Astrology is a technique whose predictions are open for personal interpretation by the astrologer reading a chart. Our lives are not just influenced by the plants in our solar system, but by the collective unconscious in which we experience this reality. Astrology taken as a guide can be helpful, but is not perfect. An astrological system written long ago, may not take into account the...
Zeta Reticuli is a wide binary star system in the southern constellation of Reticulum. From the southern hemisphere the pair can be seen as a naked eye double star in very dark skies. Based upon parallax measurements, this system is located at a distance of about 39 light-years (12 parsecs) from the Earth. Zeta2 Reticuli is orbited by a circumstellar debris disk. Both stars are solar analogs that...
A wormhole or Einstein-Rosen bridge is a hypothetical topological feature that would fundamentally be a shortcut connecting two separate points in spacetime. A wormhole, in theory, might be able to connect extremely far distances such as a billion light years or more, short distances such as a few feet, different universes, and different points in time. A wormhole is much like a tunnel with two...
Venus is the second planet from the Sun, orbiting it every 224.7 Earth days. The planet is named after Venus, the Roman goddess of love and beauty. After the Moon, it is the brightest natural object in the night sky, reaching an apparent magnitude of -4.6, bright enough to cast shadows. Because Venus is an inferior planet from Earth, it never appears to venture far from the Sun:. Venus reaches...
Vega is the brightest star in the constellation of Lyra, the fifth-brightest star in the night sky, and the second-brightest star in the northern celestial hemisphere, after Arcturus. It is relatively close at only 25 light-years from the Sun, and, together with Arcturus and Sirius, one of the most luminous stars in the Sun’s neighborhood. Vega has been extensively studied by astronomers...
The term Van Allen belts refers specifically to the radiation belts surrounding Earth; however, similar radiation belts have been discovered around other planets. The Sun itself does not support long-term radiation belts, as it lacks a stable, global dipole field. The Earth’s atmosphere limits the belts’ particles to regions above 200Ð1,000 km, while the belts do not extend past 7...
Uranus is the seventh planet from the Sun and the third largest (by diameter). Uranus is larger in diameter but smaller in mass than Neptune. Uranus was the first planet to be discovered that was not known in ancient times; although it had been observed on many previous occasions, it was always mistakenly identified as a star. The earliest recorded sighting was in 1690 when John Flamsteed...
The Universe is the totality of everything that exists, has existed, and ever will exist. Similar meaning is sometimes conveyed with the words cosmos, world, reality, and nature. The Universe includes all of spacetime; the entire contents of outer space; all matter, energy, dark matter, and dark energy; all galaxies, stars, and planets; all humans and every living thing; all molecules, atoms...
Ultima Thule is a trans-Neptunian object located in the Kuiper belt. It is a contact binary, with estimated dimensions of 31 by 19 km (20 by 10 mi), consisting of a larger body (“Ultima”) three times the volume of the smaller (“Thule”). With an orbital period of 298 years and a low inclination and eccentricity, it is classified as a classical Kuiper belt object. Due to its...
Man has always looked to the skies for answers … as if a celestial blueprint that tells the story of humanity’s journey in time and space. Creation myths connect god with the heavens, often the constellations, sometimes with a link to ancient aliens who came to Earth to seed humanity and will one day return. As the millennia progressed, so too did the use of telescopes to find answers...