SHOP NOW FOR

SCIENCE &
ASTRONOMY
PRODUCTS
Huge selection!
Books • Magazines • Globes & Maps
Posters • Downloads • And more!

MyScience S ho p.co m
P29014
 SPECIAL ISSUE
JULY 2020

The world’s best-selling astronomy magazine

ALL ABOUT
STARS
How stars are born
and die p. 16

Meet the most

extreme stars p. 24
The nearest stars
up close p. 30
The Sun’s lost
siblings p. 44

How pulsating stars

unlock the cosmos p. 56
www.Astronomy.com

BONUS
AND MORE!
Vol. 48 • Issue 7

ONLINE
Bob Berman’s tribute to carbon p. 14 CONTENT
Astronomy’s editors answer your questions p. 70 CODE p. 4
 ASTRO-CAMERAS
For beginners and more advanced users: astro-cameras
for auto-guiding, deep-sky and planetary photography

Highly sensitive CMOS sensors: high quantum efficiency

and low readout noise – for cleaner astrophotos

Wide range: whether monochrome or colour, you will find

the perfect pixel and sensor size for your telescope

INDI and ASCOM compatible: control the camera using the

image capture software of your choice

Julian Zoller, veTEC 16000 C, 200/1200 Newton

139 264 854
Price from Price from Price from

$ Art. Nr. 61032

$ Art. Nr. 61037
$ Art. Nr. 61045

Art. Nr. 61031 – 61036 Art. Nr. 61037 – 61044 Art. Nr. 61045, 63068 - 63070
AR0130, IMX290 IMX178, IMX385, IMX224, IMX290, IMX287 MN34230, IMX432

Compact autoguider: the ideal Professional level planetary Large sensors: wide field of view for
Omegon is part of nimax GmbH. Price changes and errors excepted. All rights reserved

add-on for a deep-sky camera photography: USB3.0 and the breathtaking deep-sky images
innovative Region of Interest
function ensure a super-fast frame
rate – freeze the seeing!
Thermoelectric cooling: minimal
thermal noise and complete control
Uncomplicated auto-guiding without headaches: thanks to the ST4 port over the sensor temperature
and PHD2 compatibility
Neither condensation nor freezing:
Well-thought-out design: owing to the compact 1.25" eyepiece format, the
thanks to a dew heater and a
robust anodised aluminium body fits every telescope
rechargeable desiccant cartridge
USB hub: two USB ports for an
You can connect various accessories: the adaptor included offers a CS- and
autoguider, filter wheel or focus
C-mount thread as well as a 1.25" filter thread. Astronomical filters, CCTV
motor. Astrophotography without
lenses or mini guide scopes – they all fit!
cable clutter!

Open Astronomy
Instrumentation

ASCOM & INDI compatible Recommended for PHD2 & N.I.N.A.

Order online at www.omegon.com

 EXPLORE THE UNIVERSE
WITH NEW BEST SELLERS
Well-known in the astronomy field, David J. Eicher, Editor of Astronomy magazine,
and Brian May, Musician and Astrophysicist, bring you two exciting new books!

Galaxies: Inside the Universe’s Star Cities

written by David J. Eicher, is a 256-page comprehensive update on
what we know about galaxies.
THIS ALL-NEW BOOK INCLUDES:
• 200+ Enhanced Full-Color Photographs of The Andromeda Galaxy,
The Milky Way, The Magellanic Clouds, and more
• ‘Fast Fact’ Sections with definitions, trivia and other digestible
information
• A Tutorial & Tips for easily observing gal-
axies from the comforts of your backyard
• Sketches and Diagrams of galaxy types,
200+ regions, star clusters, and other cosmic
PHOTOS &
DIAGRAMS Item #81404 • $30.00 elements
• And much more!

Every star has its own story to tell.

Cosmic Clouds 3-D, the all-new 192-page book from David
J. Eicher and Brian May, covers the birthplace of the stars in the
night sky as they’re highlighted by compelling content and hundreds
of magnificent images of cosmic clouds called nebulae.

The high-resolution images in this book were captured by ground-

based and space telescopes, many presented in unique stereo views
that show the nebulae in three dimensions. Get lost in 100s of
stunning images using the 3-D viewer included with the book.

Item #81403 • $40.00

Order now!
MyScienceShop.com/GCBooks
P37835

Sales tax where applicable.

 Online Content Code: ASY2007
Enter this code at: www.astronomy.com/code
to gain access to web-exclusive content
JULY 2020
VOL. 48, NO. 7

CFHT/COELUM – J.-C. CUILLANDRE & G. ANSELMI

ON THE COVER
Giant spheres of stars, globular
clusters like M15 in Pegasus

CONTENTS
contain aged suns that winked
on during the early days of the
16 universe.

COLUMNS
Strange Universe 14
FEATURES BOB BERMAN

Secret Sky 62
16 36 50 STEPHEN JAMES O’MEARA
How stars are Sky This Month Is Eta Corvi a window
For Your Consideration 64
born and die Feast on a full planetary to our past? JEFF HESTER
Stellar evolution is a circle lineup. MARTIN RATCLIFFE By studying this strange
of life — dying stars spew AND ALISTER LING star, astronomers hope to Observing Basics 66
their contents into the galaxy, better understand what GLENN CHAPLE
paving the way for the next 38 happened early in the life Binocular Universe 68
generation. JIM KALER Star Dome and of our own solar system. PHIL HARRINGTON
Paths of the Planets NOLA TAYLOR REDD
24 RICHARD TALCOTT;
Meet the most ILLUSTRATIONS BY ROEN KELLY 56 7
extreme stars How pulsating stars QUANTUM GRAVITY
Some huge, some small. Some 44 unlock our universe Everything you need to
zip, some crawl. The cosmos The Sun’s lost siblings RR Lyrae variables allow know about the universe
is full of objects that defy Astronomers think it’s possible precise distance measurements, this month: growing
expectations. JAKE PARKS to identify the stars that reveal the history of the space salads, 139 minor
formed from the same nebula regions they populate, planets found, and more.
30 as the Sun. YVETTE CENDES and trace how galaxies are
Stellar neighbors structured. ATA SARAJEDINI
close-up
Astronomers are learning 70 IN EVERY ISSUE
a lot from the stars in our Ask Astro From the Editor 5
part of the Milky Way. The Sun’s light. Astro Letters 6
BRUCE DORMINEY
Advertiser Index 65
New Products 69
Reader Gallery 72
Breakthrough 74
ONLINE
FAVORITES Dave’s Trips and Sky This News Astronomy (ISSN 0091-6358, USPS 531-350)
Go to www.Astronomy.com is published monthly by Kalmbach Media
Universe Tours Week The latest Co., 21027 Crossroads Circle, P. O. Box 1612,
for info on the biggest news and The inside Travel the world A daily digest updates from Waukesha, WI 53187–1612. Periodicals postage
observing events, stunning photos, scoop from with the staff of of celestial the science paid at Waukesha, WI, and additional offices.
POSTMASTER: Send address changes to
informative videos, and more. the editor. Astronomy. events. and the hobby. Astronomy, PO Box 8520, Big Sandy, TX 75755.
Canada Publication Mail Agreement #40010760.

4 ASTRONOMY • JULY 2020

 FROM THE EDITOR

What we owe stars

Editor David J. Eicher
Design Director LuAnn Williams Belter
EDITORIAL
Senior Editor Richard Talcott
Production Editor Elisa R. Neckar
Senior Associate Editor Alison Klesman
Associate Editor Jake Parks
Copy Editor McLean Bennett
I hope that every day, at least for a Editorial Assistant Hailey McLaughlin
moment, you think of the Sun — ART
Contributing Design Director Elizabeth Weber
not necessarily because you’re a Illustrator Roen Kelly
Production Specialist Jodi Jeranek
solar observer, but out of gratitude. If not for
CONTRIBUTING EDITORS
the Sun, of course, none of us would be here. Michael E. Bakich, Bob Berman, Adam Block,
Circumstances in our solar system’s forma- Glenn F. Chaple Jr., Martin George, Tony Hallas,
Phil Harrington, Korey Haynes, Jeff Hester, Alister Ling,
tion and evolution led to Earth being in the Stephen James O’Meara, Martin Ratcliffe, Raymond Shubinski
right place to receive enough solar radiation SCIENCE GROUP
Executive Editor Becky Lang
to permit water, and, thus, life. Our local
EDITORIAL ADVISORY BOARD
nuclear reactor in the sky gives us our exis- Buzz Aldrin, Marcia Bartusiak, Jim Bell, Timothy Ferris,
Alex Filippenko, Adam Frank, John S. Gallagher lll,
tence, and we owe our lives to it. Daniel W. E. Green, William K. Hartmann, Paul Hodge,
The subject of stars is a pretty fundamen- Edward Kolb, Stephen P. Maran, Brian May, S. Alan Stern,
James Trefil
The Sun, our star, tal one in astronomy. After all, stars are
appears like a giant practically everywhere when we look up in the sky; galaxies are filled Kalmbach Media
glowing ball of
radiation in this
with them, and the universe is filled with galaxies. It’s a little funny Chief Executive Officer Dan Hickey
Senior Vice President, Finance Christine Metcalf
image from the thinking back over conversations with astronomers and appreciating Senior Vice President, Consumer Marketing Nicole McGuire
Solar Dynamics how relatively few are actively researching fundamental properties Vice President, Content Stephen C. George
Vice President, Operations Brian J. Schmidt
Observatory. As the
universe’s natural
of stars, given how important stars are to the story of the cosmos. But Vice President, Human Resources Sarah A. Horner
Senior Director, Advertising Sales and Events David T. Sherman
nuclear reactors, enough are studying how stars work that our collective store of knowl- Advertising Sales Director Scott Redmond
stars tell us an edge about them is growing. Circulation Director Liz Runyon
enormous amount Director of Design & Production Michael Soliday
about how the This special issue presents a pretty impressive tale of what we know. Managing Design Director Lisa A. Bergman
Retention Manager Kathy Steele
universe works. We’re fortunate to have the dean of writers about stars for a popular Single Copy Specialist Kim Redmond
NASA/SDO
audience, Jim Kaler, now an emeritus professor at the University of ADVERTISING DEPARTMENT
Phone (888) 558-1544
Illinois, kicking off our package with a story about how stars are born Ad Production AdServices@Kalmbach.com
and die. Their life cycles tell us a great deal about how the universe Dina Johnston, djohnston@kalmbach.com

works and about the past and future of our own solar system. RETAIL TRADE ORDERS AND INQUIRIES
Associate Editor Jake Parks takes us on a journey through stellar Selling Astronomy magazine or products in your store:
Phone (800) 558-1544
extremes — the largest, smallest, brightest, and so on — an always- Outside U.S. and Canada (262) 796-8776, ext. 818
Fax (262) 798-6592
fascinating and ever-changing tapestry of understanding of these Email tss@kalmbach.com
cosmic engines. Science writer Bruce Dorminey helps us visit the Website www.Retailers.Kalmbach.com
CUSTOMER SALES AND SERVICE
nearest stars, from the Alpha Centauri system and beyond, in a fas- Phone (877) 246-4835
cinating look at our galactic neighborhood. Outside U.S. and Canada (903) 636-1125
Customer Service customerservice@AstronomyMagazine.info
Some 4.6 billion years ago, the Sun was born in an open cluster.
CONTACT US
Now it is a single star. What happened to its sisters? Radio astronomer Ad Sales adsales@astronomy.com
Ask Astro askastro@astronomy.com
Yvette Cendes describes the ongoing research on the Sun’s lost siblings, Books books@astronomy.com
a detective story spanning years and looking back on a nearly infinite Letters letters@astronomy.com
Products products@astronomy.com
time span. Science writer Nola Taylor Redd examines the weird star Reader Gallery readergallery@astronomy.com
Eta Corvi, which hides some strange behavioral secrets that could shed Editorial Phone (262) 796-8776

light on many other stars. And physics professor Ata Sarajedini For reprints, licensing, and permissions:
describes a class known as RR Lyrae stars, one of the tools in an PARS International at www.parsintl.com

astronomer’s box that allows us to gauge distances in the cosmos. Copyright © 2020 Kalmbach Media Co., all rights reserved. This publication
may not be reproduced in any form without permission. Printed in the U.S.A.
I hope you’ll enjoy this special package — and that you’ll continue Allow 6 to 8 weeks for new subscriptions and address changes. Subscription
rate: single copy: $5.99; U.S.: 1 year $42.95; 2 years $79.95; 3 years $114.95.
to think of the Sun, and give it an occasional wink of appreciation. Canadian: Add $12.00 postage per year. Canadian price includes GST, payable
in U.S. funds. All other international subscriptions: Add $16.00 postage per
year, payable in U.S. funds, drawn on a U.S. bank. BN 12271 3209 RT. Not
responsible for unsolicited materials.
Yours truly,
Follow the
Dave’s Universe blog:
www.Astronomy.
com/davesuniverse FOLLOW ASTRONOMY
Follow Dave Eicher David J. Eicher
on Twitter: Editor www.twitter.com/AstronomyMag
@deicherstar www.facebook.com/AstronomyMagazine
 ASTRO LET TERS

A keen eye and many people have strong views about if Pluto is a
I thoroughly enjoyed seeing planet or not. But nature isn’t so obliging. I think we
the Moon get some love in the should accept categorization is often necessary for us to
March issue with Michael E. understand generalities, but we can’t apply those rules
Bakich’s “Explore the Moon at to everything or have everything fit into tidy boxes.
First Quarter.” I did notice one — James Fradgley, Wimborne, U.K.
little erratum — he swapped the
terms for scotopic vision (low
light) and photopic vision (well The mystery of ‘Oumuamua
The Moon at First lit). In a past job, I worked in the I enjoyed your article, “Our first interstellar visitor,” in
Quarter, captured
from the International refractive surgery market writing software that imaged the February 2020 issue immensely, and read it from
Space Station. NASA and measured a patient’s cornea with infrared light. end to end with great pleasure. It was the most exhaus-
We used infrared so the eye was fully scotopic, or dark tive article that I have seen on ‘Oumuamua in the popu-
adapted. The terms just jumped out at me when I saw lar press. I learned a lot about it and had my own suspi-
We welcome
your comments them there, and of course I knew it was backwards. cions confirmed. It could be a flat disk, which is alluded
at Astronomy Letters, — Richard S. Wright Jr., Lake Mary, FL to in your article, but less likely, it could have one bright
P.O. Box 1612, side and one dark side.
Waukesha, WI 53187; From the editors: Good eye, Richard — you’re right! Great job, Alison Klesman! I will look for your work
or email to letters@ in future issues of Astronomy. I would also like to con-
astronomy.com .
gratulate the management of Astronomy on 46 years of
Please include your
name, city, state, and
Pluto’s status publication. I am a retired electrical engineer from the
country. Letters may The article “Lowell Observatory turns 125” in the Jet Propulsion Laboratory and have had an amateur
be edited for space February 2020 issue mentions Pluto’s planetary status. interest in astronomy all my life. I even taught
and clarity. It’s a pressing human need to put everything into boxes, astronomy! — Chuck Lahmeyer, Jefferson City, MO

'HGLFDWHGWR
&UDIWVPDQVKLS
$XWR$GMXVWLQJ
*72 0RWRU*HDUER[HV
$EVROXWH(QFRGHU

News

Want to Photos

gaze at
Videos
Blogs

&RQQHFWLYLW\
*72&3
more And More!
Astronomy?
ZZZDVWURSK\VLFVFRP Go to Astronomy.com
0DFKHVQH\3DUN,/86$
3K

6 ASTRONOMY • JULY 2020

 QUANTUM GRAVITY
QG EVERYTHING YOU NEED TO KNOW ABOUT THE UNIVERSE THIS MONTH
NASA, ESA, AND STSCI. BOTTOM FROM LEFT: INDIAN SPACE RESEARCH ORGANISATION, DEPARTMENT OF SPACE, GOVERNMENT OF INDIA; STEFAN PAYNE-WARDENAAR; NASA/SVS

