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V1369 Centauri
V1369 Centauri also known as Nova Centauri 2013 was a bright nova in the constellation Centaurus that occurred in 2013. It was discovered on December 2, 2013 by amateur astronomer John in Australia with a magnitude of 5.5. On December 14, 2013 it peaked at about magnitude 3.3, making it the brightest nova so far of this millennium. Nova Centauri 2013 was observed emitting gamma-rays between 7–10 December 2013 by the Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope. The nova continued to brighten in gamma-rays and the peak coincided with the second optical maximum on 11 December 2013. The Swift Gamma-Ray Burst Mission detected X-ray emission from Nova Centauri 2013 on 18 and 25 February 2014 and 8 March 2014.Astronomer's Telegram #5966 In July 2015 it was announced that lithium has been detected in material ejected from Nova Centauri 2013. This is the first time lithium has been detected in a nova system. The amount detected was less than a billionth of the mass of the Sun. This findi ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Universe Today
Universe Today (U.T.) is a popular North American-based non-commercial space and astronomy news website. The domain was registered on December 30, 1998, and the website went live in March 1999, founded by Canadian Fraser Cain. The ''Universe Today'' assumed its current form on July 24, 2003, featuring astronomy news and space-related issues. By early September 2005, the forum section merged with ''Bad Astronomy'' as a combined site with the BAUT forum. During April 2011, the Association of British Science Writers noted that ''Universe Today'' decided not to make preparations for reporting on embargoed stories until they are public knowledge. Emily Lakdawalla said that she relies on ''Universe Today'' and ''Bad Astronomy'' to "give ... an independent look at big news stories". Publications ''Universe Today'' has published two books, which are available both as e-books and on physical media: * * See also * ''Astronomy Cast'' * ''Space.com'' * ''The Space Show ''The ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Centaurus (constellation)
Centaurus is a bright constellation in the southern sky. One of the largest constellations, Centaurus was included among the 48 constellations listed by the 2nd-century astronomer Ptolemy, and it remains one of the 88 modern constellations. In Greek mythology, Centaurus represents a centaur; a creature that is half human, half horse (another constellation named after a centaur is one from the zodiac: Sagittarius). Notable stars include Alpha Centauri, the nearest star system to the Solar System, its neighbour in the sky Beta Centauri, and V766 Centauri, one of the largest stars yet discovered. The constellation also contains Omega Centauri, the brightest globular cluster as visible from Earth and the largest identified in the Milky Way, possibly a remnant of a dwarf galaxy. Notable features Stars Centaurus contains several very bright stars. Its alpha and beta stars are used as "pointer stars" to help observers find the constellation Crux. Centaurus has 281 stars above m ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Novae
A nova (plural novae or novas) is a transient astronomical event that causes the sudden appearance of a bright, apparently "new" star (hence the name "nova", which is Latin for "new") that slowly fades over weeks or months. Causes of the dramatic appearance of a nova vary, depending on the circumstances of the two progenitor stars. All observed novae involve white dwarfs in close binary systems. The main sub-classes of novae are classical novae, recurrent novae (RNe), and dwarf novae. They are all considered to be cataclysmic variable stars. Classical nova eruptions are the most common type. They are likely created in a close binary star system consisting of a white dwarf and either a main sequence, subgiant, or red giant star. When the orbital period falls in the range of several days to one day, the white dwarf is close enough to its companion star to start drawing accreted matter onto the surface of the white dwarf, which creates a dense but shallow atmosphere. This atmosphe ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
List Of Novae In The Milky Way Galaxy
This is a partial list of novae in the Milky Way galaxy that have been discovered and recorded since 1891. Novae are stars that undergo dramatic explosions, but unlike supernovae, these do not result in the destruction of the original star. The likely rate of novae in the Milky Way is about 40 per year,Prialnik, Dina. "Novae", pp. 1846-56, in Paul Murdin, ed. ''Encyclopedia of Astronomy and Astrophysics.'' London: Institute of Physics Publishing Ltd and Nature Publishing Group, 2001. but of these only about 10 per year are discovered by observers as of the 2000s (decade).CBAT List of Novae in the Milky Way discovered since 1612 This list attempts to include only the brighter or more notable novae. The |
Population II Stars
During 1944, Walter Baade categorized groups of stars within the Milky Way into stellar populations. In the abstract of the article by Baade, he recognizes that Jan Oort originally conceived this type of classification in 1926: Baade noticed that bluer stars were strongly associated with the spiral arms, and yellow stars dominated near the central galactic bulge and within globular star clusters. Two main divisions were defined as * Population I and * Population II, with another newer, hypothetical division called * Population III added in 1978; they are often simply abbreviated as Pop. I, Pop. II, and Pop. III. Among the population types, significant differences were found with their individual observed stellar spectra. These were later shown to be very important and were possibly related to star formation, observed kinematics, stellar age, and even galaxy evolution in both spiral and elliptical galaxies. These three simple population classes u ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Population I Stars
