Month: January 2018

Star Closeup

ryan2 Comments
I really enjoy looking at images of the Sun from one of the several round-the-clock monitoring systems.  It’s fascinating that the public can get access to almost real time images of the Sun and see what’s going on in several wavelengths.  I’ve always hoped to see what other stars look like in the future, and today, that future is one step closer.  Here’s a brand new picture of another star!   This is a real image of distant star π1Gruis, a star 350 times as massive as the Sun, in the southern hemisphere constellation Grus.  The star is 530 light years...

Navigation by Pulsar

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On the golden record that accompanies the Voyager spacecraft, there is a map showing the location of Earth.  It’s not a road map that you might pull out when navigating a city, but a 3D map showing the location of a star, the Sun, in a populous galaxy.  But just how would this map work? And more importantly, what are the map markers? If you notice the lines at the bottom left of the golden record image, they all intersect at a common center point.  This is the Sun, and the lines extend out showing relative distances to the nearest...