SNAPSHOT

HUBBLE’S
COSMIC REEF
On April 24, NASA celebrated
the Hubble Space Telescope’s
30th anniversary with a star-
studded image of NGC 2014
(right) and NGC 2020. Located HOT LIFTING OFF SLOW CRASH LAVA-LESS
A recent analysis of
in the Large Magellanic Cloud,
the region is called the Cosmic
BYTES The Indian Space
Research Organisation
New data from the Gaia
satellite suggest the martian meteorites
Reef, in part for NGC 2014’s announced that its Milky Way’s warped indicates that the
first crewed mission, disk is the result of Red Planet was never
coral-like appearance. While named Gaganyaan, an ongoing collision covered in a global
NGC 2014 contains several could launch three between our galaxy magma ocean in the
stars 10 times the Sun’s mass astronauts into low and another, smaller past, unlike Earth
each, its blue-hued neighbor is Earth orbit as early one — possibly the and the Moon.
shaped by a single 15-solar-mass as December 2021. Sagittarius Dwarf.
Wolf-Rayet star blasting material
into space. — ALISON KLESMAN

WWW. ASTRONOMY.COM 7
QUANTUM GRAVITY
GROWING SPACE SALAD
By next year, NASA astronauts could be eating
space-grown lettuce, tomatoes, and peppers.
Aboard the International Space
Station (ISS) in August 2015,
Japanese astronaut Kimiya Yui trimmed
a few leaves of red romaine lettuce and
passed them to NASA astronauts Scott
Kelly and Kjell Lindgren. Each drizzled
a few drops of dressing onto the pre-
cious produce, then popped it into their
mouths. “That’s awesome, tastes good,”
Lindgren said.
The 2015 harvest was too scant for
a proper space salad, especially since
half the crop was sent back to Earth
8 ASTRONOMY • JULY 2020
for analysis. But the munchies marked
a milestone in human spaceflight. It
was the first time an orbiting crop had
been grown with NASA hardware and
then eaten (though scientists suspect
astronauts might have stolen a few bites
from a previous sample).
We now know that space lettuce
doesn’t just taste good. It’s also safe to
eat and as nutritious as lettuce grown
back on Earth, according to a new
study published March 6 in the journal
Frontiers in Plant Science.
CHOW TIME. Astronauts Kjell Lindgren and
Scott Kelly nibble on red romaine lettuce
grown on the International Space Station. NASA
LETTUCE REJOICE
From 2014 to 2016, astronauts grew
“Outredgeous” red romaine lettuce
inside the ISS Vegetable Production
System chambers, or Veggie. Meanwhile,
scientists at NASA’s Kennedy Space
Center ran a control experiment to
precisely replicate Veggie’s conditions
using temperature, humidity, and
carbon dioxide measurements beamed
from the ISS back to Earth.
When NASA researchers tested both
versions of the lettuce, they found the
 QUICK
TAKES
AURORAL SIGNAL

NASA/JPL-CALTECH/MSSS
Astronomers think they’ve found
a terrestrial-mass exoplanet some
30 light-years away by spotting
aurora-like radio signals in the star’s
magnetic field, caused by the
Curiosity views the martian horizon potential planet’s presence.

Following the death of NASA’s Opportunity rover in 2018 due to a massive martian dust FAREWELL, AL
storm, Curiosity became the sole rover left exploring Mars’ surface. The car-sized scout Al Worden, Command Module Pilot
has been churning out great science and images consistently for almost eight years, of Apollo 15, died March 18 at the
and it’s not done yet. Between November 24 and December 1, 2019, Curiosity used its age of 88. In 1971, Worden set the
Mastcam to capture more than 1,000 images that were later stitched together to create record for “most isolated human
this highest-resolution panorama (almost 1.8 billion pixels) of Mars to date. Next year, being” while orbiting the Moon
Curiosity will get some new company when the Perseverance rover (and its more some 2,235 miles (3,597 km) away
advanced Mastcam-Z camera) touches down in Jezero Crater. — J.P. from his crewmates on the lunar
surface — greater than the separation
between other Apollo crews.

space-grown variety was strikingly interesting. The pepper’s complex EX-THEORY?

similar to the ground-grown controls.
Each had equivalent levels of nutrients
and antioxidants, and even the same
diverse microbial communities. Plus,
neither crop showed signs of potentially
problematic bacteria like E. coli.
But researchers say there’s still a long
way to go before astronauts can help
themselves to a cosmic salad bar. The
lettuce was a gateway plant — it’s easier
and faster to grow than most fruiting
crops, yet it thrives in similar condi-
tions. Now scientists need to figure out
how to nurture slower-growing plants.
“Tomatoes and peppers, which we
hope to grow this year and next, will
need similar growing conditions. But
because they take a lot longer to grow”
— 28 days for mature lettuce versus
80 days for the first fruit from dwarf
tomatoes — “they are much more of
an investment of time and resources,”
Christina Khodadad, a Kennedy Space
Center researcher and lead author of
the new study, tells Astronomy.
STRESS TEST
This August, space farming will see
its most challenging crop yet: the chili
pepper. Peppers are particularly tough
to grow because their seeds need two
weeks of perfect conditions before they
germinate. But they’re also scientifically
Astronomers searched the Milky
genome could undergo interesting
Way for an X-ray signal seen in
changes when grown in the high-
other galaxies and thought to come
radiation environment of space.
from dark matter. However, they saw
On Earth, these peppers are typically no such signal in our own galaxy.
milder than jalapeños. But “plants The team says their result, which is
often produce the chemical responsible still highly controversial, rules out
for spiciness, capsaicin, in response to the theory that these X-rays come
stress,” says Matt Romeyn, a Kennedy from dark matter.
Space Center scientist overseeing the
pepper experiment. “We currently have DELAYED LAUNCH
no data on how the stress of micrograv- The launch of ExoMars — a joint
ity could affect capsaicin levels. At the lander and rover mission led by the
same time, we have grown peppers in European Space Agency and
the lab that were not stressed at all and Russia’s Roscosmos — has been
the fruit was bland and missing a bit postponed until 2022, due to a
of heat that we were after, so it will be combination of technical issues
interesting the first time an astronaut and the coronavirus pandemic.
bites into a pepper grown on ISS.”
By next year, astronauts could be NO LAND
eating fresh tomatoes in orbit, too — Ancient Earth was a water world
with little or no dry land some
once NASA sorts out how to precisely
3.24 billion years ago, new research
deliver water and nutrients for the
suggests. An early lack of sufficient
100 days it takes the fruit to reach
dry land would have major
maturity. “Fresh-picked ripe tomatoes
implications on the origin and
are a rare treat for many, so we thought evolution of life, both for Earth
these would also be a treat for the and other planets.
astronauts,” says study co-author and
Veggie researcher Gioia Massa, also at SEND MY HEART
Kennedy Space Center. Researchers shipped samples
If everything goes according to plan, of heart muscle tissue to the
ISS astronauts soon will finally have International Space Station as part
the makings of a true space salad. of the Engineered Heart Tissues
— ERIC BETZ, JAKE PARKS experiment, which aims to explore
why weightlessness reduces heart
function in astronauts. — J.P.

WWW. ASTRONOMY.COM 9
QUANTUM GRAVITY
Astronomers find 139
new minor planets
Researchers searching through
data from the Dark Energy
Survey, or DES, have discovered 139
new minor planets orbiting the Sun.
These worlds, called trans-Neptunian
objects (TNOs), orbit beyond Neptune,
which sits about 30 astronomical units
from the Sun. (One astronomical
unit, or AU, is the average Earth-Sun
distance.)
The method that allowed the team
to spot so many small worlds is now
expected to reveal thousands of distant
objects in coming years — making
these first hundred or so just the start.
Currently, we know of nearly 3,000
TNOs, but astronomers estimate the
total number is closer to 100,000. Taken
together, the newfound distant objects,
as well as those to come, could possibly
resolve one of the most fascinating
questions in modern astronomy: Is
there a massive and mysterious world
called Planet Nine lurking in the
outskirts of our solar system?
Researchers uncovered the new TNOs
in data taken by the Blanco 4-meter tele-
scope in Chile as part of the DES, which
was not originally designed to look for
minor planets. But study co-author
10 ASTRONOMY • JULY 2020
Gary Bernstein of the University of
Pennsylvania tells Astronomy he’s been
fascinated by TNOs since “before Planet
Nine was a thing.” That interest led
the team to design a novel algorithm
that could identify distant solar system
worlds by looking for objects in the
DES images that moved against the
background stars from night to night.
The team then confirmed they could
filter out fake objects and validated their
movement-spotting algorithm with
known TNOs. Their final results were
published March 10 in The Astrophysical
Journal Supplement Series.
So far, the team has only analyzed a
small subset of the DES data. Ultimately,
they expect their algorithm can uncover
500 or more TNOs in the full dataset.
And if the same method is applied to
even more sensitive upcoming surveys —
such as those planned with the Vera C.
Rubin Observatory — the group expects
to find thousands of new TNOs.
A MAP TO PLANET NINE
As more TNOs have been discovered
over the years, astronomers have noticed
that a small subset of these objects have
peculiar orbits. They seem to bunch
DISTANT WORLD. Trans-Neptunian objects are
frozen, far-off worlds orbiting our Sun beyond the
ice giant Neptune. This artist’s concept shows
Sedna, one of the largest known TNOs, which has
a reddish surface — and possibly a moon (shown
at the dwarf planet’s upper right). The Sun appears
only as a small, bright point of light. NASA/JPL-CALTECH
up in unexpected ways, as if an unseen
object is herding them into specific
orbits. Some astronomers think these
strangely orbiting TNOs point to a mas-
sive, distant world called Planet Nine.
Hypothesized to be five to 15 times
the mass of Earth and orbiting some
400 AU (or more) from the Sun, Planet
Nine would have enough gravitational
pull to cause some TNOs to cluster as
they make their closest approaches to
the Sun. But the evidence for Planet
Nine is so far indirect and sparse. That’s
why discovering more TNOs, particu-
larly beyond the Kuiper Belt, will give
astronomers more clues that could
point to the location of Planet Nine —
or eliminate its existence altogether.
None of the 139 newfound minor
planets in this research bolster the case
for Planet Nine, though. “If this were
the first dataset that came out, then no
one would have come up with the Planet
Nine hypothesis because there appears
to be no clustering [in the orbits of any
new TNOs],” says study co-author Masao
Sako of the University of Pennsylvania.
However, he adds that this doesn’t
disprove the existence of Planet Nine
either. Their method could uncover other
TNOs that do support the planet, or
maybe even spot the world itself.
Regardless of whether Planet Nine
exists or not, understanding the orbits
and properties of TNOs will provide
insights into the history of the giant
planets. The distribution of TNOs could
also reveal the fates of past giants that
were kicked to the outskirts of the solar
system, or even out of the solar system
entirely, during its early years.
“It’s a fantastic example of how a sur-
vey designed for one area of astronomy
— to study the expansion history of
the universe — can also produce great
science in a completely unrelated area,”
says Alexander Mustill, an astrophysicist
at Lund University in Sweden who was
not involved in the study. — ERICA NAONE, J.P.
DECODING THE HERTZSPRUNG-RUSSELL DIAGRAM
–10 100 1,000,000
sola 1,00
0 sola
rr adii r rad
ii
SUPERGIANTS

10 s
olar
Betelgeuse
r adii Rigel
–5 10,000

Spica

T S
AN
1 so
la r r MA Aldebaran GI
adiu
s IN
0 SE 100
QU
EN
CE

Luminosity (solar units)

Absolute magnitude

0.1 s Sirius
olar
r adiu
s
5 1

The Sun
Tau Ceti
0.01
s olar
r adiu
s WH
10 ITE 0.01
Sirius B DW
AR Barnard’s Star
FS
Proxima Centauri
0.00
1 so
lar r
adiu
s
15 0.001

ASTRONOMY: ROEN KELLY

Spectral class

20
O B A F G K M
0.0001
40,000 20,000 14,000 10,000 7,000 5,000 3,000 2,500
Surface temperature (kelvins)

CRYSTAL BALL. Since it was developed in the early 1900s, astronomers have
used the Hertzsprung-Russell (HR) diagram to categorize stars by size, FAST FACT
temperature, and brightness. The HR diagram is a simple but extremely Astronomers Ejnar
powerful tool for understanding a population of stars. A given star’s Hertzsprung and Henry Norris
location on this diagram is related to its age and mass; these properties Russell independently
allow astronomers to predict how that star will evolve by calculating the developed a diagram in 1911
and 1913, respectively, to plot a
track it will follow through this diagram over time. Main sequence stars,
star’s color, or spectral class,
such as the Sun, are in the relatively stable hydrogen-burning phase of against its absolute magnitude.
their lives. As these stars age and run out of hydrogen fuel, they will move
off the main sequence and onto the giant branch as they fuse helium or
heavier elements in their cores. The most massive stars ultimately reach the supergiant branch. But
when stars like the Sun can no longer generate fusion in their cores, they leave behind white dwarfs,
which only shine from residual heat and slowly cool over trillions of years. — A.K.
11
QUANTUM GRAVITY

Researchers map dark

ALMA (ESO/NAOJ/NRAO), TAFOYA ET AL.

matter via slime mold

OLD STAR
REVEALS
YOUNG JETS
Planetary nebulae occur when
Sun-like stars puff off their
outer layers late in life. These
layers glow for a short cosmic
time as radiation from the
MOLDY MAP. Researchers seeded an algorithm — inspired by the food-seeking behavior of slime star strikes them, pushing
mold — with the positions of about 37,000 galaxies. The galaxies served as the “food,” and the them outward. Although
resulting 3D map shows where the algorithm predicted invisible cosmic web filaments (purple) of some planetary nebulae are
gas and dark matter connecting the galaxies (yellow) would be. NASA/ESA/J. BURCHETT AND O. ELEK (UC SANTA CRUZ)
round, others are bipolar,
shaped like a butterfly or an
A brainless, single-celled organism with a The algorithm mimics the simple hourglass. Bipolar nebulae
knack for finding food is helping astrono- organism’s food-seeking behavior, in which are particularly interesting
mers study the largest, most mysterious it deploys tendrils of reconnaissance mold to astronomers, but they are
structure in the universe: the cosmic web. to hunt for nearby food. If a specific mold also hard to study because
And things could get a bit … slimy. thread stumbles on a meal, it thrives, creat- the gas and dust from the star
The cosmic web is a vast network ing a strong connection between the food hides the innermost regions
of interconnected filaments made of and the rest of the colony. So, by substitut- from optical telescopes. To
dark matter and cold gas that forms ing individual galaxies for the mold-based see past this veil, astronomers
the scaffolding upon which the entire algorithm’s “food,” the researchers were recently used the Atacama
universe is built. These filaments can able to generate 3D maps that predicted Large Millimeter/submil-
stretch hundreds of millions of light-years, where the galaxy-connecting filaments limeter Array (ALMA) to
connecting groups and clusters of galaxies of the cosmic web should be based on the study W43A, a planetary
together. However, because the cosmic locations of existing galaxies. nebula 7,000 light-years away,
web is incredibly faint and the dark matter This told researchers where to look for at radio wavelengths. ALMA
within it doesn’t interact with light, it’s the faint threads in archived observations. revealed the star’s fast-moving
extremely difficult to map. “Wherever we saw a filament in our
bipolar jets (blue), which are
To tackle this challenge, researchers at model,” lead author Joseph Burchett said
blasting away from the star at
the University of California, Santa Cruz, in a press release, “the Hubble spectra
about 109 miles (175 kilome-
sifted through archived data for more than showed a gas signal.” This means the
37,000 galaxies to chart their positions in researchers were able to use the algorithm
ters) per second. Based on
the sky. They then used a sophisticated both to effectively pinpoint where threads this speed and the distance
algorithm to map out the underlying, of the cosmic web should be, and to actu- the jets have covered, the
invisible filaments of gas and dark matter ally find them. researchers calculate the jets
between those galaxies. They published “These results not only confirm the could be as young as 60 years
their results March 10 in The Astrophysical structure of the cosmic web predicted by old. They also saw slower-
Journal Letters. cosmological models,” Burchett said, “they moving outflows (green) and
The algorithm the researchers used also give us a way to improve our under- clouds of dust (orange) swept
to make their map isn’t your average standing of galaxy evolution by connecting up by the jets as they flow
algorithm. It’s inspired by a slime mold it with the gas reservoirs out of which outward, punching through
species called Physarum polycephalum. galaxies form.” — JOHN WENZ, J.P. the material previously shed
by the star. — A.K.

