Author Archives: The Backyard Astronomer

By Adam England, The Backyard Astronomer One of my personal favorite constellations is Scorpius.  It is very easy to identify in the summer months when it rises in the Southeast and sways above the Bradshaw Mountains like the traditional scorpion promenade à deux pairing dance.  The red supergiant Antares defines the head of the ScorpionContinueContinue reading “Scorpions and Rabbits”

IAU Selects Names for 20 Exoplanetary Systems — The NameExoWorlds global contest names the next set of exoplanets and host stars The International Astronomical Union’s NameExoWorlds 2022 contest has selected 20 pairs of names for exoplanets and their host stars. The contest was organised within the framework of the celebrations of the 10th anniversary ofContinueContinue reading “NameExoWorlds2022 Winning Submissions Press Release”

Spring also brings with it the pollinators that make our world possible, and the Beehive Cluster shines prominent in the sky this month.  You may be able to spot these industrious little lights “buzzing” around Mars on the night of June 2nd, when the Red Planet will be centrally located among this open cluster.  MarsContinueContinue reading “Buzzing Bees Birthing Planets”

Spring has sprung in Northern Arizona, and with it comes the return of budding flora and emerging fauna.  In like fashion, the sky also graces us with clusters in bloom, and the slithering serpents that herald their homecoming. Messier 5 through the eyes of the Hubble Space Telescope. The constellation Serpens is often depicted asContinueContinue reading “Spring Serpents and Clusters”

When I was growing up, we remembered the names of the planets in order with the mnemonic My Very Excellent Mother Just Sent Us Nine Pizzas.  However, on August 24th, 2006, the International Astronomical Union voted on a stricter definition of what it means to be a planet.  You see, Pluto had become a problemContinueContinue reading “Planetary Demotions”

Crab Nebula. Hubble Space Telescope. The Red Planet shines bright this month, transiting between the horns of Taurus, the bull, and up towards Gemini, the twins, at just over one AU from Earth.  One Astronomical Unit is the average distance from the Earth to the Sun, or about 93 million miles/150 million kilometers. The hornsContinueContinue reading “Bullish About Astronomy”

The Upper Paleolithic is a segment of human prehistory starting around 50,000 to 12,000 years ago, and is characterized by the first known organized settlements, advancements in tools and weapons, and artistic work.  These early petroglyphs (carved or etched) and pictographs (painted) started with simple lines and dots, and soon evolved to include traced hands,ContinueContinue reading “An Ancient Visitor From The Outer Solar System”

The first and most basic element on the periodic table is hydrogen. A single atom of hydrogen consists of one positively charged proton in the center or nucleus, and one negatively charged electron orbiting it. This simple element was the first thing in the universe after the Big Bang, and there was a lot of it. Every oneContinueContinue reading “Fusion – The Lifeblood of Stars and Science Fiction”

October 4th, 1957 was truly the beginning of a new age.  While humans had spent the last few decades dreaming of, dabbling in, and testing their mettle in the high reaches of Earth’s atmosphere, the launch of Sputnik 1 on that day was the true harbinger of what was to come in the new frontierContinueContinue reading “Sputnik and the “October Sky””

Two months in a row we are fortunate to have the largest of our Solar System’s Gas Giants put on a stunning display.  While in August Saturn was at opposition, Jupiter will also be at its nearest and brightest to Earth on the night of September 26th.  Unlike the Saturnian opposition, however, when the MoonContinueContinue reading “September 2022 – Jupiter”