Portal:Astronomy

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The Astronomy Portal

Introduction

Astronomy is a natural science that studies celestial objects and phenomena. It uses mathematics, physics, and chemistry in order to explain their origin and evolution. Objects of interest include planets, moons, stars, nebulae, galaxies, meteoroid, asteroid, and comets. Relevant phenomena include supernova explosions, gamma ray bursts, quasars, blazars, pulsars, and cosmic microwave background radiation. More generally, astronomy studies everything that originates beyond Earth's atmosphere. Cosmology is a branch of astronomy that studies the universe as a whole.

Astronomy is one of the oldest natural sciences. The early civilizations in recorded history made methodical observations of the night sky. These include the Egyptians, Babylonians, Greeks, Indians, Chinese, Maya, and many ancient indigenous peoples of the Americas. In the past, astronomy included disciplines as diverse as astrometry, celestial navigation, observational astronomy, and the making of calendars.

Professional astronomy is split into observational and theoretical branches. Observational astronomy is focused on acquiring data from observations of astronomical objects. This data is then analyzed using basic principles of physics. Theoretical astronomy is oriented toward the development of computer or analytical models to describe astronomical objects and phenomena. These two fields complement each other. Theoretical astronomy seeks to explain observational results and observations are used to confirm theoretical results.

Astronomy is one of the few sciences in which amateurs play an active role. This is especially true for the discovery and observation of transient events. Amateur astronomers have helped with many important discoveries, such as finding new comets. (Full article...)

General images - load new batch

The following are images from various astronomy-related articles on Wikipedia.

Image 1One of the Oldest Observatories in South America is the Quito Astronomical Observatory, founded in 1873 and located 12 minutes south of the Equator in Quito, Ecuador. The Quito Astronomical Observatory is the National Observatory of Ecuador and is located in the Historic Center of Quito and is managed by the National Polytechnic School. (from Observational astronomy)
Image 2Sunset at the equinox from the prehistoric site of Pizzo Vento at Fondachelli Fantina, Sicily (from History of astronomy)
Image 3Ultra HD photography taken at La Silla Observatory. (from Observational astronomy)
Image 4Historical Jantar Mantar observatory in Jaipur, India (from History of astronomy)
Image 5Arabic astrolabe from 1079 to 1080 AD (from History of astronomy)
Image 6Calendrical functions of the Berlin Gold Hat c. 1000 BC (from History of astronomy)
Image 7Artist conception of the Big Bang cosmological model, the most widely accepted out of all in physical cosmology (neither time nor size to scale) (from Physical cosmology)
Image 8An amateur astrophotography setup with an automated guide system connected to a laptop. (from Observational astronomy)
Image 9A voting session is conducted in 2006 International Astronomical Union's general assembly for determining a new definition of a planet (from Astronomer)
Image 10Hubble Space Telescope (from History of astronomy)
Image 11An assembly in Estonia to observe meteors (from Observational astronomy)
Image 12Amateur astronomy groups are often involved in outreach in order to introduce astronomy to the general public (from Amateur astronomy)
Image 13The Antikythera Mechanism was an analog computer from 150 to 100 BC designed to calculate the positions of astronomical objects. (from History of astronomy)
Image 14The Oort cloud, one of the most successful theoretical model about the Solar System (from Theoretical astronomy)
Image 15Sir Patrick Moore was one of the world's leading popularisers of astronomy. (from Amateur astronomy)
Image 16Places like Paranal Observatory offer crystal clear skies for observing astronomical objects with or without instruments. (from Amateur astronomy)
Image 17ALMA is the world's most powerful telescope for studying the Universe at submillimeter and millimeter wavelengths. (from Observational astronomy)
Image 18Portrait of the Flemish astronomer Ferdinand Verbiest who became Head of the Mathematical Board and Director of the Observatory of the Chinese emperor in 1669 (from Astronomer)
Image 19Mayall telescope at Kitt Peak National Observatory (from Observational astronomy)
Image 20History of the Universe – gravitational waves are hypothesized to arise from cosmic inflation, a faster-than-light expansion just after the Big Bang (from Physical cosmology)
Image 21"El Caracol" observatory temple at Chichen Itza, Mexico (from History of astronomy)
Image 229th-century diagram of the positions of the seven planets on 18 March 816, from the Leiden Aratea (from History of astronomy)
Image 23The main platform at La Silla hosts a huge range of telescopes with which astronomers can explore the Universe. (from Observational astronomy)
Image 24Segment of the astronomical ceiling of Senenmut's Tomb (circa 1479–1458 BCE), depicting constellations, protective deities, and twenty-four segmented wheels for the hours of the day and the months of the year (from History of astronomy)
$Image 2550 cm refracting telescope at Nice Observatory. (from Observational astronomy)$

