seeing such spots is a positive sign that a Observe in sunlight
new solar cycle is in the making. By the time you read this, other Earth-sized spots may
be moving across the Sun. Each offers you a chance to
The binocular challenge test your direct vision through filtered binoculars. I
Before we get into viewing cycle 25 sunspots, two defi- want to learn how small of a sunspot you can see, espe-
BY STEPHEN nitions. A sunspot’s umbra is the dark inner part. Its cially if you use tripod-mounted binoculars or those
JAMES O’MEARA penumbra is the lighter outer region. Currently, the larger than 10x50. Good luck, and, as always, send what
Stephen is a globe-
stammering start of cycle 25 has been creating three you see and don’t see to [email protected].
trotting observer who
is always looking types of spots: Short-lived naked cores, which are state-
for the next great sized dark spots without any penumbra; partially BROWSE THE “SECRET SKY” ARCHIVE AT
celestial event. dressed proto-sunspots, which are Moon-sized marks www.Astronomy.com/OMeara

58 ASTRONOMY • FEBRUARY 2021

 BINOCULAR UNIVERSE

Bound across is an F-type supergiant 1,300 light-years away. It makes

the perfect jumping-off point to find an object in
celestial limbo.

the sky Glance 1.5° due east of Arneb. Can you make out a
misty knot of four faint stars? That’s NGC 2017.
Originally classified as an open cluster, we now know
Lepus the Hare offers some less-explored celestial sights. that NGC 2017 is an asterism that happens to also
include the multiple-star system h3780. With most
At this time of binoculars, we can see that the system’s brightest star,
year, all eyes are at 6th magnitude, is framed by a tight triad of
on Orion, Taurus, 8th-magnitude attendants.
Canis Major, Gemini, and Lepus contains a single entry in Charles Messier’s
Auriga, with their bevy of famous catalog: M79, an out-of-the-way globular clus-
stellar and deep-sky trea- ter. To find it, bunny-hop 3° from Arneb southwestward
sures. But that leaves other to Beta Leporis (also known by the proper name Nihal),
constellations to pass by and then repeat the leap, continuing in the same direc-
unnoticed and underap- tion. Most globular clusters swarm around the center
preciated. This month and of our galaxy, placing them in our summer sky. But a
next, let’s explore the rest of few, like M79, lie in the opposite direction. M79 sits
the winter sky. 60,000 light-years from the galactic center, about 10,000
South of Orion’s knees, light-years farther than our solar system. Some believe
marked by Rigel (Beta [β] that this points to an extragalactic origin — that M79
Through binoculars, Orionis) and Saiph (Kappa was once affiliated with a tidally disrupted dwarf galaxy
M79 (NGC 1904), a [κ] Orionis), are a half-dozen or so fainter stars that known as the Canis Major Dwarf.
collection of 100,000
stars, appears as a form the constellation Lepus the Hare. Through binoculars, M79 appears much like Messier
single, fuzzy star. Even though its brightest star shines no better than himself described it in December 1780, two months
ADAM BLOCK/NOAO/AURA/NSF
magnitude 2.6, Lepus is apparent in suburban backyards after his contemporary, Pierre Méchain, discovered it:
if there is a good view to the south. Directly below the “Nebula without a star; the center bright; the nebulosity
imaginary line connecting Rigel and Saiph lie four of a little diffuse.” In reality, of course, M79 is a spherical
the Hare’s brightest stars, set in a distinctive trapezoid. collection of about 100,000 stars. You will find this
Beginning at the northernmost of the four and moving fuzzy little patch of light just northeast of a
clockwise, there’s Alpha (α), Beta (β), Gamma 5.5-magnitude star, SAO 170351.
(γ), and Delta (δ) Leporis. All fit comfortably Lastly, we come to a challenging treasure,
into a 7° field of view through binoculars. the tiny but colorful planetary nebula IC 418,
Of the four, Gamma will immediately This month better known as the Spirograph Nebula
catch your eye. That’s because it has a friend, and next, (thanks to a famous image from the Hubble
a 6th-magnitude star 97" to its north. The
4th-magnitude star you see by eye alone is
let’s explore Space Telescope). I received a note last winter
from reader Scott Harrington (no relation)
known as Gamma A, while its fainter com- the rest reminding me just how bright this planetary
panion is Gamma B. The Gamma system lies of the nebula is, and yet how few of us have ever
29 light-years away, with the stars separated winter sky. seen it. Although many sources list it as
from each other by an estimated 870 astro- photographic magnitude 10.7, it appears
nomical units — where 1 astronomical unit, much brighter by eye, bringing it well within
or AU, is the average distance between Earth the limits of most binoculars. IC 418 is some-
and the Sun. Together, they create one of the most strik- times called the Raspberry Nebula, for its prominent
ing binocular binaries in the entire sky. Each is bright pinkish color through giant backyard telescopes. With
enough and separated far enough from the other that most binoculars, however, it appears grayish, with pos-
any binocular can resolve them. When I study them sibly a blue or green tinge. Try it for yourself and let me
closely, Gamma A impresses me as yellow-white, know what you see.
although some report it as greenish. Gamma B is a Questions, comments, suggestions? Contact me
BY PHIL
subtle orange. Defocusing your binoculars slightly will through my website, philharrington.net. Until next
HARRINGTON
Phil is a longtime help enhance the delicate colors. month, remember that two eyes are better than one.
contributor to Next, shift your attention diagonally across the
Astronomy and the Lepus trapezoid to Alpha Leporis, also known by the BROWSE THE “BINOCULAR UNIVERSE” ARCHIVE AT
author of many books. proper name Arneb. The Hare’s brightest star, Arneb www.Astronomy.com/Harrington