12 ASTRONOMY • JULY 2020

Iron rains
from the
sky on
this world
On the exoplanet WASP-76 b,
the nighttime forecast often
calls for rain. But the droplets
aren’t made of water. Instead,
the downpour is made of iron.
WASP-76 b is slightly
smaller than Jupiter and sits
some 640 light-years from
Earth in the constellation
Pisces. Its bizarre weather is
caused by its truly extreme
orbit. Gas giant worlds like
WASP-76 b are called hot
Jupiters because they orbit
uncomfortably close to their
home stars — in this case,
nearly 10 times closer than
Mercury is to our Sun.
That proximity leaves
WASP-76 b tidally locked to
its star, with one side perma-
nently baking in light and the
other stuck in eternal dark-
ness. As a result, WASP-76 b’s
dayside gets hit with thou-
sands of times more radiation
than Earth receives from the
HEAVY METAL RAIN. On the nighttime side of the gas giant planet WASP-76 b, liquid iron falls as rain. The out-of-
this-world weather is pictured in this artist’s rendering. ESO/M. KORNMESSER
Sun. Daytime temperatures
can reach up to 4,300 degrees
Fahrenheit (2,400 degrees
Celsius) — hot enough to
vaporize metal.
Winds driven by extreme
temperature differences
between the day and night
sides then push the vaporized
metal around the planet to the
nighttime hemisphere. There,
drastically cooler temperatures
let the iron condense into
drops and fall as rain. Its dis-
covery is the first time astrono-
mers have detected this kind
of day-to-night chemical dif-
ference on a hot Jupiter like
WASP-76 b. The find was pub-
lished March 11 in Nature.
Researchers found the
planet using the Echelle
SPectrograph for Rocky
Exoplanets and Stable
Spectroscopic Observations
(ESPRESSO) on the European
Southern Observatory’s Very
Large Telescope (VLT) in Chile.
ESPRESSO was originally
designed to study Earth-like
planets around stars like our
Sun. However, the team sus-
pected the VLT’s size would
also allow ESPRESSO to study
the atmospheres of other exo-
planets in general.
“Ultrahot giant planets are
the best laboratories we have
for studying extreme climates
on exoplanets. If we observe
an exoplanet during its tran-
sit across the disk of its star,
we can study the part of its
atmosphere through which
the light from the star passes,”
said study co-author Núria
Casasayas-Barris, a researcher
at the Instituto de Astrofísica
de Canarias and Ph.D. student
of the University of La Laguna
in Spain, in a press release.
The technique worked: The
team’s discovery of iron rain
on WASP-76 b occurred during
ESPRESSO’s first-ever science
observations. And that means
in the future, ESPRESSO may
reveal even more unusual
weather patterns on planets
circling other stars. “What
we have now is a whole new
way to trace the climate of the
most extreme exoplanets,” said
lead author and University
of Geneva astronomer David
Ehrenreich. — E.B., A.K.

23.5
Pop-up robot scouts practice their skills
NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL)
has a new team of small scouts ready
to explore the Moon. The Autonomous
The number Pop-Up Flat Folding Explorer Robot,
of hours in a or A-PUFFER, is a shoebox-sized robot
designed to go where astronauts cannot,
day on Earth including lunar craters or caves that
about 70 million humans might find inaccessible. Here, one
of three A-PUFFERs tackles the Moon-like
NASA/JPL CALTECH

years ago, based

terrain of JPL’s Southern California Mars
on a study Yard during a test in February. These
measuring how robots are designed to work together in
teams, collaboratively and autonomously
fast ancient reconnoitering an area quickly to generate maps of previously unexplored regions. NASA hopes
clams grew. a team of A-PUFFERs could be on its way to the Moon within a few years. — A.K.

WWW. ASTRONOMY.COM 13
 STRANGE UNIVERSE
A tribute to carbon
The fuel for our cells is born in the stars.
The ruby-hued star
VX Andromedae has
an atmosphere rich in
We astronomers love carbon. Though nowa-
carbon, which lets red days it gets unrelenting bad press thanks to
light through while climate change, carbon is so essential to life
scattering light that
is bluer and greener. that it grabs attention wherever we detect it. Who doesn’t
DAVID RITTER perk up when reading about organic compounds found
in comets or in martian soil, or causing the redness on
Titan? Indeed, an entire field — organic chemistry — is
devoted to the study of material containing carbon.
Carbon is the universe’s fourth-most
abundant element. During stellar life cycles,
nuclear fusion turns hydrogen into helium, Every
and helium into carbon and oxygen. So, romantic
when reaching old age, Sun-like stars col- sigh that
lapse into tiny balls of oxygen and carbon. If
blown outward, carbon becomes lots of fun
escapes
even when not creating life-forms. lips has
We enjoy observing stars surrounded by sweet
carbon dust. Because that element scatters origin.
blue and some green light but lets red emis-
sion pass, such “carbon stars” are the reddest
objects anywhere. If you ever find yourself in the deep
south — not the tobacco-growing Carolinas but llama-
loving Patagonia — point your scope at DY Crucis,
which hugs the Southern Cross’ leftmost star. It may be
BY BOB BERMAN the reddest thing your telescope can visually display.
Join me and Pulse As long as we’re pondering carbon, here’s a question
of the Planet’s that should drive you crazy.
Jim Metzner
Back in school, they taught us that we breathe in
in my podcast,
Astounding Universe, oxygen and breathe out carbon dioxide. But how can
at www.astounding your body be constantly supplying that carbon for you
universe.com to exhale?
14 ASTRONOMY • JULY 2020
Consider: Earth’s atmosphere is 78 percent nitrogen
and 21 percent oxygen, which leaves a mere 1 percent
for everything else. Almost all that residual stuff is the
single element argon. Carbon dioxide is 20 times less
prevalent than even argon. Amazingly, CO2 only com-
prises 1/25 of 1 percent of the air we breathe. It’s barely
there at all.
With each exhale, we release a gaseous mixture that
is 78 percent nitrogen, 17 percent oxygen, 1 percent argon,
and 4 percent carbon dioxide. Comparing inhalations
with exhalations, the nitrogen and argon concentrations
have not budged because our bodies have no use for
them. The big change is that oxygen has gone down by
4 percent and carbon dioxide has gone up by 4 percent.
These numbers can also solve an issue that may have
troubled you: How can delivering the “breath of life” to
an accident victim be helpful if we’re only breathing out
useless CO2? Now you know: We’re not! The breath you
give to an unconscious person has nearly as much oxy-
gen as fresh air.
But back to our big baffling brouhaha. If we breathe
in air that’s only 1/25 of 1 percent carbon dioxide and
then breathe out 4 percent carbon dioxide, it means
we’re introducing a steady stream of enhanced carbon
into our planet’s air. Where does this carbon come
from? How can our bodies possibly cough up such an
unrelenting, nonstop stream of carbon when we breathe
in almost none of it?
Ever wonder about this? Want to stop and guess?
The answer is … sugar.
Most of what we eat gets changed into glucose, which
is then consumed by our cells. It’s also utilized by the
mitochondria in each cell to supply us with
energy. These tiny organelles have their own
life cycles and independent genetic material,
and live inside us in a symbiotic way. It has
even been suggested by a panspermia advo-
cate that perhaps mitochondria came to
our Earth via meteorites and comets, invaded
a early plant and animal bodies, and estab-
lished a mutually beneficial relationship.
Regardless of their origin, we supply them
with a warm, safe home and they give us
energy. And the raw material they use is glu-
cose, whose chemical formula is C6H12O6. Our exhaled
carbon comes from that C.
The waste products of glucose metabolism are water
(H2O) and carbon dioxide (CO2). So the conclusion,
little known by the public, is that every romantic sigh
that escapes our lips has a sweet origin.
And that sweetness, in turn, has its foundation in the
stars.
BROWSE THE “STRANGE UNIVERSE” ARCHIVE
AT www.Astronomy.com/Berman
 Protect The best $299
Your eyepiece you’ll
ever buy.
Investment! No computer required. Battery-
powered 7” color monitor included.

Preserve your
library of
Astronomy magazines
M16 Eagle Nebula
with durable 8” Celestron Evolution
Metropolitan Skies
hardcover binders.
REVOLUTION IMAGER
RevolutionImager.com
High Point Scientific
Agena AstroProducts
Oceanside Photo & Telescope
Woodland Hills Telescope
Skies Unlimited
Orange County Telescope

ScopeBuggy
• For use with most tripods, DOBs
and piers
• 10” Pneumatic tires for soft ride
• Load tested to 600+ pounds
• Assemble & disassemble in minutes
Item #14007 • Adjustable rear axle height (1½” to 7”)
• Ideal for scopes up to 36”
$13.95 each • One person can quickly
and easily move
any sized scope Still #1
$345.00*
Order Yours Plus S&H
Approx. $60 Shipping

Today! USA
*Subject to change

MyScienceShop.com
Sales tax where applicable.

Patent Pending

SCOPEBUGGY
P.O. BOX 834
Elephant Butte, NM 915-443-9010
87935

P29472 www.ScopeBuggy.com

WWW. ASTRONOMY.COM 15
Stellar evolution is a circle of life —
dying stars spew their contents into
the galaxy, paving the way for the next
generation. BY JIM KALER

e live in a relatively quiet district of a galaxy 100,000 light-

years across that contains around 200 billion stars arranged
in a disk beset with spiral arms. As galaxies go, it’s pretty
big, though the supermassive black hole at the center is
relatively small, just 4 million solar masses. There is ample evidence
from the Milky Way’s rotation that our galaxy, like all others, con-
tains considerable dark matter, whose role in star formation eludes us.
But many of the processes of stellar evolution have become apparent,
most notably that through death comes life. Stellar evolution is cyclic,
with new stars replacing those that pass away.

Stellar building blocks

To forge a star you need gas, dust,
gravity, and violent stirring. From a
dark location in northern summer and
fall, an observer can see the Milky Way
cascading in its turbulent passage out
of Cygnus through Aquila, Sagittarius,
and south toward the Southern Cross.
Its glow is the combined light of the
billions of stars in our galaxy’s disk.

About 11,000 years ago, a star exploded in the

constellation Vela the Sails. This photo shows the
northern portion of the remnant, as well as the
pulsar that the stellar progenitor left behind.
Although the pulsar itself is invisible in this image,
it is located on the right-hand side. HAREL BOREN

Optical and radio observations show
that gas is plentiful, and myriad opaque
patches without apparent stars reveal
that dust is pervasive.
The dust consists of microscopic min-
eral grains made of silicon, magnesium,
iron, and many other metals, as well as
carbon in its varied forms. On average,
our galaxy’s disk contains just one grain
per cubic meter. But there are a lot of
cubic meters between stars, so, overall,
dust constitutes roughly 1 percent of the
total mass of interstellar matter.
While interstellar dust may be thinly
spread, it also tends to clump together,
even forming dense clouds. Some of
Thousands of stars are igniting within the vast 30 Doradus Nebula, located in the Milky Way’s largest
satellite galaxy, the Large Magellanic Cloud. The visible concentration of blue stars to the left of center is
R136, which contains many of the most massive stars astronomers have ever spotted, some 100 times the
mass of the Sun each. These huge, hot stars are blasting their birth nebula with winds of particles and
energetic radiation, while smaller stars that are still forming remain hidden within the cloud’s dusty depths.
NASA, N. WALBORN AND J. MA`IZ-APELL`ANIZ (SPACE TELESCOPE SCIENCE INSTITUTE), R. BARB`A (LA PLATA OBSERVATORY, LA PLATA, ARGENTINA)
these clouds are so thick that the Incas hydrogen and 10 percent helium —
of South America made them into con- roughly similar to the Sun — and at these
stellations. Among the closest are the low temperatures, we would expect little
Taurus-Auriga clouds, which are only a chemical activity.
thousand light-years away, allowing us To the contrary, we find through radio
to study them in great detail. emissions that the clouds are filled with
Opaque clouds of interstellar dust molecules. More than 200 molecular spe-
keep out heat radiated by nearby stars, cies are present, dominated by molecular
and the gas within the dark clouds falls hydrogen (H2), but we also observe car-
nearly to absolute zero. The gas has a bon monoxide (CO, which is used as a
chemical composition of 90 percent tracer for the hard-to-observe hydrogen),
WWW. ASTRONOMY.COM 17
carbon dioxide (CO2), methyl alcohol
(CH3OH), ethyl alcohol (CH3CH2OH),
and possibly even complex molecules
such as urea (CH4N2O) and others
important to life. Some molecules that
do not exist on Earth abound in space,
while many molecules responsible for the
emissions we see remain unidentified.
The real showpieces are the gaseous,
dusty diffuse nebulae. These occur
where the interstellar clouds lie in close
proximity to hot stars with temperatures
more than 26,000 kelvins or so. The
ultraviolet radiation given off by these
stars can destroy molecules, ionizing
(removing electrons from) the interstel-
lar gas, which causes it to glow. With just
binoculars, you can see the vast Orion
Nebula (M42) in the Hunter’s sword,
as well as many other such nebulae.
Telescopes reveal jaw-dropping beauty.
Making new stars
Blast waves from nearby exploding stars,
cloud-cloud collisions, and other violent
18 ASTRONOMY • JULY 2020
events force the interstellar clouds into
turbulent clumps, within which new stars
are made. Given the low temperatures,
ragged blobs within the clouds condense,
causing their central cores to slowly heat
up. The cores eventually become hot
enough that they visibly glow, first with
infrared radiation and then with visible
light, as heat is released by gravitational
contraction. These developing protostars
dot the dust clouds of Taurus, Auriga,
Orion, and many other such regions.
Named after their faint prototype,
slightly older T Tauri stars appear highly
variable as they sporadically gain mass,
accreting it from a disk of material
swirling around their equator. At the
same time, these stars lose mass via
powerful jets emerging from their poles.
Amazingly, this disk/jet structure shows
up not just in growing stars, but also in
stars that are ejecting their outer enve-
lopes as they prepare for death, in star
systems where mass is being transferred
from one to the other, and even around
the supermassive black holes residing
in galactic cores.
While the clouds are filled with T
Tauri stars, none of these stars is visible
to the naked eye. Moving outward per-
pendicular to the disk, the jets hammer
the surrounding interstellar gas into
bright shock waves, which are common
phenomena both on Earth and in the
universe in general. A shock wave is
formed in a fluid when a body moves
faster than the natural speed of the wave
within it, as with the bow-wave off the
prow of a speedboat. Here, this violent
meeting results in glowing nebulae called
Herbig-Haro (HH) objects, which occur
where the jets are brought to a halt by the
interstellar gasses. New stars appear as a
pair of HH objects connected by jets
from the star in the middle. Four and a
half billion years ago, the Sun would have
looked like this. In many cases, we see
only a single jet with or without its star,
as various portions of the structure can
be hidden by local dust clouds.
LEFT: The disk of the Milky Way contains vast
swaths of star-building material: gas and dust. The
latter is revealed by the apparent absence of stars
whose light the dust blocks out. This image
captures a portion of the dust-laden region
sometimes called the Great Rift, the entirety of
which runs from Centaurus to Cygnus. HYPATIA ALEXANDRIA