Image 2550 cm refracting telescope at Nice Observatory. (from Observational astronomy)
Image 26Map of the Milky Way Galaxy with the constellations that cross the galactic plane in each direction and the known prominent components annotated including main arms, spurs, bar, nucleus/bulge, notable nebulae and globular clusters (from History of astronomy)
Image 27Babylonian tablet in the British Museum recording Halley's comet in 164 BC (from History of astronomy)
Image 28The Nebra sky disk, Germany, 1800 - 1600 BC (from History of astronomy)
Image 29Amateur astronomer recording observations of the sun. (from Amateur astronomy)
Image 30Southern Hemisphere (from History of astronomy)
Image 31The Crab Nebula as seen in various wavelengths (from Observational astronomy)
Image 32Historical accuracy of atomic clocks from NIST. (from Theoretical astronomy)
Image 33An image of the Cat's Paw Nebula created combining the work of professional and amateur astronomers. The image is the combination of the 2.2-metre MPG/ESO telescope of the La Silla Observatory in Chile and a 0.4-meter amateur telescope. (from Amateur astronomy)
Image 34The Northern Hemisphere page from Johann Bayer's 1661 edition of Uranometria - the first atlas to have star charts covering the entire celestial sphere (from History of astronomy)
Image 35Comparison of CMB (Cosmic microwave background) results from satellites COBE, WMAP and Planck documenting a progress in 1989–2013 (from History of astronomy)

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This is a Featured article, which represents some of the best content on English Wikipedia..

Vega is the brightest star in the northern constellation of Lyra. It has the Bayer designation α Lyrae, which is Latinised to Alpha Lyrae and abbreviated Alpha Lyr or α Lyr. This star is relatively close at only 25 light-years (7.7 parsecs) from the Sun, and one of the most luminous stars in the Sun's neighborhood. It is the fifth-brightest star in the night sky, and the second-brightest star in the northern celestial hemisphere, after Arcturus.

Vega has been extensively studied by astronomers, leading it to be termed "arguably the next most important star in the sky after the Sun". Vega was the northern pole star around 12,000 BCE and will be so again around the year 13,727, when its declination will be +86° 14′. Vega was the first star other than the Sun to have its image and spectrum photographed. It was one of the first stars whose distance was estimated through parallax measurements. Vega has functioned as the baseline for calibrating the photometric brightness scale and was one of the stars used to define the zero point for the UBV photometric system. (Full article...)

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Did you know - show different entries

... that Jerry Nelson is the principal designer and project scientist for the Keck telescopes?
... that five supernovae have been found in the Messier 100 spiral galaxy?
... that the Antlia Dwarf galaxy may have distorted the shape of its neighbour NGC 3109 one billion years ago?
... that AP Columbae, the closest young star known, formed after the dinosaurs became extinct?
... that a planet was discovered around the star MOA-2009-BLG-387L after it eclipsed a background star, refracting the star's light in a process called gravitational microlensing?

More Did you know facts

More Did you know (auto generated)

... that by naming her album Planet Her, Doja Cat was "just trying to be cute" and was not promoting a feminist agenda nor a planet exclusively for women?
... that The City in the Middle of the Night, a 2019 climate-fiction novel by Charlie Jane Anders, is set on a tidally locked planet?
... that it took five years of observations to find the planet orbiting the star HD 175167?
... that King Gizzard & the Lizard Wizard's "cli-fi" thrash metal album addresses a mix of current ecological threats and attempts to find another planet to live on?
... that pushbacks of migrants in the Aegean Sea have been described as "a human rights violation that encapsulates a will to eliminate a person's presence on the face of the planet"?
... that fictional depictions of Jupiter have portrayed human habitation on the planet and its moons both by altering the environment to suit humans and altering humans to be suited to the environment?

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WikiProjects

WikiProject Astronomy	WikiProject Solar System



WikiProject Cosmology	WikiProject Spaceflight

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Credit: Nathan Smith (University of California, Berkeley) / NASA

Gamma-ray burst progenitors are the types of celestial objects that can emit gamma-ray bursts (GRBs). GRBs show an extraordinary degree of diversity. They can last anywhere from a fraction of a second to many minutes. Image is Eta Carinae, in the constellation of Carina, one of the nearer candidates for a hypernova.

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Astronomy News

12 June 2023 – Discoveries of exoplanets: Astronomers announce in the journal Nature Astronomy the discovery of BEBOP-1c, an exoplanet orbiting the binary star system, TOI-1338. The system is the second discovered to have more than one circumbinary planet. (Space.com)
5 April 2023 – Discoveries of exoplanets: Scientists discover bursts of radiation in radio wavelengths on the exoplanet YZ Ceti b, which is part of the YZ Ceti system. The studies are published in the Nature Astronomy journal. (The Jerusalem Post)

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June anniversaries

2 June 1966 – Surveyor 1 lands on the moon, first US spacecraft to do so
3 June 1966 – Gemini 9 (Gemini Titan 9A) launch from Cape Canaveral, Florida
19 June 1976 – The Viking 1 orbiter arrives in Mars orbit
24 June 2004 – First private spaceflight, SpaceShipOne piloted by Mike Melvill
27 June 1996 – Galileo probe, flyby of Ganymede (Jupiter's largest moon)
30 June 2001 – The NASA Explorer mission, MAP (Microwave Anisotropy Probe), is launched to measure the temperature of cosmic background radiation (remnant heat from the Big Bang)

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Space-related Portals

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Astronomical events

All times UT unless otherwise specified.

4 June, 03:42	Full moon
4 June, 10:59	Venus at greatest eastern elongation
6 June, 23:07	Moon at perigee
18 June, 04:37	New moon
21 June, 14:58	Earth northern solstice
22 June, 18:31	Moon at apogee