WWW. ASTRONOMY.COM 59
 [δ] Orionis), the most westerly of Orion’s Belt stars. This
OBSERVING BASICS 2nd-magnitude blue giant is accompanied by a much
fainter partner (magnitude 6.8, to be exact). Fortunately,
the lesser star is 56" away. Both were well seen at 70x.
A degree southwest of Alnitak (Zeta [ζ] Orionis), the

Observe Orion easternmost Belt star, is the multiple star Sigma (σ)
Orionis. In the 60mm refractor at 117x, Sigma was a
triple: the 4th magnitude primary accompanied by two

with ease 6th-magnitude stars on one side separated from the main
star by 13" and 42". I then pointed my scope north to
Lambda (λ) Orionis, brightest of the triangle of stars that
Even a small scope reveals this timeless winter treat. forms Orion’s head. This eye-pleasing duo (magnitudes
3.5 and 5.5, separation 4.3") was split with 117x.
A year ago, I Turning to deep-sky objects, I made my way north-
N received an east towards Xi (ξ) and Nu (ν) Orionis, and the nearby
ξ ν email from open cluster NGC 2169, sometimes called the 37 Cluster.
NGC 2169 Joe McCoubrey, a NGC 2169 is comprised of two stellar groups — each
OR ION 13-year-old astronomy forming one of the numbers. Just 7' in apparent diam-
λ π 1 e n t h u s i a s t f r o m eter and comprised of a little more than a dozen stars,
Bennett, Colorado, the 37 Cluster was best seen at 117x. Unfortunately, my
π2 who asked me for a list scope was equipped with a standard star diagonal,
α Betelgeuse γ π3
of the best winter sky which produced a mirror image of the 37.
π4
ω
targets for small tele- From NGC 2169, I moved past Betelgeuse and trav-
scopes. The request eled an equal distance beyond to the reflection nebula,
π5 reminded me that I M78. Similar in size to NGC 2169 and just 8th magni-
E π6
hadn’t made a small- tude, it required a patient, minutes-long search with low
Mintaka
M78 scope voyage into the magnification (23x) before a rather faint puff ball
δ winter skies for years. appeared in the field. I tried higher magnifications, but
Alnitak ζ
ε
σ To remedy this over- 70x seemed to offer the best view.
NGC 1981 sight, I decided to take I completed my journey at Orion’s Sword and the
θ¹ M43
ι out my small scope constellation’s pièce de résistance: the Orion Nebula
M42 τ (a 60mm refractor) and (M42/43). A magnification of 23x brought the entire
β
5° explore a classic winter Sword into view, from the loose open star cluster NGC
κ Rigel
constellation: Orion. 1981 near the north end down to Iota (ι) Orionis and the
I began with Rigel. wide double star Struve 747 near the south. Since Iota is
Orion holds a plethora This 0.1 magnitude double and too close for a low-power split (the magni-
of beautiful celestial
sights you can explore,
blue giant was a dazzling sight in the little scope. That’s tude 7.7 companion is 12.5" from the magnitude 2.8
and many of them are especially true at a magnification of 117x, where it flick- main star), I quickly switched to 117x for a clean split.
accessible using a ered like a diamond under somewhat turbulent skies. I The Orion Nebula was a magnificent sight in the little
small telescope.
ASTRONOMY: ROEN KELLY
used this high magnification (around the refractor, especially at 70x — a magnifica-
upper limit for a 60mm scope) in a vain tion that captured the expanse of the nebula
attempt to see Rigel’s 7th-magnitude If Rigel was while still resolving the four brightest mem-
companion, located about 10" away. a diamond, bers of its embedded multiple star Theta1
Theoretically, a 60mm refractor should be Betelgeuse (θ¹), the Trapezium. It would take an entire
able to split double stars as close as 1.9", but column to do justice to this region, as it’s one
that’s only if the component stars are rela- was sparkling of the finest deep-sky targets in the entire
tively bright and similar in magnitude. like a yellow- sky. (In fact, I did that in my February 2019
Rigel’s companion is 400 times fainter, so orange topaz. column, “Experience the Orion Nebula.”)
it’s easily lost in the bright star’s glare. I And although everything described in
chose to save Rigel and its partner for a night this article can be viewed through large-
with a steadier atmosphere. aperture instruments, there’s a sense of accomplishment
Next up was the red supergiant Betelgeuse. The color that comes with snagging a good look through a modest
contrast between ruddy Betelgeuse and blue-white Rigel instrument like a 60mm refractor. So, if you own one,
was striking. If Rigel was a diamond, Betelgeuse was take it out for a night under the Orion sky.
BY GLENN CHAPLE sparkling like a yellow-orange topaz. Betelgeuse wasn’t Questions, comments, or suggestions? Email me at
Glenn has been an
alone, either. Just 20' to its south stood the pretty double [email protected]. Next month: more observer’s
avid observer since
a friend showed star Struve 817 (magnitudes 8.7 and 8.9, separation lists. Clear skies!
him Saturn through 18.6"). This delicate little duo humbly shining next to
a small backyard brash Betelgeuse was a captivating sight! BROWSE THE “OBSERVING BASICS” ARCHIVE
scope in 1963. Looking for more doubles, I moved to Mintaka (Delta AT www.Astronomy.com/Chaple

