Portal:Astronomy

The Astronomy Portal

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Astronomy is a natural science that is the study of celestial objects (such as moons, planets, stars, nebulae, and galaxies), the physics, chemistry, and evolution of such objects, and phenomena that originate outside the atmosphere of Earth, including supernovae explosions, gamma ray bursts, and cosmic background radiation.

Astronomy is one of the oldest sciences. Prehistoric cultures have left astronomical artifacts such as the Egyptian monuments and Nubian monuments, and early civilizations such as the Babylonians, Greeks, Chinese, Indians, Iranians and Maya performed methodical observations of the night sky. However, the invention of the telescope was required before astronomy was able to develop into a modern science. Historically, astronomy has included disciplines as diverse as astrometry, celestial navigation, observational astronomy, and the making of calendars, but professional astronomy is nowadays often considered to be synonymous with astrophysics. Template:/box-footer

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Umbriel /ˈʌmbriəl/ is a moon of Uranus discovered on October 24, 1851, by William Lassell. It was discovered at the same time as Ariel and named after a character in Alexander Pope's poem The Rape of the Lock. Umbriel consists mainly of ice with a substantial fraction of rock, and may be differentiated into a rocky core and an icy mantle. The surface is the darkest among Uranian moons, and appears to have been shaped primarily by impacts. However, the presence of canyons suggests early endogenic processes, and the moon may have undergone an early endogenically driven resurfacing event that obliterated its older surface.

Covered by numerous impact craters reaching 210 km (130 mi) in diameter, Umbriel is the second most heavily cratered satellite of Uranus after Oberon. The most prominent surface feature is a ring of bright material on the floor of Wunda crater. This moon, like all moons of Uranus, probably formed from an accretion disk that surrounded the planet just after its formation. The Uranian system has been studied up close only once, by the spacecraft Voyager 2 in January 1986. It took several images of Umbriel, which allowed mapping of about 40% of the moon’s surface.

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... that the Lyman-alpha blob 1 is a blob of gas 300,000 light-years across located some 11.5 billion light-years from Earth?
... that 51 Ophiuchi has a disk of dust and gas that is likely a planetary system in the late stages of formation?
... that the Magellan Planet Search Program has discovered five eccentric Jupiter-mass extra-solar planets since the program started gathering data in December 2002?
... that asteroids with two moons, like 1994 CC, comprise only 1% of the near-Earth objects?
... that pictures by amateur astrophotographer Steve Mandel help to explore faint nebulae of the Milky Way?

Biographies : Astronomers - Other people - Amateur Astronomers

Astronomical objects : Lists - Galaxies - Nebulae - Planets - Stars

Spaceflight : Human spaceflight - Satellites - SETI - Spacecraft Template:/box-footer

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WikiProject Astronomy	WikiProject Solar System



WikiProject Cosmology	WikiProject Spaceflight

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Star	Spaceflight	Moon


Space	Solar System	Mars

X-ray astronomy	Cosmology	Jupiter

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Credit: User:Hewholooks

IC 405, also Sharpless 229 (Sh2-229), Caldwell 31 and The Flaming Star Nebula, is an emission/reflection nebula and a Caldwell object in the constellation Auriga, surrounding the bluish star AE Aurigae. It shines at magnitude +6.0. The nebula is about 5 light-years across. This is a white light image of the Flaming Star Nebula showing the "smoke" of reflection nebula.

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2 November 1917 – The Hooker Telescope at Mount Wilson Observatory, the largest telescope in the world from 1917 until 1948, sees first light
14 November 1971 – Unmanned probe Mariner 9 arrives at Mars and becomes the first spacecraft to orbit around another planet
18 November 1989 – Explorer 66, a satellite designed to study cosmic microwave background radiation and supply evidence in support of the Big Bang theory, is launched
20 November 1998 – Zarya, the first module of the International Space Station, is launched
28 November 1967 – PSR B1919+21 becomes the first pulsar to be observed when it is discovered by Jocelyn Bell Burnell and Antony Hewish