During 1944, Walter Baade categorized groups of stars within the Milky Way into stellar populations. In the abstract of the article by Baade, he recognizes that Jan Oort originally conceived this type of classification in 1926: Baade noticed that bluer stars were strongly associated with the spiral arms, and yellow stars dominated near the central galactic bulge and within globular star clusters. Two main divisions were defined as * Population I and * Population II, with another newer, hypothetical division called * Population III added in 1978; they are often simply abbreviated as Pop. I, Pop. II, and Pop. III. Among the population types, significant differences were found with their individual observed stellar spectra. These were later shown to be very important and were possibly related to star formation, observed kinematics, stellar age, and even galaxy evolution in both spiral and elliptical galaxies. These three simple population classes use ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Lithium
Lithium (from el, λίθος, lithos, lit=stone) is a chemical element with the symbol Li and atomic number 3. It is a soft, silvery-white alkali metal. Under standard conditions, it is the least dense metal and the least dense solid element. Like all alkali metals, lithium is highly reactive and flammable, and must be stored in vacuum, inert atmosphere, or inert liquid such as purified kerosene or mineral oil. When cut, it exhibits a metallic luster, but moist air corrodes it quickly to a dull silvery gray, then black tarnish. It never occurs freely in nature, but only in (usually ionic) compounds, such as pegmatitic minerals, which were once the main source of lithium. Due to its solubility as an ion, it is present in ocean water and is commonly obtained from brines. Lithium metal is isolated electrolytically from a mixture of lithium chloride and potassium chloride. The nucleus of the lithium atom verges on instability, since the two stable lithium isotopes foun ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
American Association Of Variable Star Observers
The American Association of Variable Star Observers (AAVSO) is an international nonprofit organization, founded in 1911, focused on coordinating, analyzing, publishing, and archiving variable star observations made largely by amateur astronomers. The AAVSO creates records that establish light curves depicting the variation in brightness of a star over time, and makes them available to professional astronomers, researchers, and educators. Since professional astronomers do not have the time or the resources to monitor every variable star, astronomy is one of the few sciences where amateurs can make genuine contributions to scientific research. During 2011, the 100th year of the AAVSO's existence, the 20-millionth variable star observation was received into the database. The AAVSO International Database (AID) stores over 35 million observations as of 2019. The organization receives nearly 1,000,000 observations annually from around 2,000 professional and amateur observers and is quot ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Magnitude (astronomy)
In astronomy, magnitude is a unitless measure of the brightness Brightness is an attribute of visual perception in which a source appears to be radiating or reflecting light. In other words, brightness is the perception elicited by the luminance of a visual target. The perception is not linear to luminance, ... of an astronomical object, object in a defined passband, often in the visible spectrum, visible or infrared spectrum, but sometimes across all wavelengths. An imprecise but systematic determination of the magnitude of objects was introduced in ancient times by Hipparchus. The scale is Logarithmic scale, logarithmic and defined such that a magnitude 1 star is exactly 100 times brighter than a magnitude 6 star. Thus each step of one magnitude is \sqrt[5] \approx 2.512 times brighter than the magnitude 1 higher. The brighter an object appears, the lower the value of its magnitude, with the brightest objects reaching negative values. Astronomers use two different defini ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
La Silla Observatory
La Silla Observatory is an astronomy, astronomical observatory in Chile with three telescopes built and operated by the European Southern Observatory (ESO). Several other telescopes are located at the site and are partly maintained by ESO. The observatory is one of the largest in the Southern Hemisphere and was the first in Chile to be used by ESO. The La Silla telescopes and instruments are located 150 km northeast of La Serena, Chile, La Serena at the outskirts of the Chilean Atacama Desert, one of the driest and most remote areas of the world. Like other observatories in this geographical area, La Silla is located far from sources of light pollution and, like the Paranal Observatory, home to the Very Large Telescope, it has one of the darkest night skies on the Earth. History Following the decision in 1963 to approve Chile as the site for the ESO observatory, scouting parties were sent to various locations to assess their suitability. The site that was decided upon was ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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