60 ASTRONOMY • FEBRUARY 2021

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 ASK ASTRO Astronomy’s experts from around the globe answer your cosmic questions.

Spiral arms show the same structure

whether composed of billion-year-old
stars or million-year-old stars. This
indicates that the arms are the result of
a persistent pattern of stars rather than
particular stars causing the structures.
That pattern is caused by a density
(pressure) wave that spirals from the
edge of the disk to the center and back
out again, creating the visible spiral
arms of the galaxy. Essentially, as stars
and gas move through the pattern, they
bunch up in the wave crests, like a
stellar traffic jam, and then eventually
break past the crest and continue on
their orbit.
Both planetary rings and protoplan-
etary disks can have density waves and
spiral structure. Planetary rings are
made of small amounts of debris
Some 520 light-years
away lies AB Aurigae, trapped in a particular orbit. Sometimes
which has a twisted
planetary disk. The
spirals around AB
Aurigae are likely
Galactic they are perturbed by moons that cause waves.
According to computer simulations, observed spirals
in protostellar disks are from density waves driven by
caused by baby
planets coalescing in
the dust surrounding
the young star. ESO/
BOCCALETTI ET AL.
traffic jam planets forming in the disk.
Debra Elmegreen
Professor of Astronomy on the Maria Mitchell Chair, Vassar College,
Poughkeepsie, New York

WHAT CAUSES THE FORMATION

QI OF SPIRAL ARMS IN GALAXIES?
DO SPIRAL ARMS FORM IN OTHER
QI SINCE NEW HORIZONS’ FLYBY OF
ARROKOTH IN JANUARY 2019, IS
THE SPACECRAFT ZOOMING TOWARD A
FLATTENED GROUPS OF ORBITING NEW TARGET? IS NEW HORIZONS ABLE
OBJECTS, LIKE PLANETARY RINGS AND TO SEARCH FOR PLANET NINE?
PROTOSTELLAR DISKS? Douglas Kaupa
Robert Harrison Council Bluffs, Iowa
Albuquerque, New Mexico

