Throughout history humans have gazed at the sky for timekeeping, to navigate the vast oceans, and to decide when to plant crops. The desire to know more drove humans to study space and celestial objects in detail. Thus the natural science Astronomy born. Let’s take a look at the different branches of astronomy, and the…
Our sun is a star. It’s bright because we’re close to it. If we could swap out our sun with another star, the dimmest would appear as a tiny dot not even as bright as our full Moon. If we replaced it with Rigel the bright star at the foot of Orion, it would cover…
The term ‘black hole’ is one used by space scientists to describe places in space where the force of gravity is so great that all matter in a region is squeezed into tiny spaces, to the extent that even light cannot travel! Black holes are often regarded as regions in space where virtually nothing can…
First and foremost, the term ‘dwarf planet’ refers to a planetary mass or object that is neither a natural satellite nor a true planet. That is, a dwarf planet is one which is in direct orbit of a star, and is massive enough gravity to compress it into a hydrostatically stable shape (usually like a…
A Comet is a small, fragile and irregularly shaped body which is composed of a mixture of grains and frozen gases that are non-volatile. Comets always follow a long path around the Sun. Even on the telescope, most comets are not visible. They only become visible when they are close enough to the Sun. This…
Gazing at the stars on a beautiful star-adorned sky at night, no doubt, is very fascinating. However, when one of the star-like objects moves from one point to another, with a trail of light at its tail, the fascination goes a step further. Then, this question comes to mind ‘what was that?’ Well, that must…
The Sun and all the planets around it are part of what is known as the Milky Way Galaxy. It is our home galaxy and one of the billions of galaxies in the universe. The term “milky” is derived from the galaxy’s appearance from Earth – a band of light in the night sky formed…
The space is as beautiful as it is massive and mysterious at the same time. You could just stare at the night sky and wonder what lies beyond the gallant moon and the countless stars. While it is a known fact that the universe holds trillions of heavenly bodies stationed across the infinite universe, there…
All stars are linked by gravity forces, so they have a common movement. For us, the most important is our galaxy called the Milky Way. Seeing it from long distance, our galaxy looks like a diluted cloud. In the central part of our galaxy, there are about 100 billion stars. Our Solar System is located…
Planets are dark, astronomical bodies that are orbiting star or remains of the star that is big enough to have its own gravity, not big enough to create a thermonuclear fusion and clean neighborhood from planetesimals. Through the many years of studying planets and our Solar System, astronomers discovered that there are different types of…
Almost all of us have looked up into the sky and wondered what is there. Well, there are lots of fascinating objects revolving out of space. Humans have left the earth in space ships to explore the solar system that surrounds it. It’s known as the solar system since everything in it revolves around the…
Perhaps you have already encountered the full moon changing its natural off-white color into a bloody red hue. This might seem terrifying, especially if people have no idea of such occurrence. Sufficient knowledge would allow one to understand that such spectacle is only a lunar eclipse. What is a Lunar Eclipse? A lunar eclipse is…
A solar eclipse occurs when the Moon gets in between the Sun and the Earth. Some solar eclipses may be termed partial solar eclipse or full solar eclipse depending on whether the Moon partially or completely blocks the Sun. Syzygy is the term used when the Sun and a new moon are in conjunction as…
The Kuiper Belt, or the Edgeworth-Kuiper belt is a disc (circumstellar) found at the outer most regions of our solar system. This extends from Neptune’s orbit at approximately thirty (30) AU to about fifty (50) AU from our sun. The Kuiper belt is somewhat similar to the asteroid belt in terms of composition but as…
Simply stated, a black hole is a place where the pull of gravity is so immense that not even light can escape. This includes all types of particles and even all forms of electromagnetic radiation. In Einstein’s general theory of relativity, he states that black holes compresses all types of mass into a tiny space….