As a new protostar contracts under

the force of gravity, the core heats.
Eventually the temperature becomes
high enough to initiate nuclear reactions
(around 5 million kelvins), in which four
hydrogen atoms are turned into the next
heavier atom, helium, with a slight loss
(0.7 percent) of mass (m). Consequently,
energy (E) is created according to
Einstein’s famous relationship E=mc2
(c is the speed of light). The new source
of energy brings the contraction to a halt
as the star stabilizes at a central tempera-
ture that depends on the new star’s mass
(the Sun, for example, stabilized at about
16 million kelvins).
Multitudes of stars are often created
at roughly the same time, and their
mutual gravity binds them into an open
cluster with a large range of masses, like
the Pleiades (M45), the Hyades, or the
Beehive (M44). These clusters slowly
evaporate, their constituents dispersing Deep within the Crab Nebula (M1) supernova remnant is its beating heart: the pulsar left behind when its
massive progenitor star finally ceased nuclear fusion and collapsed. The pulsar itself is the rightmost of the
with time. We believe our Sun may have two brighter stars at the center of this Hubble Space Telescope image. Eventually, the nebula itself will drift
been born into one such cluster. away into space, seeding future generations of stars. NASA AND ESA, ACKNOWLEDGMENT: J. HESTER (ASU) AND M. WEISSKOPF (NASA/MSFC)
Additionally, much of this action takes
place within the larger dark clouds and is
invisible until stellar radiation and winds Main sequence dwarfs detectors allow us to look at the Sun’s core
dissipate the parent dust clouds. When the Once formed, the star remains stable as and show that our theories are correct.
Sun was born, only a few other stars might it consumes its hydrogen fuel. Seventy Trillions of them pass through you every
have been visible from its location because percent of the Sun’s nuclear energy is second and you don’t feel a thing.
of the dust in the local birth cloud. supplied by the proton-proton (pp) chain, The range of masses of hydrogen-
whereby four protons join in a three-step fusing stars — called main sequence stars
process to make helium, with the ejec- to differentiate them from stars that are
tion of protons, gamma rays, and neu- dying — runs from 0.075 to over 120 solar
trinos (near-massless particles that carry masses. For historical reasons, all of these
energy at nearly the speed of light). The ordinary stars are called dwarfs, but don’t
other 30 percent comes from the carbon let the term fool you. The comparatively
cycle, in which carbon and hydrogen modest Sun — a yellow dwarf — is about
combine to create a chain of six reactions 864,000 miles (almost 1.4 million kilome-
that generate nitrogen, oxygen, and ulti- ters) across, while the most massive dwarfs
mately ends with carbon and helium, the are many times that. On the other hand,
former of which allows the cycle to begin the coolest red dwarfs are not much bigger
again. This also produces gamma rays than Jupiter.
and neutrinos, as well as positrons (posi- There may be only a few monster stars
tively charged electrons). in a galaxy, while dim red dwarfs consti-
Because our star is so dense, the heat tute up to 70 percent of the local stellar
from the gamma radiation takes hundreds population. Below 0.075 solar mass,
The prototype T Tauri is a young, variable star
whose brightness changes over time as mass from of thousands of years to work its way out stellar cores are so cool that the pp chain
its circumstellar disk falls onto the star. A nearby of the Sun. By contrast, the neutrinos — won’t work, resulting in a brown dwarf
nebula, Hind’s Variable Nebula (NGC 1555), shines
with reflected light from T Tauri. ATLAS IMAGE COURTESY OF
unhindered by frequent interactions with that is still capable of fusing its natural
2MASS/UMASS/IPAC-CALTECH/NASA/NSF other atoms — leave directly. Neutrino deuterium (hydrogen atoms with both a

WWW. ASTRONOMY.COM 19
 STELLAR FEEDBACK

Mass
ABOVE: The young stars of the Beehive Cluster (M44)
will slowly move apart over time. This 600-million-
year-old open cluster may be what our own Sun’s 200 AU
birth cluster looked like before it dispersed. STEPHEN RAHN
Galactic Interstellar
spiral arms medium

proton and a neutron in the nucleus)

down to a mass of 1.2 percent the Sun’s
mass, or 13 Jupiters. However, we’ve
found planets around other stars heavier Time
than that, blurring the line between stars
and planets and leaving open key ques-
tions about how the two are formed.

FROM LEFT: NASA, ALAN WATSON (UNIVERSIDAD NACIONAL AUTONOMA DE MEXICO, MEXICO), KARL STAPELFELDT (JPL), JOHN KRIST (STSCI) AND CHRIS
The luminosities of dwarf stars are
critically dependent on mass. At the low
end, stars run entirely on the pp chain,
their cool reddish surfaces radiating at
rates less than 1/1,000 that of the Sun. At
the high end, they employ the carbon
cycle and shine with the light of more
than a million Suns, allowing them to be
visible in other galaxies. Their brilliance
and winds are so powerful that they
shred the local interstellar gas and dust,
creating blobs that can contract and
form new stars, continuing a steady cycle
of birth and death that created our own
From Earth, we see a side-on view of T Tauri star A 3-trillion-mile (4.8 trillion km) jet from a young star
Sun and its planets. HH-30, which is only about half a million years old. (invisible inside dust at the lower left of the image)
Fusion rates climb so rapidly with This image highlights the forming star’s jet and disk, forms Herbig-Haro object HH-47. The sinuous glow
BURROWS (ESA/STSCI); J. MORSE/STSCI, AND NASA/ESA

increasing mass and core temperature
that the lifetimes of stars actually decrease
as mass increases. They run from the age
of the galaxy — some 13 billion years —
for the least massive stars to just a few
million years for the most massive. In the
middle, the Sun has a hydrogen-burning
lifetime of about 10 billion years, of which
5 billion are history.
the latter of which is split by a dark lane of dust.
Twice a giant
While details differ, the end products of
stars in the midrange of stellar masses
are similar. In 5 billion years, the Sun
will have converted its internal hydro-
gen to helium and the central nuclear
is caused when the powerful jet meets the
interstellar gas and dust.
fire will go out. No longer supported by
the energy of fusion, the helium core
will shrink, as a thin shell of fusing
hydrogen surrounds it. Squeezing down
under gravity’s relentless fist, the core
will also heat, causing the star’s outer

20 ASTRONOMY • JULY 2020

IN THE GALAXY Cosmic rays

Compression
(shock waves)

Gas Enriched gas

and dust and dust

Stars are the fundamental building

blocks of the universe. A star’s Black holes
evolution progresses at a rate that
depends on its initial mass at birth. High mass
(Sun-like stars advance down the
middle of this diagram.) As stars
age and ultimately die, they pave Supergiants Supernovae
the way for new stars through
feedback such as shock waves,
gas and dust, and cosmic rays.
ASTRONOMY: ROEN KELLY, AFTER JIM KALER
Gas Gas Neutron
Gas and dust and dust stars

Main
T Tauri Red Giant star Planetary White
stars sequence giants evolution nebulae dwarfs
stars

Low mass

Present

envelope to expand and cool as the star

brightens to become a giant.
When the core hits 100 million kel-
vins, the helium nuclei that had been
made earlier fuse into carbon, which
requires that three helium atoms hit
each other simultaneously. The new
helium burning, plus the old hydrogen
fusion in the surrounding shell, once
again stabilize the star against collapse.
In the core, when the newly made car-
bon is hit with yet another helium
nucleus, it makes oxygen.
Now the process repeats itself. The
NGC 6543 (also called the Cat’s Eye Nebula; left) and NGC 6326 (right) are planetary nebulae that develop
star is stuck with a core made of carbon as Sun-like stars slough off their outer layers in the later stages of their lives. When light from the dying
and oxygen with no means of support, star at the center of the debris field hits this gas and dust, the material glows, creating ethereal shapes.
so it contracts and heats. Around it are Planetary nebulae ultimately fade over tens of thousands of years, as the central star becomes a white
dwarf and slowly starts to cool. NASA, ESA, AND THE HUBBLE HERITAGE TEAM (STSCI/AURA); ESA/HUBBLE AND NASA
shells of fusing helium and hydrogen,
which alternately turn on and off. In the
right mass range, fresh carbon can be with the light of thousands of Suns. As the second phase of brightening
swept to the surface by convection to Atoms heavier than the iron given to proceeds, winds blow ever stronger from
make a red carbon star. the star at birth begin to capture neu- the stellar surface. The Sun will lose half
Externally, the giant grows even big- trons that decay into protons, making yet its mass this way, bigger stars losing much
ger and brighter, perhaps becoming as heavier elements as the star begins to fill more, as they expose their hot inner cores.
big as the inner solar system, radiating in much of the chemist’s periodic table. No longer supported by nuclear burning,

WWW. ASTRONOMY.COM 21

ABOVE: The Cygnus Loop Nebula is all that remains
of a massive star that ended its life in a devastating
type II supernova explosion several thousand years
ago. Now, the material that once made up that star
will drift into space, ultimately providing the material
to form new stars. NASA/JPL-CALTECH
RIGHT: Betelgeuse, which marks Orion the Hunter’s
right shoulder, is a red supergiant star. In 1996, it
became the first star other than the Sun to be
directly imaged. This Hubble Space Telescope
image shows the star’s atmosphere; the large, bright
spot visible in the center is roughly twice as wide as
Earth’s orbit around the Sun and 2,000 kelvins
hotter than the surface of Betelgeuse. ANDREA DUPREE
(HARVARD-SMITHSONIAN CFA), RONALD GILLILAND (STSCI), NASA AND ESA
the cores are held up by free electrons
through a quantum process called degen-
eracy, which makes them incompressible.
For a few tens of thousands of years,
the exposed core remains hot enough to
light up the shells of matter that it had
previously ejected. The system becomes a
strikingly beautiful expanding planetary
nebula, while the inner core becomes a
white dwarf made of carbon and oxygen
with a density of a million grams per
cubic centimeter (the equivalent of com-
pressing 2,204 pounds [1,000 kilograms]
22 ASTRONOMY • JULY 2020
into a space the size of a sugar cube). The
star’s old outer envelope — rich in heavy
chemical elements as well as carbon,
nitrogen, and oxygen — flees into space,
leaving the still-glowing white dwarf
behind. The rate at which white dwarfs
cool is so slow that every white dwarf
ever made since the beginning of the
universe is still hot enough to be visible.
Go out with a bang
In a star of greater mass, hydrogen and
helium fusion proceed as before. But
RECIPE FOR A
TYPE IA SUPERNOVA
A type Ia supernova occurs when a white dwarf
gains mass, often from a binary companion. If the
white dwarf accretes enough material to push it
over the Chandrasekhar limit of 1.4 solar masses,
it will explode. Alternatively, two white dwarfs
circling each other can merge, also generating
such an explosion. G299, a 4,500-year-old
supernova remnant within the Milky Way (pictured,
far right), was created through one of these two
scenarios. ASTRONOMY: ROEN KELLY; NASA/CXC/U. TEXAS
ACCRETION SCENARIO
Companion star
Mass White
transfer dwarf
Companion star Supernova
with the extra mass, the chain can go
further. Carbon and oxygen fuse to a
mix that includes neon and magnesium,
which then goes on to fuse to silicon and
sulfur before reaching iron. Each time
the core initiates a new kind of fusion,
it is surrounded by shells running the
previous reactions. Fusion reactions that
create nuclei on the periodic table up
to iron generate energy. But above that
limit, creation of new and heavier ele-
ments requires energy. Iron is the most
tightfisted of all elements — it’s hard to
break apart into its constituent protons
and neutrons, which is why it is so com-
mon. Externally, the star grows enor-
mously, becoming a supergiant. Such
stars could enclose the orbit of Jupiter,
even nearly that of Saturn.
Around 1930, Subrahmanyan
Chandrasekhar discovered that when a
star’s core mass reaches about 1.4 solar
masses, Einstein’s theory of relativity tells
us that electron degeneracy can no longer
support the star’s core. The whole mess
MERGER SCENARIO
White White
dwarf dwarf
Supernova
comes crashing down, as everything
(including the iron in the core that took
so long for the star to make and much of
the material in the enclosing shells) turns
back into neutrons. We expect this to
happen when the star’s initial mass
exceeds about eight Suns.
The resulting neutron star has a diam-
eter of about 12.4 miles (20 km, or about
the size of Manhattan) and a density a
million times that of a white dwarf. Upon
its birth, the neutron star first overcom-
presses and then violently bounces back,
sending a monstrous shock wave through
what’s left of the star. This event blasts
the material outward in a mighty type II
supernova that sends the temperatures
into the billions of kelvins and can be
seen billions of light-years away.
Nuclear reactions run amok, but as
the ruined star expands, it also cools.
This freezes in a specific distribution of
elements, including one-tenth of a solar
mass of iron. Left behind might be a
spinning, highly magnetic pulsar that
appears to flash at every rotation. Or, if
the star’s initial mass is high enough, a
black hole will form with a gravitational
pull so great that nothing, not even light,
can escape.
Double stars have their own tales to
tell. A star in a binary system can pass
some — even much — of its mass to a
white dwarf companion. Alternatively,
two mutually orbiting white dwarfs can
merge. If the result in either case exceeds
the Chandrasekhar limit of 1.4 solar
masses, it will explode as a type Ia super-
nova — which is even brighter than the
type II version and yields even more iron
— as the stars annihilate themselves,
leaving nothing behind.
Because they all occur at the
Chandrasekhar limit, type Ia supernovae
all have about the same maximum bright-
ness. So, by measuring how bright they
appear, astronomers can easily determine
the distance to these objects. They are so
bright that astronomers can see them
across the universe, and subsequently use
them to measure the universe’s expansion
rate by comparing how far an object is
expected to be with its actual distance.
The last two supernovae seen in our gal-
axy were Kepler’s Star in 1604 and Tycho’s
Star in 1572. Both were type Ia. Before
that was the type II Chinese “guest star”
of 1054, whose violently expanding rem-
nant, the Crab Nebula (M1), can be
viewed with a small telescope. Hidden
inside this remnant is the pulsar left
behind by the massive progenitor.
But this is not the end of the story. The
expanding supernova remnant, rich with
heavy elements, including mass injected
by the now-dead star’s giant and supergi-
ant winds, finds its way back to the inter-
stellar clouds. Its detritus becomes the
material that will ultimately make new
stars, thus completing the cycle.
Jim Kaler is a professor emeritus of
astronomy at the University of Illinois at
Urbana-Champaign. His work on stellar
evolution has received worldwide recognition.
WWW. ASTRONOMY.COM 23
 Some huge, some small. Some
zip, some crawl. The cosmos
is full of objects that defy
expectations. BY JAKE PARKS
THE SUN IS a pretty boring star. Still burning through the
hydrogen in its core, our middle-aged Sun is comfortable at its
current, relatively petite size. And though it will stay this way
for about 5 billion years more, our star will eventually run low
on hydrogen and switch to fusing helium deep within. This will
inflate the Sun into a red giant over the span of just a couple of
hundred million years. After engulfing the innermost planets,
possibly including Earth, the Sun will continually shed its outer
layers, eventually leaving behind a smoldering white dwarf
surrounded by a beautiful planetary nebula of glowing gas.
That’s the picturesque life that most stars live. But just like
people, some stars have wildly different experiences. So, let’s
do a quick review of some of the universe’s most extreme stars.

The familiar: Sun

Name: Sun
Type: Main-sequence (G2V)
Distance: 93 million miles
(150 million kilometers)
Radius: 432,000 miles
(696,000 km; 109 Rʇ)
Mass: 1.99 x 1030 kilograms
(333,000 Mʇ)
NASA/GSFC/SDO

Luminosity: 3.83x1026 watts

Temperature: 5,780 kelvins

24 ASTRONOMY • JULY 2020


The biggest: UY Scuti
JUST LIKE IN the DC
Universe, sometimes the
clearest way for astronomers
to express something is truly
extraordinary is to add the
prefix super. It’s the case with
Superman, as well as with
supergiant stars — a fitting
category for the largest known
star in the universe, UY Scuti.
One day, the Sun will
become a red giant. But if
it had started its life with a
dozen or so times its current
mass, it could have eventually
evolved into a red supergiant.
(UY Scuti has already shed a
lot of mass.) The biggest of
these stars, sometimes called
hypergiants, can swell to
more than 1,000 times the
size of the Sun. But UY Scuti,
located near the center of the
Milky Way in the constella-
tion Scutum, is around 1,700
times the Sun’s width.
Although it’s difficult to pin down
the exact traits of any given star,
based on what we know, the largest
star is UY Scuti, which is some
1,700 times as wide as the Sun.
ASTRONOMY: ROEN KELLY, AFTER SCTESTER
Lor
e
m
Name: UY Scuti
Type: Red supergiant
(M2-M4Ia-Iab)
Distance: 9,500 light-years*
Radius: 1,700 Rʋ
Mass: 7–10 Mʋ
Luminosity: 340,000 Lʋ
Temperature: 3,400 K
In 1860, astronomers
at Bonn Observatory in
Germany first cataloged UY
Scuti as part of a star survey.
But later, researchers noticed
UY Scuti’s brightness
changes over a period of
about 740 days, leading them
to reclassify it as a variable
star. Some of these stars vary
in brightness for external rea-
sons, such as being eclipsed
by another star or clouds of
gas and dust from our van-
tage point. However, intrinsic
variables like UY Scuti expe-
rience physical changes
within, such as pulsations.
In the case of UY Scuti, it
varies in brightness because
it’s constantly yo-yoing in
terms of size — making exact
measurements of its girth a
challenge.
UY SCUTI | Red supergiant
Diameter: 1.47 billion miles
2.37 billion km
UY Scuti
Neptune
If the Sun were replaced by UY Scuti, the surface of the red supergiant would
fall between the orbits of Jupiter and Saturn. ASTRONOMY: ROEN KELLY
But like any red supergiant
— including Betelgeuse —
UY Scuti is destined to end
its life with a bang. After
exhausting the helium fuel in
its core, it will ferociously
forge increasingly heavy ele-
ments. And as long as UY
Scuti doesn’t expel too much
mass over the course of its
remaining life, it will eventu-
ally start producing iron.
Making iron is a death
sentence for stars. Unlike
when it combines lighter ele-
ments, when a star forces two
iron nuclei together, it doesn’t
release any energy; it instead
takes energy away from the
environment. This causes a
runaway collapse where the
Saturn
Uranus
star no longer generates
enough outward pressure
to keep it from imploding
under its own gravity.
The end result? A power-
ful core-collapse (type II)
supernova that will finally
— albeit briefly — make UY
Scuti visible to the naked eye
from Earth.
*DISCLAIMER: Astronomers often
calculate the physical properties
of stars by comparing available
data to best-fit models — meaning
estimates can vary wildly depending
on whom you ask. And this is
definitely true for UY Scuti. Based
on parallax data obtained by the
Gaia satellite and released in 2018,
some think UY Scuti might be only
about 5,100 light-years away, which
would make it much smaller and less
luminous. In that case, with a reliable
size of about 1,400 times as wide as
the Sun, VY Canis Majoris would be
a prime contender for biggest star.

