by Sebastian | Sep 18, 2019 | Cool Rocks, Interstellar
On August 30, 2019, amateur astronomer Gennady Borisov made a fascinating discovery when he detected a comet set on a rather odd path. From his very own MARGO observatory located in Crimea, Borisov spotted Comet C/2019 Q4 approximately 3 AU from the Sun. The Minor...
by Sebastian | Jun 8, 2019 | Cool Rocks
Every 75 years, Halley’s Comet traverses our planetary neighborhood, providing an astonishing spectacle of beaming light before drifting back into the Solar System. It is the most famous comet identified by mankind, having first been observed by Chinese astronomers...
by Sebastian | Jun 6, 2019 | Cool Rocks
On January 17, 1786, French astronomer Pierre Mechain discovered Comet Encke, but it wasn’t until 1819 when German astronomer Johann Franz Encke calculated its trajectory that the object became officially recognized. Comet Encke orbits our Sun once every 3.3 years,...
by Sebastian | Mar 19, 2019 | China, Mars
The past few months have been exciting for China’s ambitious space program. Following a successful lunar landing on the Moon’s dark side and several captivating announcements for the future, Wu Weiren, the chief designer behind China’s lunar exploration program,...
by Sebastian | Mar 17, 2019 | Sun
The Solar Storm of 1859, also known as the Carrington Event, was a geomagnetic storm of immense power that occurred during September 1-2, 1859. A solar coronal mass ejection (CME) struck Earth’s magnetosphere, producing one the greatest geomagnetic storms ever...
by Sebastian | Mar 16, 2019 | Cool Rocks, Solar System
16 Psyche is an M-type asteroid residing in the asteroid belt between Jupiter and Mars. In other words… it is one of the ten most massive asteroids in the belt, over 120 miles (200km) in diameter, and the most massive known M-type asteroid. Italian astronomer Annibale...