AI Spiral arms in galaxies can form by a combina-

tion of processes. In a spiral galaxy, everything
AI New Horizons is healthy and routinely study-
ing the Kuiper Belt environment and Kuiper
Belt objects (KBOs) it passes in the distance. For the
orbits at the same speed, meaning stars and gas near next year or so, the New Horizons team is using the
the center of the galaxy complete an orbit in less time largest telescopes on Earth — such as the Subaru
than objects farther out. This effect is referred to as telescope in Hawaii — to find more KBO targets. From
differential rotation. So, in the time it takes an inner there, we can determine if New Horizons has the fuel
star to complete one revolution around its galaxy, an to perform a flyby.
outer star might have only finished half a revolution. We should know the results of our first search by fall
Differential rotation naturally generates spirals as the or early winter 2020, and we will observe again using
galaxy rotates. Galaxies like the Milky Way have rotated ground-based telescopes between April and September
a few dozen times — it typically takes 200 million years 2021. If either search succeeds in finding a potential
for the entire galaxy to complete a revolution. If target, we would seek NASA’s permission to burn our
differential rotation were the only process involved in engines to conduct another flyby.
generating spirals, we would expect to see many tightly I personally consider Pluto to be the solar system’s
wrapped spiral arms, like a wound coil. But most spiral ninth planet to honor its discoverer Clyde Tombaugh
galaxies have only two to four main arms. and his contributions to planetary science. So, I call

62 ASTRONOMY • FEBRUARY 2021

 from the center of the galaxy, suggesting it was kicked
WHERE NEW HORIZONS IS NOW out of the galactic center. SEND US YOUR
As to what happens to the rest of 3C186, the short QUESTIONS
answer is that the galaxy will remain as it is. A galaxy Send your
is held together by the collective mass of its stars, gas, astronomy questions
Uranus Neptune
and dark matter, and any gravitational effects of the via email to askastro@
central SMBH are negligible with respect to that of the astronomy.com, or
whole galaxy. For example, the SMBH at the center of write to Ask Astro, P.O.
Jupiter our own Milky Way — Sagittarius A* (Sgr A*) — has a Box 1612, Waukesha,
Saturn Pluto WI 53187. Be sure
mass only one-millionth the total mass of the galaxy.
to tell us your
So, Sgr A* only dominates the motions of the stars and full name and where
Arrokoth
gas in a very small central volume and not of the galaxy you live. Unfortunately,
as a whole. we cannot answer all
When two galaxies merge, their SMBHs will eventually questions submitted.
coalesce into a new SMBH. In the case of 3C186, this new
KUIP
E R B E LT black hole likely received a “kick” from the gravitational
New Horizons waves emitted during the SMBH merger, acquiring
velocities up to several thousand miles per second.
New Horizons is currently deep within the Kuiper Belt, about As a result of this kick, 3C186’s SMBH’s orbit began
48 astronomical units (AU) from the Sun, where 1 AU is the
average Earth-Sun distance. After passing Arrokoth, New to oscillate around the galaxy’s core. Nearby stars and
Horizons is on the hunt for a new Kuiper Belt object to fly by. gas were pulled along with it, in principle creating
ASTRONOMY: ROEN KELLY
observable effects such as distortions in the morphology
and dynamics of the galaxy. However, since the SMBH’s
Pluto planet nine. With regard to the hypothetical sphere of influence is very limited, the entire galaxy will
object Konstantin Batygin and Michael E. Brown not suffer major disruptions, even if the black hole is
believe causes the perturbations of KBOs’ orbits, the completely ejected.
jury is still out on whether it is real. Scientists have But this does not mean that the overall influence of The galaxy 3C186 —
looked for such a planet for many years and have not the central SMBH on the host galaxy is negligible! There itself the likely result
been able to find it. are a number of extremely close relations between the of a previous galaxy
merger — hosted the
While it would be fun to look for new planets with mass of the SMBH and the properties of its host galaxy, merger of two super-
New Horizons, large telescopes on Earth do a much known as scaling relations. These mean the host galaxy massive black holes.
better job than the smaller telescopes New Horizons is and its SMBH essentially grow together. But, as we have The resulting gravita-
tional waves are
equipped with. New Horizons also has no internal seen, this cannot be due to the gravitational influence believed to have
reaction wheels and relies on its thrusters to orient of the SMBH. There must be something else causing “kicked out” the newly
itself, so slewing the spacecraft around to search for this relationship. created supermassive
Stefano Bianchi black hole from the
planets would waste precious fuel we could use for center of the galaxy.
Associate Professor, Università degli Studi Roma Tre, Rome, Italy
another flyby farther out in the Kuiper Belt. NASA, ESA, AND M. CHIABERGE