SUN | Yellow dwarf

Diameter: 864,000 miles
1.39 million km
SYMBOL KEY
Rʇ = 1 Earth radius
Mʇ= 1 Earth mass
Rʋ = 1 solar radius
Mʋ= 1 solar mass
Lʋ= 1 solar luminosity
 The most massive: RMC 136a1
LOOKS CAN BE deceiving.
Name: RMC 136a1 Just because a star is a certain
Type: Wolf-Rayet size doesn’t mean it has a cer-
(WN5h) tain mass. That’s absolutely
Distance: 163,000 the case with the most massive
light-years known star in the universe —
Radius: 30 Rʋ RMC 136a1 — which packs a
Mass: 315 Mʋ lot of heft into a surprisingly
Luminosity:
slim frame. Although thought
8,700,000 Lʋ
to be more than 300 times the
Temperature:
mass of our Sun, RMC 136a1
53,000 K
is only about 30 times as wide
as our home star.
Located in the Milky Way’s
largest satellite galaxy, the
Large Magellanic Cloud,
RMC 136a1 is just one
of many blazing
stars that’s ionizing the gas
within NGC 2070. This huge
open star cluster lies in
the heart of the Tarantula
Nebula, which is the brightest
star-forming region in our
galactic neighborhood.
Thanks to Hubble Space
Telescope observations,
astronomers know RMC
136a1 is just one of more
than 200 bright, massive
stars in the immediate area,
all found within a cluster
called RMC 136. However,
RMC 136a1 is the bright-
est of these beacons. In
addition to holding the
title for the most massive
star, RMC 136a1 also takes
the crown for the most
luminous star.
Although the exact age of
this stellar heavyweight is
still uncertain, according to
a 2016 study, RMC 136a1
could be as young as a
few hundred thousand
to a million years old,
so it’s thought to still
be burning hydro-
gen in its core.
And because
RMC 136a1 is
a rare Wolf-Rayet star, it’s
incredibly hot, chock-full of
heavy elements, and sports
extremely powerful stellar
winds that are blowing off
its outer layers.
These stellar winds are so
powerful — reaching a veloc-
ity of around 5.8 million mph
FAST FACT
Although RMC 136a1 is expected
to lose nearly 85 percent of its
mass over the course of its life, it
will still be heavy enough to
collapse into a black hole
after going supernova.
(9.4 million km/h) — that by
the end of its life, the star is
expected to expel enough gas
to end up weighing just over
50 solar masses. However,
that’s still plenty big enough
to produce an astounding
supernova. After all, the pro-
genitor of Supernova 1987A,
also located in the Large
Magellanic Cloud, was
only about 20 solar masses.

Massive and luminous stars like RMC 136a1 sport extremely

powerful stellar winds, which are streams of charged
particles flowing from the star’s surface. They also emit
intense ultraviolet radiation that would be strong enough
to sterilize the surface of Earth. ASTRONOMY: ROEN KELLY

26 ASTRONOMY • JULY 2020

 The smallest: EBLM J0555-57Ab

JUPITER EBLM J0555-57AB

Gas giant Low-mass star

SATURN TRAPPIST-1
Gas giant Low-mass star

Astronomers found tiny star EBLM J0555-57Ab only when it passed in front of its larger
binary companion, which blocked some of the bigger star’s light. Detecting such a transit
is also the way researchers find many exoplanets. AMANDA SMITH, UNIVERSITY OF CAMBRIDGE Name: EBLM
J0555-57Ab
WHEN IT COMES mass of Jupiter and understood, brown Type: Unknown
to stars, size matters. a sliver wider than dwarfs are not-quite- Distance: 630
If a star is exceptionally Saturn, EBLM J0555- planets, not-quite-stars light-years
massive, it gobbles up 57Ab skirts the lower whose cores can only Radius: 0.084 Rʋ
its fuel, causing it to boundary of what it fuse a heavy form of Mass: 0.081 Mʋ
live fast and die hard. takes to be a star. hydrogen called deute- Luminosity:
However, if a star is “Our discovery rium, as well as possibly 0.0002 Lʋ
small and light, it has reveals how small stars lithium. “Understanding Temperature:
a slow metabolism, can be,” lead author the boundary that sepa- 2,300 K
allowing it to live an Alexander Boetticher rates stars from brown
extremely long life. But of the University of dwarfs will improve our
just how small can a star Cambridge said in a understanding of how — just a little more
be? Well, EBLM J0555- press release after find- both form and evolve,” massive than EBLM
57Ab is right at the limit. ing the diminutive star Serge Dieterich of the J0555-57Ab. And
At just 85 times the in 2017. “Had the star Carnegie Institution for because stars with less
formed with only a Science, an astronomer than 25 percent the
slightly lower mass, who studies the smallest Sun’s mass are the most
the fusion reaction stars, said in a statement. common type of stars
FAST FACT of hydrogen in its EBLM J0555-57Ab and excellent candidates
The most massive stars may core could not may be tiny, but there for hosting Earth-sized
only live for a few million years, be sustained, are other stars out there planets, learning more
but the smallest stars can slowly and the star that compare with its about the lives of the
burn through their hydrogen would instead puny mass. For instance, smallest stars may help
over the course of hundreds have trans- the star TRAPPIST-1, researchers uncover
of billions or even trillions formed into a which hosts at least potentially habitable,
of years. brown dwarf.” seven rocky planets, tips Earth-like planets
Although not well the scales at 0.089 Mʋ around them.

WWW. ASTRONOMY.COM 27
 The hottest: WR 102
FAST FACT
“
result of rapidly
Name: WR 102 The flame that burns Researchers expect converting
Type: Wolf–Rayet WR 102 to erupt as a Type Ic hydrogen to
(WO2) twice as bright burns supernova, meaning it will helium in

Distance: 9,500
light-years
Radius: 0.5 Rʋ
Mass: 17 Mʋ
Luminosity:
280,000–380,000 Lʋ
Temperature:
210,000 K
WR 102
WR 102 hides near the center
of the nebulosity captured
in this infrared image. The
star’s extreme radiation is
ionizing the surrounding gas,
causing it to glow. JUDY SCHMIDT
”
half as long. —
WHILE STARS MAY not
follow the exact ratio set by
this quote from the 6th-
century-b.c. Chinese work Tao
Te Ching, the gist holds true.
The faster a star burns through
its fuel, the shorter its life. And
this is surely the case for Wolf-
Rayet stars. These stars not
expel its outer layers of
Laozi hydrogen and helium
before exploding.
only burn incredibly
hot and bright, but
their stellar winds also
blast much of their potential
fuel into space. The hottest
known star, WR 102, is one
such Wolf-Rayet, sporting a
surface temperature more than
35 times hotter than the Sun.
Like Baskin-Robbins, Wolf-
Rayet stars come in a variety of
flavors. The most massive star,
RMC 136a1, has a spectral
type of WN, meaning
it’s rich in ionized
nitrogen as a
its fiery
core via the
C-N-O cycle.
However, the
hottest star, WR 102,
is an especially rare
WO-type Wolf-Rayet, which
is a late-stage star that has a
surface heavily enriched with
ionized oxygen. All said,
astronomers only know of
about 10 WO-type Wolf-Rayet
stars in the entire universe.
Even for a Wolf-Rayet star,
WR 102 has intense stellar
winds. Currently, they are
blowing about a Sun’s worth of
mass from the star’s surface
every 100,000 years. That
means WR 102 is losing sev-
eral hundred million times
more mass each year than the
Sun. Although that may not
seem like much for a massive
star, keep in mind that at this
rate, WR 102 would be com-
pletely gone in less than 2 mil-
lion years. But who can wait
that long?
Astronomers are interested
in WR 102 not just because of
its exceptionally hellish sur-
face temperature and rapid
mass loss, but also because
the star is a prime candi-
date to go supernova in the
relatively near future. In a
2015 paper that explored
how much time a variety
of WO-type Wolf-Rayets
have left before exploding
as supernovae, WR 102
was found to have the
worst prognosis.
According to the
authors: “WR 102 is
a post-core helium burn-
ing star and has a remain-
ing lifetime of less than
2,000 years.”

28 ASTRONOMY • JULY 2020

 The fastest: S5-HVS1
THE SUN ZIPS through
space at a brisk 490,000 mph
(790,000 km/h) relative to the
Milky Way. That’s fast, but it’s
nothing to crow about. Instead,
the bragging rights for the fastest
known star (that’s not a white
dwarf) belong to a speed demon
known as S5-HVS1. This
middle-aged, hypervelocity star
is fleeing our galaxy at more
than 3.9 million mph (6.3 million
km/h). For reference, that’s about
0.6 percent the speed of light.
Astronomers first found the
star streaking through the south-
ern constellation Grus in 2019.
After tracing its orbit back in
time, they quickly realized it is
coming from the center of the
Milky Way, near our roughly
4-million-solar-mass supermas-
sive black hole, Sagittarius A*.
“This is super exciting, as we
have long suspected that black
holes can eject stars with very
high velocities. However, we
never had an unambiguous asso-
ciation of such a fast star with
the galactic center,” Sergey
Koposov of Carnegie Mellon
University, lead author of the
study, said in a press release. “We
think the black hole ejected the
star with a speed of thousands
of kilometers per second about
5 million years ago. This ejection
happened at the time when
humanity’s ancestors were just
learning to walk on two feet.”
Though single now, research-
ers suspect S5-HVS1 wasn’t
always alone. The evidence sug-
gests the star was ejected thanks
Name: S5-HVS1
Type: Main-sequence (A)
Distance: 29,000 light-years
Radius: 2.5 Rʋ
Mass: 2.35 Mʋ
Luminosity: 10 Lʋ
Temperature: 10,000 K
FAST FACT
Astronomers have seen stars
travel faster than S5-HSV1, but not
consistently. In 2018, the star S2, which
passes very near Sagittarius A* every
16 years, reached a top speed of some
17 million mph (27 million km/h) during
its closest approach to the black
hole — that’s almost 3 percent
the speed of light.
to a process
called the Hills
mechanism,
which was out-
lined some three
decades ago by
astronomer Jack
Hills. The idea is
that S5-HVS1 was
once part of a binary
system that tangoed
with Sagittarius A*.
When the stellar pair
ventured too close, the
black hole captured the
companion star, releasing
S5-HSV1 from its binary dance
and flinging it through space.
“My favorite part of this dis-
covery is thinking about where
this star came from and where
it’s going,” co-author Alex Ji said.
“It was born in one of the craziest
places in the universe, near a
supermassive black hole with lots
of other nearby star friends; but Astronomers think S5-HVS1
it’s going to leave our galaxy and achieved such a breakneck
die all alone, out in the middle of speed following its ejection
from a binary system that
nowhere. Quite a fall from grace.” passed too close to the Milky
That may not be an ideal life Way’s central black hole, as
seen in this artist’s concept.
for a star, but at least it didn’t JAMES JOSEPHIDES (SWINBURNE ASTRONOMY
suffer the fate of its companion. PRODUCTIONS)
Jake Parks is associate editor of Astronomy.
WWW. ASTRONOMY.COM 29
 Gliese 380
Distance: 15.9 light-years

Gliese 687
Distance: 14.8 light-years

Gliese 725
A and B
Distance:
11.5 light-years

Gliese 1245
A, B, and C
Distance:
14.8 light-years

Astronomers are learning a lot from the 61 Cygni

A and B
90°
stars in our part of the Milky Way. Distance:
11.4 light-years

BY BRUCE DORMINEY Kruger 60

A and B
Distance:
13.1 light-years

hat do we really know

about our Sun’s nearest
stellar neighbors?
We get so consumed with what’s
beyond our galaxy that we forget that
our own stellar neighborhood is pretty
fascinating. Sure, we’re surrounded by
mostly faint red dwarf stars, but they
are our nearest stellar neighbors and
we interact with them on timescales
of tens of thousands of years.
With the exceptions of Sirius, the
brightest star in the night sky, and
Alpha Centauri, none of these stars
Plane of
the Milk Ross 248
y Way
Runaway star Distance:
10.3 light-
180°
At just 6 light-years away, Barnard’s years
Star has the fastest proper motion GX Andromedae and
(motion across our line of sight) of any GQ Andromedae
Distance: 11.7 light-years
known star and is steadily making its
way north through eastern Ophiuchus.
Its discovery serendipitously stemmed
from a number of galactic surveys
started by American astronomer
Edward Emerson Barnard in the early
1890s, when he began using Yerkes Teegarden’s Star
Observatory’s 40-inch refractor. Distance: 12.6 light-years

shows up easily to the naked eye. But
they have influenced our solar system’s
evolution in the past and will continue
to do so in the future.
We often hear about our neighbors
in the Alpha Centauri system, which
includes Proxima Centauri, the closest
known star to Earth at only 4.2 light-
years away. But let’s take a look at some
other fascinating stars, all of which lie
within 15 light-years of Earth.
In 1916, while examining a pho-
tograph of a region in Ophiuchus,
Barnard noticed what he thought TZ Arietis
was an undiscovered star. By compar- Distance: 14.5 light-years
ing an August 1894 plate of the same Van Maanen’s Star
Distance: 14.0 light-years
region, he found the magnitude 9.5
star — but some 4' from its 1916 posi-
tion. Examination of a 1904 plate of the
same part of the sky showed that this
new star was traveling at a rapid pace.
It was later christened Barnard’s Star.

