Arcturus is the brightest star in the constellation Bootes. To the naked eye, orange-yellow Arcturus has a visual magnitude of -0.04, making it the brightest star north of the celestial equator, and the fourth brightest star in the night sky, after -1.46 magnitude Sirius, -0.86 magnitude Canopus and Ğ0.27 magnitude Alpha Centauri. However, Alpha Centauri is a bright binary star, whose unresolved...
Archaeoastronomy is the study and interpretation of solar, lunar and stellar alignments found at ancient monuments such as pyramids, towers, ground lines such as the Nazca lines in Peru, and megalithic sites Stonehenge Carnac, Newgrange, etc. These monuments are on major planetary Grid points. Archaeoastronomy investigates how the ancients applied astronomy in their lives, as well as in...
The Andromeda Galaxy also known as Messier 31, M31, or NGC 224, is a spiral galaxy approximately 780 kiloparsecs (2.5 million light-years) from Earth, and the nearest major galaxy to the Milky Way. Its name stems from the area of the Earth’s sky in which it appears, the constellation of Andromeda. The 2006 observations by the Spitzer Space Telescope revealed that the Andromeda Galaxy...
Aldebaran is an orange giant star located about 65 light years away in the zodiac constellation of Taurus. With an average apparent magnitude of 0.87 it is the brightest star in the constellation and is one of the brightest stars in the nighttime sky. The name Aldebaran is Arabic and translates literally as “the follower”, presumably because this bright star appears to follow the...
Airglow (also called night glow) is a faint emission of light by a planetary atmosphere. In the case of Earth’s atmosphere, this optical phenomenon causes the night sky never to be completely dark, even after the effects of starlight and diffused sunlight from the far side are removed. The airglow phenomenon was first identified in 1868 by Swedish scientist Anders Angstrom. Since then, it...
Have you ever found yourself working toward an important goal only to spectacularly fail because you did something stupid? Or, maybe you feel stressed and anxious when you’re trying to achieve something important. This, in turn, might make you feel more and more frustrated, discouraged and angry with yourself. These feelings trap you and keep you from doing what you need to do. These are...