S. Alan Stern (STSCI/ESA)

Principal Investigator for New Horizons,

Southwest Research Institute, Boulder, Colorado

WHAT WILL HAPPEN TO THE

QI STARS IN THE GALAXY 3C186,
NOW THAT THE CENTRAL SUPERMASSIVE
BLACK HOLE HAS BEEN EJECTED
FROM THE GALACTIC CENTER? WILL
THEY SLOWLY DRIFT APART, OR WILL
THEIR COLLECTIVE MASS HOLD THEM
TOGETHER FOR A WHILE?
Dennis Moore
Houston, Texas

AI Located 8 billion light-years away, the galaxy

3C186 is home to an extremely bright galactic
nucleus — the signature of an active supermassive black
hole (SMBH). But this SMBH is about 35,000 light-years

WWW. ASTRONOMY.COM 63
 READER GALLERY

Cosmic portraits
1. HAWTHORNE’S A
The Scarlet Letter
(Sharpless 2–96) is an
emission nebula in the
constellation Cygnus the
Swan. Astronomers
suspect that it is part
of supernova remnant
SNR 65.2+05.7.
• Jerry Yesavage

2. AWAY IT GOES
An occultation is
the temporary
disappearance of a
celestial body due to the
passage of another in
front of it, from a certain
point of view. The Moon
occulted Mars on
August 9, 2020.
• Ricardo José Vas
Tolentino

3. BLUE BEAUTY
Abell 72 is a planetary
nebula in the
constellation Delphinus
the Dolphin. This
glowing shell of gas
expanding outward from
a dying Sun-like star
spans 2 light-years.
This image combines
18.6 hours of exposures.
• Douglas J. Struble
1

2 3

64 ASTRONOMY • FEBRUARY 2021

 4. FULL CIRCLE
This 360° panorama shows the
entire sky above Black Canyon
of the Gunnison National Park
in Colorado. The two-row
composite has one row for the
sky and one for the landscape,
which was shot without tracking
before it was completely dark,
in order to retain detail. The
image includes the Milky Way
and lots of colorful airglow.
• Vince Farnsworth

5. WAGGING ITS TAIL

The tail of Comet C/2019 U6
(Lemmon) appears to touch
open cluster M41 in Canis Major
on May 27, 2020, from Tivoli —
Southern Sky Guest Farm in
Namibia. At the time, the comet
stood a mere 20° above the
horizon. • Gerald Rhemann

6. SOUTHERN BRILLIANCE
The Southern Pleiades goes by
several other names, including
Caldwell 102, IC 2602, Collinder
229, and the Theta Carinae
4 Cluster. But its resemblance to
the Pleiades (M45) makes “the
Southern Pleiades” the name
that resonates most with
observers. Because it glows
at magnitude 1.9, this cluster
is easy to spot without
optics. • Nicholas Clarke

7. FLASH FORWARD
The green flash happens when
long-wavelength light (red,
orange, yellow) from the setting
Sun is bent away from our eyes.
These three exposures were
captured a few seconds apart
March 29, 2020, from Siesta Key,
Florida. • Tom Fazekas

SEND YOUR IMAGES TO:

Astronomy Reader Gallery,
P.O. Box 1612, Waukesha,
WI 53187. Please include the
date and location of the
image and complete photo
data: telescope, camera,
filters, and exposures.
5 6 Submit images by email to
readergallery@
astronomy.com.

WWW. ASTRONOMY.COM 65
 BREAKTHROUGH

HEAVY METAL STAR ATTRACTION

Globular cluster NGC 6441 doesn’t get a lot of respect from amateur astronomers. Maybe its location in southern Scorpius,
which keeps it low in the sky from midnorthern latitudes, tips the scales against it. And its great distance of roughly
40,000 light-years doesn’t help. Yet NGC 6441 stands out among the Milky Way’s approximately 150 globular clusters. It ranks
among our galaxy’s most massive and most luminous globulars, weighing some 1.6 million solar masses and shining with the
light of 600,000 Suns. It also contains more metals — astro-speak for elements heavier than helium — than most globulars.
Perhaps this stunning Hubble Space Telescope portrait will help NGC 6441 gain the respect it deserves. ESA/HUBBLE AND NASA/G. PIOTTO

66 ASTRONOMY • FEBRUARY 2021

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