30 ASTRONOMY • JULY 2020

 Wolf 424 A and B
Gliese 412 A and B Distance: 14.3 light-years KEY
Distance: 15.9 light-years
A-class dwarf
Gliese 388 F-class dwarf
Distance:
15.9 light-years
G-class dwarf

K-class dwarf

M-class red dwarf

Ross 128
Distance: 10.9 light-years LHS 292 T-class brown dwarf
Distance: 14.8 light-years
Lalande 21185 White dwarf
Distance: Wolf 1061
8.3 light-years Distance: 13.9 light-years
Wolf 359
Distance:
7.8 light-years
DX Cancri
Distance:
11.8 light-years

DENIS 1048–3956
Barnard’s Star 0° Distance: 13.1 light-years
Distance:
6.0 light-years
Ross 154
Distance: 9.7 Alpha Centauri A
Procyon A and B light-years Distance: 4.4 light-years
Distance:
11.4 light-years Alpha Centauri B
Distance: 4.4 light-years
Sun
Proxima Centauri
Distance: 4.2 light-years Gliese 674 Gliese 440
Distance: Distance:
14.8 light-years 15.1 light-years

Sirius
Luyten’s Star A and B 270°
Distance: Distance: 8.6 light-years
12.3 light-years
LHS 288
Distance:
15.6 light-years

SCR 1845–6357 A and B

Distance: 12.6 light-years

Ross 614 A and B

Distance:
13.3 light-years
EZ Aquarii BL Ceti and AX Microscopii Epsilon Indi A,
A, B, and C UV Ceti Distance: B, and C
Distance: Distance: 12.9 light-years Distance: 11.8 light-years
11.3 8.7 light-years
light-years
Lacaille 9352 Kapteyn’s Star
Distance: Distance:
10.7 light-years 12.8 light-years

Ross 780 Epsilon Eridani Gliese 832 This diagram shows the stars
Distance: Distance: 10.5 light-years Distance: out to 16.2 light-years from
15.2 16.1 light-years
the Sun. Two-thirds are
light-years Gliese 1061 M-class dwarf stars. The
YZ Ceti Distance:
Tau Ceti 12.0 numbers are the distances in
Distance: Distance: 11.9 light-years light-years, as measured by
12.1 light-years light-years
the European Space Agency’s
Hipparcos satellite. The sizes
Gliese 1002 Gliese 1 shown are scaled relative
Distance: Distance:
14.2 light-years to each other, not to the
15.3 light-years
Omicron 2 distances between them.
Eridani A, B, and C All stellar data are from the
Distance: 16.2 light-years DENIS 0255–4700
LP 944-20 Distance: 16.2 light-years Research Consortium on
Distance: 16.2 light-years Nearby Stars. ASTRONOMY: RICHARD
TALCOTT AND ROEN KELLY

WWW. ASTRONOMY.COM 31

Barnard’s Star in Ophiuchus lies 6 light-years away, making it the nearest single star to us; it also has
the largest proper motion of any known star. An exoplanet more than three times as massive as Earth
orbits Barnard’s Star. This artist’s impression shows the planet’s surface. ESO/M. KORNMESSER
At some 10 billion years old, roughly
twice the age of our Sun, Barnard’s Star
is among the oldest within Earth’s vicin-
ity. This red dwarf is the closest known
single star to our Sun and appears rela-
tively inactive.
Aside from its high proper motion,
Barnard’s Star is best known as the star
that became an obsession for Dutch-
born American astronomer Peter van de
Kamp. By the early 1960s, van de Kamp
was absolutely certain that the star har-
bored at least one or two planets.
Van de Kamp arrived in 1937
at Swarthmore College’s Sproul
Observatory, where he began surveying
nearby stars with the 24-inch refrac-
tor. Over the following decades, he took
thousands of plates of Barnard’s Star (as
I note in my book Distant Wanderers:
The Search for Planets Beyond the Solar
System [Copernicus, 2002]). By 1963, van
de Kamp had accumulated enough data
to announce that it had a perturbation
in its proper motion, which he claimed
indicated a planet 1.6 times the mass of
Jupiter with an orbital period of 25 years.
Van de Kamp’s claims were largely
discounted after it became known that
the telescope had a history of structural
problems that contributed to the star’s
perceived perturbations. His images
were also generally underexposed, which
enhanced small displacements of one star
in comparison to another.
All refractors have similar issues: tube
and lens flexure, thermal lens aberra-
tion changes, atmospheric seeing, and
32 ASTRONOMY • JULY 2020
refraction variations, as well as color
effects, says Philip Ianna, an astrono-
mer at the Research Consortium on
Nearby Stars Institute in Chambersburg,
Pennsylvania.
“The Sproul people deserve credit for
working diligently to sort out and under-
stand their flaws,” says Ianna. “Other
long-focus refractors are not known to
have ‘flaws’ because no one has studied
them adequately.”
In 2018, Barnard’s Star finally got a
bona fide planetary detection. But its
3.2-Earth-mass planet lies close to the
system’s so-called “snow line,” where
water condenses into ice. Thus, even
though the planet is close to its parent
star, 0.4 astronomical unit away (1 AU
equals the average Earth-Sun distance),
it may still be inhospitable.
According to Eric Mamajek, an
astronomer at the University of
Rochester in New York, future study of
Barnard’s Star will likely tell astronomers
how planet formation turns out for a star
about one-sixth the mass of the Sun, but
that has only about a third, or less, of its
metal content.
Winter’s gem
Sirius (Alpha [α] Canis Majoris) cap-
tured the attention of early skygazers.
Its heliacal rising (its first visibility in
the east before sunrise) each year made
it important to the Egyptians, who wor-
shipped it as the goddess Sopdet and
saw its appearance as heralding the Nile
River’s beneficial annual flooding.
The term “dog days of summer”
comes from the ancient Greeks, who
believed Sirius’ annual appearance
brought the worst of the summer’s hot
and dry period. They feared this bright
star would literally cause people to go
mad, and called anyone thought to be
affected by Sirius’ brightness “star-
struck.” That’s hardly the current use of
the term, but it does explain its origins.
Thus, the days coinciding with Sirius’
annual reappearance from July 3 through
August 11 were dubbed “dog days.”
Sirius itself is a young A-spectral type
star thought to be only 250 million years
old. Although it shows no signs of plan-
ets, it doesn’t travel through space alone.
In 1844, German astronomer Friedrich
Bessel deduced from changes in Sirius’
proper motion that it has an unseen com-
panion. In 1862, American telescope
maker Alvan Graham Clark was testing a
lens in Cambridgeport, Massachusetts,
when he first observed Sirius B.
Then, in 1915, the 60-inch reflector at
Mount Wilson observatory in California
characterized Sirius B as a whitish star in
roughly a six-year orbit around Sirius A.
With this new data in hand, astronomers
then concluded that Sirius B was a white
dwarf, a stellar remnant left behind by a
low-mass star.
Sirius B used to be bigger and more
luminous than Sirius A, probably about
five times the mass of the Sun and nearly
a thousand times as luminous during the
time it was a main sequence star, says
Mamajek. But he says the star exhausted
its fuel, became a red giant, and blew off
Sirius (Alpha [α] Canis Majoris) is the brightest
star in the night sky. This image shows Sirius B,
its white dwarf companion, to the lower left.
NASA, ESA, H. BOND (STSCI), AND M. BARSTOW (UNIVERSITY OF LEICESTER)
 e
c d
r
C ETUS
Tau (o) Ceti
5°
ABOVE: Tau (τ) Ceti lies 12 light-years
from the Sun. At magnitude 3.5, it’s one of
the few nearby stars visible to the naked
eye. Two of its four planets may lie within
the star’s habitable zone, a region where
liquid water could exist if the planet has a
high enough atmospheric pressure.
ASTRONOMY: RICHARD TALCOTT AND ROEN KELLY
its outer layers about 120 million years
ago, leaving behind a dimming, cooling
white dwarf.
So, the total mass of the system in the
two stars was probably more like seven
times that of the Sun, says Mamajek.
But now, only about 3 solar masses
remain in the system: 2 solar masses in
Sirius A and one in Sirius B.
Researchers don’t think the Sirius
system harbors planets. That’s in part
because the separation between the stars
changed when Sirius B expelled most of
its mass, which may have caused plan-
etary orbits to destabilize — and perhaps
even cross.
This means that any putative planets
would have been in a constantly chang-
ing dynamical environment, says Adam
Kraus, an astronomer at the University
of Texas at Austin. He says the odds are
high that, at some point, any planet
would have been either kicked out of the
system or kicked into one of the stars.
“It would have been astounding to
witness the changes that have taken place
in the Sirius binary system over its astro-
physically short life span,” says Mamajek.
Anyone home?
Tau (τ) Ceti, a Sun-like spectral type G
star only 12 light-years away in Cetus, is
the closest known solitary G-type star to
the Sun. It’s best known as the first star
to be searched for signs of intelligent life.
That’s because in April 1960, American
astronomer Frank Drake attempted
RIGHT: At magnitude 5.2,
61 Cygni is one of the few
nearby stars visible to the
unaided eye. It was the first
star to have its parallax 5°
measured. ASTRONOMY: RICHARD
TALCOTT AND ROEN KELLY
to detect interstellar transmissions
from the vicinity of the star using the
26-meter telescope at the National Radio
Astronomy Observatory’s Green Bank
facilities in West Virginia. Of course, he
came up empty, but it marked an impor-
tant milestone in the advancement of the
search for extraterrestrial intelligence.
Tau Ceti potentially harbors four
super-Earth-mass planets, two of which
could be habitable. If the planets are con-
firmed, it would be the nearest solar-type
star to host super-Earth habitable-zone
planets, says Edward Guinan, an astron-
omer at Villanova University.
Slightly cooler and less luminous,
but with a longer lifetime than our Sun,
Tau Ceti has radiation and evolutionary
characteristics that make it and other
cooler G and K dwarf stars near-perfect
hosts for habitable planets, says Guinan.
For these reasons, we refer to them as
Goldilocks stars, he says. These less
luminous stars have main sequence,
hydrogen-burning lifetimes that are typi-
cally two to three times longer than our
Sun, and Guinan says planets orbiting
them would, in theory, have stable long-
term climates.
No answer
As I also note in my book, “the late Kaj
Strand, the first astronomer to claim the
‘detection’ of an extrasolar planet, did
so when the rest of the world was more
concerned about events here on Earth.”
I write that Strand based his 1943 claim
_
Deneb
j
NGC 7000
i IC 1318
a
CYGN U S
m
61 Cygni
o
h
p
¡
Veil
Nebula
on his observations of 61 Cygni, a binary
star system 11.4 light-years away in
Cygnus. Unfortunately, Strand was using
the Sproul Observatory refractor when
he claimed that 61 Cygni had an unseen
companion 16 times the mass of Jupiter.
His claims were never substantiated. In
fact, 61 Cygni is a binary system which
consists of two K dwarf stars.
However, 61 Cygni remains histori-
cally important because it was the first
star other than our Sun to have its paral-
lax (shift in position due to Earth’s orbit)
measured. This accurate measurement
for a star was a critical discovery, says
Mamajek. It was the first time the actual
distance to another star was measured;
as a result, he says, the floodgates opened
on measuring distances to other stars.
Engage!
As the fifth-nearest star system and an
active red dwarf, Wolf 359 has earned a
special place in the hearts of Star Trek
fans. It’s where the United Federation of
Planets suffered a devastating defeat at
the hands of the Borg Collective in the
year 2367, in the TV series Star Trek: The
Next Generation.
“I have to admit that I started observ-
ing Wolf 359 over 20 years ago in part
because of its Star Trek fame,” says
Guinan. Thought to be less than a billion
years old, it’s an M dwarf that lies only
8 light-years away in Leo. Unfortunately,
Guinan reports that there have been no
planets observed circling Wolf 359.
WWW. ASTRONOMY.COM 33
 This M dwarf, located some 12 light-
d years away in Aries, was found in 2003
e
after now-retired NASA Goddard Space
Denebola
`
Flight Center astrophysicist Bonnard
_
Teegarden began looking for high-
i
proper-motion stars using Near-Earth
L EO Regulus
f Asteroid Tracking data.
l “Initially, astronomers thought the
Wolf 359 star was among the nearest, but more
r accurate parallax measurements show
m that it is at a distance of 12 light-years,
5° making it the 27th-closest star,”
Teegarden says.
Wolf 359 is a red dwarf in the constellation Leo the Lion. It lies 7.9 light-years from Earth and glows
faintly at magnitude 13.5. Its luminosity is only 1/50,000 that of the Sun. ASTRONOMY: RICHARD TALCOTT AND ROEN KELLY
The nearest now
The four closest systems are currently
Heading our way silicon needed to form planets are defi- believed to be Alpha Centauri (A, B, and
The red dwarf star Ross 128, which cient in the Kapteyn system. Proxima), Barnard’s Star, WISE 1049–
American astronomer Frank Elmore “It’s good to see that super-Earth 5319, and WISE 0855–0714.
Ross placed in a catalog of high-proper- planets can form in such low-metal envi- WISE 1049–5319 is a young binary
motion stars, is the 12th-closest stellar ronments,” says Guinan. He says this system consisting of two brown dwarfs,
system to Earth. It lies only 11 light- gives hope that the hundreds of millions discovered in 2015 and located some
years away in the constellation Virgo of metal-poor stars located in the oldest 6.5 light-years away in Vela. WISE 0855–
the Maiden and is now known to have and most metal-poor parts of our Milky 0714 lies at a distance of just over 7 light-
an Earth-sized exoplanet that orbits this Way Galaxy could also host planets. years in Hydra. The two have bumped
faint star roughly every 10 days. “When I think about the planet can- Wolf 359 from the Sun’s third-nearest
Although that’s incredibly close to its didate Kapteyn b, I wonder about the stellar neighbor.
parent star, the planet receives only 1.38 possibility of life some 6 billion to Guinan wonders whether WISE
times more radiation than Earth. As a 7 billion years older and possibly more 0855–0714 could even be a rogue planet.
result, its temperature is estimated to advanced than us,” says Guinan. “WISE 0855–0714 is very faint and cool,
range up to as high as 68 degrees “Future study of the Kapteyn system,” and is more like a large Jupiter planet
Fahrenheit (20 degrees Celsius). But it’s says Mamajek, “will help astronomers than a star,” says Guinan. “If it is a super-
still uncertain whether the planet, desig- learn how planetary systems around low- Jupiter, it may have been ejected from its
nated Ross 128 b, lies inside this system’s mass stars evolve when the parent star birthplace star system and is more like a
habitable zone, much less whether its only starts out with a metal content that rogue planet. If any of these rogue plan-
surface harbors liquid water. is a tenth that of our Sun.” ets got too close to our solar system, it
Ross 128 is moving in our direction. would be disastrous for us.”
In less than 80,000 years, it’s expected to Successful search One passage of a body like WISE
replace Proxima Centauri as our nearest Finally, there’s Teegarden’s Star, which is 0855–0714, even at a distance of 50 AU,
stellar neighbor. the only star named after a living person. could disrupt the solar system, he says.

Not so heavy
Lying some 13 light-years away in the far- `
C OLUM BA CA ELUM
southern constellation Pictor, Kapteyn’s
Star likely takes the cake as one of the
Kapteyn’s Star,
most metal-poor stars out there. (Metals, which glows at
to astronomers at least, are any elements magnitude 8.9,
d lies in the
heavier than helium.) Yet it is thought southern
_
to be orbited by two super-Earth-mass _ constellation
Pictor the Painter,
planets. Given that Kapteyn’s Star likely Kapteyn’s Star 12.8 light-years
originated in the halo of our galaxy, this b away. In 2014,
would make its planets some of the old- PICTOR astronomers
discovered two
est ever detected in the habitable zone of planets orbiting it.
another star. ASTRONOMY: RICHARD
TALCOTT AND ROEN KELLY
Thought to be some 11.5 billion years
` c
old, Kapteyn’s Star has only 13 percent as h
much metal as the Sun, says Guinan. e 5°
This would imply that the iron and D OR A D O

34 ASTRONOMY • JULY 2020

Stellar census
Just how many nearby M dwarfs and
smaller stars might be nearby? Alpha Centauri AB
There may be some stars within a few
parsecs (1 parsec equals about 3.26 light-
years) of the Sun that still haven’t been
recognized, but most of the discovery
space likely lies in very low-mass L, T,
and Y dwarfs, says J. Davy Kirkpatrick,
an astronomer at Caltech. These include
stars that range down to masses of small,
stellar-type objects known as brown
dwarfs. Finding those — particularly
the cold Y dwarfs, says Kirkpatrick —
will require going to far-infrared wave-
lengths, where they emit most of their
radiation.
“It is likely that the nearest dozens of
stars, especially Sun-like ones, will be the
best targets for directly imaging light
from planets similar to Earth,” says Proxima Centauri
Mamajek. However, he says, recent
observations seem to suggest that small
stars have lots and lots of small planets.
But Kraus says astronomers are start-
Proxima Centauri (Alpha [α] Centauri C) is the nearest star to us, not counting the Sun. It glows dimly at
ing to find that planets are substantially magnitude 11.1 and lies 4.2 light-years away. DIGITIZED SKY SURVEY 2/DAVIDE DE MARTIN/MAHDI ZAMANI
less common in binary systems, espe-
cially those on the scale of the solar
system. He says planets do form and the impact of stellar activity on the exo- In about 40,000 years, Voyager 1 will
survive, though, even in very dynami- planets that orbit them. pass the nearest star, Proxima Centauri.
cally active environments. We need to know what a given star’s Voyager 2 and Pioneer 10 will pass Ross
Space missions like NASA’s Transiting ultraviolet and X-ray output actually is, 248, some 10 light-years away in the con-
Exoplanet Survey Satellite (or TESS) are says Winters, while noting that it would stellation Andromeda. In some 928,000
surveying the brightest M dwarfs for also “be awesome if we could send years, Pioneer 11 will pass within a light-
transiting planets, says Jennifer Winters, robotic probes out to individual stars year of the red dwarf star TYC 992-192-1.
an astronomer at the Harvard- for in-depth studies.”
Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics. While four NASA probes launched in A comforting thought
But, she adds, even if all M dwarfs have the 1970s continue to make their way Perhaps the recent film Ad Astra, set in
planets, only a fraction of them will have into the interstellar depths, the space our near future, sums this up best. The
the optimal alignment to our line of sight agency appears to have largely aban- main character marvels at the fact that
that would enable them to be observed. doned the idea of such a mission. Of his father was the first person to reach
Thus, only an estimated one of 30 M course, NASA’s New Horizons Pluto the outer solar system; that’s no small
dwarfs with a radius about a tenth to a flyby performed stunningly well. And feat, given that Uranus and Neptune are
third that of our Sun will be detectable. given its current velocity, it will eventu- 19 and 30 AU away, respectively.
“We not only want to detect the plan- ally reach interstellar space — perhaps As the film reminds us, beyond the
ets; we want to characterize them by with enough fuel to continue providing hazards of cosmic radiation and our own
studying their atmospheres to see if they telemetry data to its ground-based psychological frailties, the biggest chal-
could harbor life,” says Winters. controllers. lenge in space is the void. Nevertheless,
It’s critical to understand how a given The four spacecraft will eventually it’s comforting to contemplate our local
star’s flares impact exoplanet atmo- pass by several of our stellar neighbors neighborhood. Despite the peril and
spheres at different wavelengths, says within the next few million years. seeming impossibility of actually getting
Knicole Colon, an astronomer at NASA’s Although they will all have long ceased there, it’s heartening that we are some-
Goddard Space Flight Center in operation by then, astronomer Coryn how connected to these nearby stars.
Maryland. NASA’s upcoming James Bailer-Jones at the Max Planck Institute
Webb Space Telescope has the potential in Heidelberg, Germany, has used data Bruce Dorminey is a science journalist
to precisely characterize infrared activity from the European Space Agency’s Gaia and author of Distant Wanderers: The
on the closest stars, she says, and there- spacecraft to calculate which stars they Search for Planets Beyond the Solar
fore contribute to our understanding of are most likely to pass. System (Copernicus, 2002).

WWW. ASTRONOMY.COM 35
SKY THIS MONTH
THE SOLAR SYSTEM’S CHANGING LANDSCAPE AS IT APPEARS IN EARTH’S SKY.
BY MARTIN RATCLIFFE AND ALISTER LING
JULY 2020
Feast
on a full
planetary
lineup
All seven major
planets are on dis-
play these short summer nights.
Take in Saturn’s rings, Jupiter’s
dynamic atmosphere, and the
red deserts of Mars late at night.
Stay up for dramatic views of
Venus and its phases near a
waning crescent Moon and two
bright star clusters in Taurus.
Binocular views of Uranus and
Neptune, plus Mercury’s late
July predawn show, provide a
full course of planetary delights.
On July 1, a gibbous Moon
is already in the southeastern
sky as night falls. As the sky
darkens between 9:30 and
10 P.M. local time, you’ll spot
Antares, the brightest star in
Scorpius, about 10° southeast
of the Moon. At first, no planets
seem visible, but both Jupiter
and Saturn rise in the southeast
within an hour of sunset.
Jupiter stands 15° high on
July 1 by 11 P.M. local time,
shining at a brilliant magnitude
–2.7. It reaches opposition on
July 14, remaining visible all
night at a slightly brighter mag-
nitude –2.8. It’s in the eastern
36 ASTRONOMY • JULY 2020
Visible to the naked eye
Visible with binoculars
Visible with a telescope
Jupiter (center) and Saturn (lower
left) shine against the backdrop of
our galaxy’s dusty disk last year. This
part of Sagittarius, away from As the solar system’s largest month, the two giant planets appear
the brightest regions of the planet reaches its closest point even closer together in the sky as
Milky Way and roughly mid- to Earth this month, Jupiter is they reach opposition within a week
of each other. TIMOTHY CORBIN/FLICKR
way between 2nd-magnitude well placed for telescope obser-
Nunki (Sigma [σ] Sagittarii) vations. It reaches its peak ele-
and 3rd-magnitude Dabih (Beta vation near 30° (for those near Jupiter’s disk is 48" across,
[β] Capricorni). Jupiter moves 40 degrees north latitude) in the offering a wealth of atmospheric
4° westward relative to the stars south around local midnight detail. Look occasionally for the
in Sagittarius during July. (1 A.M. local daylight saving time). Great Red Spot. This swirling
storm has shrunk over the past
Giant planets shine all night decade, and observers are keen
to track its progress this year.
The twin dark equatorial belts
AQUA R IUS
generate a lot of activity along
their borders, while the temper-
ate zones carry subtler features.
Jupiter Viewing through an eyepiece
Saturn
for many minutes allows the eye
Nunki
CAPRIC ORNUS to adjust to Jupiter’s brilliance
S AG IT TARI US Kaus Australis and capture fleeting moments
of good seeing.
The Galilean satellites —
Io, Europa, Ganymede, and
Callisto — now shine at their
brightest. The angle between a
10° satellite and its corresponding
shadow decreases through
July 14, midnight opposition and switches after-
Looking south-southeast ward, when the leading shadow
during a transit prior to opposi-
Jupiter reaches opposition July 14, shining at magnitude –2.8. On July 20,
Saturn follows, reaching magnitude 0.1. By midmonth, the two giants are tion becomes a trailing shadow.
visible all night. ALL ILLUSTRATIONS: ASTRONOMY: ROEN KELLY Eclipses and occultations of

OBSERVING
HIGHLIGHT
VENUS reaches greatest
brilliancy at magnitude –4.7 on
July 10. Two days later, it passes
1° north of Aldebaran.
these moons occur frequently,
so check Jupiter regularly each
evening. At opposition, eclipses
as the moons pass into Jupiter’s
shadow occur at the same time
as occultations.
Saturn lies 6° east of Jupiter
on July 1 and nearly 8° east by
July 14, thanks to Jupiter’s
brisker retrograde motion west
compared with the more dis-
tant Saturn. The ringed planet
reaches opposition on July 20
at magnitude 0.1.
It’s challenging to figure out
what to observe with both giant
planets beside each other. One
option is to focus on Jupiter
first, making note of its clouds,
then swing to Saturn to check
out its moons and atmosphere.
Some minutes later, swing back
to Jupiter and you’ll notice the
cloud patterns have changed.
(Yes, they move that quickly.)
The moons’ relative configura-
tion may have also changed.
Saturn’s disk spans 19" and
the rings’ major axis stretches
nearly 42". The planet’s polar
axis tilts 21° toward us, reveal-
ing the northern side of the
ring system and offering views
of the three major rings: the
outer main A ring, the brighter
central B ring, and the dusky
inner C ring. The A and B
rings are separated by the
2,980-mile-wide Cassini divi-
sion, visible in a small scope.
At opposition on July 20,
look for relative brightening
— Continued on page 42
RISING MOON I Punched, flooded, sprayed, and strafed
MUCH OF THE MOON’S history is encapsu-
Schickard
lated in one feature: the crater Schickard, way
down in the lunar southwest. Protective mea-
sures are necessary to carry out this observa-
tion. Screw in a dark filter, mask off part of your
scope’s aperture, or pump up the magnification N
to reduce the glare of an almost-full lunar disk.
Start on the evening of the 2nd, when the E
rays of sunlight strike the flooded crater at a
glancing angle, highlighting the differences in
height among the smaller features. This is an old
crater, its rounded rim pounded down across
the ages. The splatter of smaller craters Schickard
across the smooth floor sport the classic
sharp edges of relative youth. The west-
ern wall, steep at the instant of forma- This month, watch as the crater
tion, slumped abruptly down into Schickard sprouts a stripe of lighter
terraces that remain visible to this day. color across its broad floor. MOON:
CONSOLIDATED LUNAR ATLAS/UA/LPL. INSET: NASA/GSFC/ASU
Disappearing shadows under a climbing
Sun in the next two evenings almost erase
these features. west sprayed the whole region with lighter-hued
During the following nights, Schickard trans- material. A final surge of lava managed to cover
forms into a two-faced, striped crater, with an the northern and southern portions but did not
unusual swath of lighter gray painted across the rise enough to erase this lighter stripe.
middle of this timeworn feature. The 140-mile- When the Sun returns on August 1, the
wide depression was carved out some 4 billion rough lunar landscape casts plenty of shadows
years ago as bombardment was ending. Lava to camouflage the different shades of material.
soon welled up and covered its central peaks. However, in a couple of days the stripe will
Then the giant Orientale impact event to the return to prominence once more.
METEOR WATCH I Summer meteors shine
Southern Delta Aquariid meteors JULY IS A GOOD MONTH
for meteor observing, with
Enif warm weather and increas-
PISCES
ing hours of darkness as the
month progresses. Some
DELPHINUS minor showers are active,
CETUS
all contributing to an overall
AQUARI US
increase in summertime
meteor rates. A Full Moon
Radiant occurs on July 5, so the
best viewing is later in the
Fomalhaut month, when the Southern
CAPRIC ORNUS
Delta Aquariids are active
Saturn (July 12 to August 23).
New Moon occurs on
July 20 and the predawn
Jupiter
GRU S
hours are the best time to
10° look for shower members,
although sporadic meteors
SOUTHERN DELTA July 29, 4 A.M. can occur any time of night.
Looking south-southwest
AQUARIID METEORS In late July, the Perseids
Active dates: July 12–August 23 begin, quietly at first, but
Although the Moon will brighten the sky in late the waxing Moon interferes
Peak: July 29 July, our satellite sets with several hours of
Moon at peak: Waxing gibbous darkness to spare for catching the Southern most of the night in the
Maximum rate at peak: Delta Aquariids’ peak. latter days of the month.
20 meteors/hour
WWW. ASTRONOMY.COM 37
 N

STAR DOME
NG
C8
84
NG
HOW TO USE THIS MAP
C8 CAMEL
69 O PA R D
ALIS
This map portrays the sky as seen

N
E
near 35° north latitude. Located
inside the border are the cardinal M8
1
directions and their intermediate SS
CA M82
points. To find stars, hold the map IO

M
PE
overhead and orient it so one of

31
IA Polaris

AN
the labels matches the direction NCP

DR
you’re facing. The stars above MINOR

OM
the map’s horizon now match
CE
PH URSA

ED
what’s in the sky. EU
A S

The all-sky map shows

how the sky looks at: ar

LA
midnight July 1
PE

CE
11 P.M. July 15
G

DR AC O

R
AS

10 P.M. July 31

TA

D e
US

ne
Planets are shown

b
at midmonth

CY

Ve
G

ga
NU
MAP SYMBOLS

M13

BOREALIS
S

C O RO NA
H
ER

LY R A
Open cluster
E

C
M27

M5 7
U
M15

LE
Enif

Globular cluster
VU
S
DEL

SA

Diffuse nebula LPE

EQU

GIT
PHI

CU
Planetary nebula
ULE

TA
NU

LA

Galaxy

T S
US

P EN
A P
SE
Al
AQ

C ER
U
CA RPE
tai

S
r
UA

UD NS
STAR A
RI

S
MAGNITUDES UCHU
US

OPHI
Q
U
IL

Sirius
A

M1
0.0 3.0 1
SC
UT
1.0 4.0 UM M16
C
A

2.0 5.0
P
R

M1 7
IC

Sa
O

tu
rn
R

M2 2 M20
Jup
N

iter
U
S

res
STAR COLORS M8 Anta
A star’s color depends SA M4
on its surface temperature. GI
TT M6
AR

•• The hottest stars shine blue

IU
S
SE

M7
Slightly cooler stars appear white
• Intermediate stars (like the Sun) glow yellow
CO
R
AU O NA
• Lower-temperature stars appear orange
STR
ALI
S
SCORPIUS
NG C 6
2 31

• The coolest stars glow red TELES

• Fainter stars can’t excite our eyes’ color

receptors, so they appear white unless you
COPIU
M

use optical aid to gather more light

S
BEGINNERS: WATCH A VIDEO ABOUT HOW TO READ A STAR CHART AT
www.Astronomy.com/starchart.
 JULY 2020
SUN. MON. TUES. WED. THURS. FRI. SAT.

1 2 3 4

W
N
R
O
AJ 5 6 7 8 9 10 11
M
A
RS
U

ILLUSTRATIONS BY ASTRONOMY: ROEN KELLY

R

12 13 14 15 16 17 18
O
IN
M
O
LE

19 20 21 22 23 24 25
CI I
AT N
VE

M
i 26 27 28 29 30 31
ES
1
M5

Note: Moon phases in the calendar vary in size due to the distance
LEO
N
CA

from Earth and are shown at 0h Universal Time.

bola
Dene
COMA CES

N GP

CALENDAR OF EVENTS
NI
TES

2 Asteroid Herculina is at opposition, 10 A.M. EDT

M6 4
BERE
BOÖ

4 Earth is at aphelion (94.5 million miles from the Sun), 8 A.M. EDT
5 Full Moon occurs at 12:44 A.M. EDT; penumbral lunar eclipse
W

Asteroid Vesta is in conjunction with the Sun, 2 A.M. EDT

The Moon passes 1.9° south of Jupiter, 6 P.M. EDT
s
Arcturu

)
ti c

6 The Moon passes 2° south of Saturn, 5 A.M. EDT

lip
c
(e

10 The Moon passes 4° south of Neptune, 3 A.M. EDT

GO

n
Su
VIR

he

t Venus is at greatest brilliancy (magnitude –4.7), 4 A.M. EDT

of
th
Pa
4

11 The Moon passes 2° south of Mars, 4 P.M. EDT

M10

12 Venus passes 1.0° north of Aldebaran, 3 A.M. EDT

5
M

ca

Mercury is stationary, 3 A.M. EDT

Spi

The Moon is at apogee (251,158 miles from Earth), 3:27 P.M. EDT
A
Last Quarter Moon occurs at 7:29 P.M. EDT
R
B
RA

LI Dwarf planet Ceres is stationary, 10 P.M. EDT

YD

Asteroid Pallas is at opposition, 10 P.M. EDT

H

14 Jupiter is at opposition, 4 A.M. EDT

The Moon passes 4° south of Uranus, 8 A.M. EDT
15 Pluto is at opposition, 3 P.M. EDT
17 The Moon passes 3° north of Venus, 3 A.M. EDT
SW

18 The Moon passes 4° north of Mercury, midnight EDT

P US
LU 20 New Moon occurs at 1:33 P.M. EDT
Saturn is at opposition, 6 P.M. EDT
22 Mercury is at greatest western elongation (20°) 11 A.M. EDT
25 The Moon is at perigee (228,889 miles from Earth), 1:02 A.M. EDT
27 First Quarter Moon occurs at 8:33 A.M. EDT
29 Southern Delta Aquariid meteor shower peaks

WWW. ASTRONOMY.COM 39
PATHS OF THE PLANETS
AND
AU R L AC LY R HE R

GEM Venus shines brightest Asteroid Pallas reaches

TR I
CNC before dawn in early July opposition July 12
Path of the Mo
o n AR I
Sun PEG
Uranus DEL
S GE
Mercury appears OR I PS C EQU
TAU
bright in the morning OPH
sky in late July Mar AQL
s Celestial equator
Neptune Asteroid Herculina
Pluto reaches reaches opposition
MON
opposition July 15 July 2
CET
Ceres
Iris
CM a
L EP ER I
FOR PsA Saturn appears at Jupiter appears at
PYX
P UP C OL S CL its best in late July its best in mid-July
CA E SC O

Moon phases Dawn Midnight

21 20 19 18 17 16 15 14 13 12 11 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3

To locate the Moon in the sky, draw a line from the phase shown for the day straight up to the curved blue line.
31 30

THE PLANETS Uranus

IN THEIR ORBITS
Arrows show the inner
planets’ monthly motions Venus
and dots depict the Jupiter
outer planets’ positions Neptune
at midmonth from high
Mercury Mars
above their orbits.
Saturn
Opposition is July 20

Pluto
Opposition is July 15

Mercury PLANETS MERCURY VENUS

Greatest western elongation
is July 22 Date July 31 July 15
Venus
Magnitude –0.8 –4.7
Mars
Angular size 6.3" 34.5"
Ceres
Illumination 66% 31%
Earth
Aphelion Distance (AU) from Earth 1.072 0.484
is July 4
Distance (AU) from Sun 0.319 0.728
Jupiter
Opposition is July 14 Right ascension (2000.0) 7h29.2m 4h42.2m
Declination (2000.0) 21°32' 17°40'

40 ASTRONOMY • JULY 2020

 This map unfolds the entire night sky from sunset (at right) until sunrise (at left). Arrows
and colored dots show motions and locations of solar system objects during the month. JULY 2020
1

2
Callisto

LMi 3
RS

BOÖ G EM
CrB
R

Europa
Pa met
TA

4
nS
Co

C OM C NC
Sun
LEO Io 5

SER
6
CMi
Ganymede
V IR 7
SE X MON
L IB
8
f the
S un C RV C RT
HYA
JUPITER’S
o
th
Pa liptic
(ec
) CMa MOONS 9
A NT
Dots display
PYX positions of
PUP 10 Jupiter
Galilean satellites
LUP V EL at 11 P.M. EDT on
11
the date shown.
Early evening South is at the
top to match the 12 Europa
view through a
2 1 telescope. 13

14

29 28 27 26 25 24 23 22 21 20
15

16 Ganymede

THE PLANETS IN THE SKY 17

These illustrations show the size, phase, and orientation
S
Jupiter of each planet and the two brightest dwarf planets at 0h
18 Callisto
W E
UT for the dates in the data table at bottom. South is at
the top to match the view through a telescope.
19
N
Saturn
20 Io

10"
21

Ceres 22

23
Uranus Neptune Pluto

24

25
MARS CERES JUPITER SATURN URANUS NEPTUNE PLUTO
July 15 July 15 July 15 July 15 July 15 July 15 July 15 26
–0.8 8.3 –2.8 0.1 5.8 7.9 14.5
27
12.7" 0.6" 47.6" 18.5" 3.5" 2.3" 0.1"
85% 98% 100% 100% 100% 100% 100% 28

0.736 2.233 4.139 9.000 20.073 29.377 33.063

29
1.384 2.981 5.156 10.012 19.794 29.930 34.079
0h40.3m 23h15.9m 19h35.1m 20h03.9m 2h31.0m 23h27.0m 19h42.0m 30

0°34' –18°57' –21°58' –20°37' 14°23' –4°45' –22°23'

31

SKY THIS MONTH — Continued from page 37
Switching places
S
Europa
W Increasing in brightness and
July 10, 3:30 A.M. EDT
On July 10, Ganymede’s shadow precedes it across the face of Jupiter. Those
in western states can catch the moon’s next transit on the 17th. This time,
the shadow follows the moon because Jupiter has passed opposition.
of the rings in comparison to
the days leading up to and
trailing opposition. This
“Seeliger effect” occurs
because the shadows of ring
particles are hidden from view,
and icy particles preferentially
reflect sunlight back toward
the light source (the Sun).
Saturn’s wide-ranging moon
Iapetus reaches inferior con-
junction with the planet on
July 28, as it moves from its
fainter eastern elongation early
in the month and brightens to
magnitude 11. On July 27 and
28, it lies 1' south of Saturn,
while Titan, Saturn’s largest and
brightest moon, stands 3' west
of the planet. You’ll find Titan
due north of Saturn July 15 and
31, and due south on July 7 and
23. A trio of 10th-magnitude
moons orbit closer to the rings:
Tethys, Dione, and Rhea.
Pluto also lies in this region.
On July 1, the magnitude 14.6
dwarf planet lies 41' south of
Jupiter. By late July, Pluto stands
3.2° due east of the fast-moving
giant. Pluto is hard to see even
with most telescopes, but digital
cameras will detect it.
Neptune in northwestern
Aquarius is a relatively easy
binocular object at magnitude
7.9. It rises soon after local
midnight July 1 and climbs
to a decent altitude a few
hours later. In the predawn
sky the first week of July,
Neptune stands between 11°
and 15° west of Mars. The
closest bright guide star is
42 ASTRONOMY • JULY 2020
WHEN TO
VIEW THE
PLANETS
giant by July 31. On July 31,
the magnitude 7.3 dwarf EVENING SKY
planet is only 0.8° northwest Jupiter (southeast)
Jupiter of 3rd-magnitude 88 Aquarii. Saturn (southeast)
MIDNIGHT
30" apparent diameter in the morn- Mars (east)
Ganymede
ing sky, Mars opens the month Jupiter (south)
Ganymede’s shadow Io
at magnitude –0.5 in southwest- Saturn (south)
ern Pisces, rising soon after Neptune (southeast)
midnight local time. It bright-
MORNING SKY
ens to magnitude –1.1 by July 31 Mercury (northeast)
and rises just after 11 P.M. local Venus (east)
4th-magnitude Phi (φ) Aquarii. time. Its disk grows dramati- Mars (south)
Grab a pair of binoculars and cally from 12" to 15" this Jupiter (southwest)
place Phi at the right side of month, as the distance between Saturn (southwest)
Uranus (east)
your field of view; in 7x50 or Earth and Mars decreases.
Neptune (south)
10x50 binoculars, Neptune will In the hour before dawn —
stand about 4° east-northeast of the best time to view it — Mars
the star. On July 10, Neptune stands 30° high in the southeast
lies nearly 5° north of the gib- in early July. By July 31, the Red Mars starts the month in
bous Moon. A telescope reveals Planet reaches 45° altitude, southwestern Pisces, 17° south
its tiny 2"-wide bluish disk. making this apparition more of Algenib in the Square of
Ceres is also in Aquarius, favorable for Northern Pegasus, and moves through the
13.5° due south of Neptune on Hemisphere observers than northwest corner of Cetus the
July 1 and 16° south of the ice its 2018 perihelic opposition. Whale between July 8 and 26.
COMET SEARCH I Graying in time
BRIGHTER THAN MANY of Comet PanSTARRS (C/2017 T2)
Virgo’s Messier galaxies, Comet
PanSTARRS (C/2017 T2) will N NGC 4485/90
appear in a 4-inch scope under `
July 1 U RS A
a country sky. Follow the 9th- to MAJOR
10th-magnitude fuzz across the _ 5
Milky Way’s north polar region as
it gradually fades on its return to CA N ES 10
the Oort cloud. VE NAT IC I
On June 30, our ball of ice and E Path of
Comet PanSTARRS
dust is nearly equal to the inter- 15
a
esting NGC 4485/90 pair. The `
Moon interferes in early July; on 20
the 10th and 11th, leverage the B O ÖTE S
two hours of evening darkness to 25
jump between PanSTARRS and Arcturus
C OM A
the nearby galaxies of Coma d 30 M53 BERENICES
Berenices. July is also globular o NGC 5053 5°
_
cluster season, so compare M53
It’s time for our now-familiar friend to head home. Comet PanSTARRS
and NGC 5053 to the comet for passed its midlife maximum in May and is now fading as it travels past
brightness, shape (morphology), several deep-sky objects this month.
and character. Observe intently
at different magnifications to examine which objects have well-defined edges, bright cores, and fading
flanks. The classic green halo of ionized gas around the coma is powering down as the comet continues
to pull away from the Sun, but enough output remains for imagers’ sensitive pixels.
Perfectly timed for New Moon, the periodic visitor 88P/Howell scoots less than 2° from blue-white
Spica. It glows at a faint magnitude 10 to 11 this month, but will pick up to 9 when it arrives at perihelion
in late September.

A morning mythological tableau
AU RIGA
Castor
GEM I NI
Pollux
Mercury
July 31, 1 hour before sunrise
Looking east
By month’s end, Mercury and Venus are visible before sunrise amidst three
easily recognizable constellations: Taurus, Orion, and Gemini.
It crosses the celestial equator
into the northern half of the
sky on July 11. The same morn-
ing, Mars stands 6° northeast
of a waning gibbous Moon.
The martian disk swells
from 84 percent lit to 86 per-
cent during July; as it does, fine
detail on the surface is observ-
able with smaller telescopes.
It’s always a small disk and
atmospheric conditions greatly
affect what you will see. High-
speed video capture is the best
way to record fine details.
Observers should be on the
lookout for dust storms that
can erupt as the martian
southern hemisphere
approaches summer.
Uranus rises two hours
before dawn on July 1 in Aries
the Ram, located roughly mid-
way between its brightest star,
Hamal, and Menkar, the
brightest star in Cetus. The
planet shines at magnitude 5.8
with no other bright stars
nearby. It’s best spotted in bin-
oculars, while a telescope easily
reveals the greenish-colored
disk spanning 3.5". On July 14,
GET DAILY UPDATES ON YOUR NIGHT SKY AT
www.Astronomy.com/skythisweek.
TAU RU S
Aldebaran
Venus
ORION
Betelgeuse Rigel
10°
Uranus stands 4.8° due north
of a waning crescent Moon.
At 5 A.M. on July 1, brilliant
Venus (magnitude –4.6) stands
8° high, adjacent to the Hyades
star cluster. The Pleiades (M45)
are 10° directly above the
planet. Venus reaches greatest
brilliancy (magnitude –4.7) on
July 10. On July 12, it passes 1°
north of Aldebaran, the bright-
est star in Taurus the Bull. In
the July 16 and 17 predawn sky,
a waning crescent Moon adds
more beauty to the scene, first
located 5° above the Hyades
and then 3.5° northeast of
Venus the next morning. By
July 31, Venus stands 2.3°
southeast of Zeta (ξ) Tauri, the
southern horn of the Bull.
Watch the fattening crescent
of Venus through any telescope
— it grows from 19 percent
illuminated on July 1 to 43 per-
cent on July 31. Meanwhile, the
disk of the planet shrinks from
43" to 27" in diameter as its
distance from Earth increases.
Mercury reaches greatest
elongation west (20°) at magni-
tude 0.3 on July 22. Three days
LOCATING ASTEROIDS I
Standing out against the darkness
THE EASIEST TIME to pick out an asteroid is when the
backdrop goes black. The Great Rift splitting our summer Milky
Way does just that. The prominent Scutum Star Cloud just below
Aquila sports a metaphorical cliff on its western (right) edge,
where a field chock-full of stars suddenly empties to a couple
of dozen. The dark swath of dust and gas that cloaks the bulge
of our galaxy is so dense it caught the attention of E.E. Barnard,
pioneer of dark nebula photography.
Beginning at the fabulous star cluster Messier 11, push your
scope westward past a small inky circle cataloged as Barnard 103
and onto the near emptiness. 56 Melete starts out the month just
east of a 6.3-magnitude star that it grazes on the 3rd. Look farther
west to find a cat’s eyes of 8th-magnitude stars — Melete will skim
south of the pair on the 13th. Those two nights will be perfect for
catching the asteroid’s change of position in a three-hour period.
You’ll need to be under dark country skies to “aha!” the
“nothing” of the dark nebula, as well as other Barnard objects
field after field to the south. Melete also crosses a series of lesser-
known Lynds dark nebulae — 453, 431, and 424 — which you can
recognize by the lack of faint stars.
Spanning some 70 miles in diameter, this main belt space rock
was discovered by Hermann Goldschmidt in 1857 and named
after the Greek muse of meditation.
Skirting darkness and stars
N
S C U T UM 5 SERPENS
10 CAUDA
July 1 15
20
E Path of Melete
LDN 453 LDN 431 25 o
30
LDN 424
j OPH I U CH US
1°
Melete’s curved path covers only a small region of the sky this month.
The asteroid skims several faint stars and three Lynds dark nebulae.
earlier, on the 19th, it shines at further south along the hori-
magnitude 0.8 and stands 5° to zon. On July 31, it is easier still
the right of the waning crescent to see at magnitude –0.7, form-
Moon, which will help you spot ing a nice trio of objects with
the faint planet in brightening Pollux (7° northeast) and
twilight. Both rise soon after Castor nearby.
4:30 A.M. local time and should
be visible above the northeast- Martin Ratcliffe provides
ern horizon 30 minutes later. planetarium development for
Mercury’s visibility improves Sky-Skan, Inc., from his home
as it brightens to magnitude in Wichita, Kansas. Alister
–0.1 on July 25. It’s in Gemini Ling, who lives in Edmonton,
and the pair of bright stars in Alberta, has watched the skies
the Twins rise with Mercury since 1975.
WWW. ASTRONOMY.COM 43
Our Sun was born 4.5 billion
years ago, but did not form
alone. Astronomers are sifting
through mounds of data,
searching for stars that
formed with it. NASA/SDO

44 ASTRONOMY • JULY 2020

Astronomers think it’s possible to identify
the stars that formed from the same nebula
as the Sun. BY YVETTE CENDES
omewhere in the galaxy, we
have a long-lost family. At
this very minute, there are
hundreds to thousands of
stars that began to form and
shine in the same dust cloud
as our Sun, whose current locations are
unknown in the sea of other stars. But
what if it were possible to test stars to
find our stellar siblings, like a DNA test
can reveal unknown family members for
humans on Earth? Astronomers think it’s
doable — and, what’s more, we may have
already done it.
The beginning
Although the Sun was born billions of
years ago, we know roughly how the pro-
cess happened by studying “stellar nurser-
ies” we see today, called nebulae. Nebula
means “cloud” in Latin, and each consists
of interstellar gas, primarily hydrogen
and helium with trace amounts of other
elements. Many nebulae are inert, with
no star formation happening in them,
their presence betrayed only by the dark
regions they form as they block light from
more distant stars. In fact, if these dark
nebulae did not exist, the Milky Way in
our night sky would be much brighter.
On the other hand, nebulae that are home
to star formation are positively glowing,
and several are so bright you can spot
them with the naked eye.
Millions of years before the Sun
formed, something disturbed the dark
nebula containing the gas that would
become our solar system. Astronomers
believe they know what caused it: a
massive explosion from a dying star,
called a supernova.
“A blast wave from a supernova can
trigger star formation in the shock front
[the leading edge of the explosion] if the
material is dense enough,” explains
Anna Rosen, an astrophysicist at the
Harvard-Smithsonian Center for
Astrophysics. The key to this origin
is locked in a surprising location:
meteorites.
Meteoroids — as meteorites are
known when still in space — are small
chunks primarily made of iron, nickel,
and trace amounts of other materials.
The composition of most has not
changed since the solar system formed;
what’s more, because they are the only
part of outer space that can be physically
carried into a laboratory on Earth, they
are well studied. In examining them,
scientists have discovered elements in
amounts only possible if a supernova
occurred just tens of thousands of years
before the meteorites formed.
We see further evidence all around us.
The elements in our world (except hydro-
gen and helium) formed in stars that
died before our Sun was born, from the
carbon in your cells to the oxygen in
your lungs to the iron in your veins.
These elements were then part of the
material in our parent nebula that ended
up forming Earth. As Carl Sagan said,
“We are made of starstuff.”
After the supernova’s shock wave
passed through the cloud that would
become the solar system, the dust and
gas began to collapse in on itself due to
gravity. More and more material fell
onto it, forming a dense core, known as
a protostar, that would become the Sun,
and a protoplanetary disk of gas that
would eventually become the rest of the
solar system.
The Sun was not yet shining at this
point. A protostar is not yet fusing hydro-
gen, so no ancient aliens would see our
developing Sun, at least in wavelengths of
visible light. There would be a lot of heat
from all the collapsing gas, however, so
the system would emit infrared radiation.
Altogether, the Sun probably spent half a
WWW. ASTRONOMY.COM 45

The Orion Nebula (M42) is one of the finest deep-sky objects. The Sun and hundreds to thousands of other
stars formed in a cloud of gas and dust similar to this stellar nursery. TONY HALLAS
million years as a protostar, although
accreting gas in the earlier stages could
have taken many times longer.
A great example
To study how this process would have
occurred, astronomers scrutinize nearby
nebulae where stars are being born
today. One popular target is the Orion
Nebula (M42), located in the middle
of the constellation Orion’s sword.
Although it is more than 1,300 light-
years away, it is such a hotbed of stellar
formation that it is visible to the naked
eye even under suburban skies. A mod-
est amateur telescope will reveal glow-
ing gas illuminated by four bright stars
called the Trapezium. M42 is a huge
46 ASTRONOMY • JULY 2020
stellar nursery — astronomers have
observed about 700 developing stars in
various stages of formation and have
counted 2,000 in the innermost 20 light-
years. Shocks and bows of gas, formed
by intense stellar winds from new stars,
ripple through the system.
Despite the hive of activity within a
stellar nursery like the Orion Nebula, we
don’t expect this stage to last long, astro-
nomically speaking. “Young, massive stars
in a nebula inject energy and momentum
into the system, and blow material away,”
explains Rosen, who studies this feedback.
Simulations estimate that in 100,000 years,
the gas from the Orion Nebula will be
swept away altogether.
When this occurs, a young cluster of
stars will remain behind, an example of
which — the Pleiades — is also familiar
to naked-eye observers. Located in the
constellation Taurus the Bull, the cluster
is dominated by young, hot blue stars
formed within the last 100,000 years.
It is clear from this process that stars
do not begin their lives in isolation and,
in fact, begin their lives with hundreds or
even thousands of companions. But if the
Sun’s journey began with thousands of
stellar siblings, what happened to the rest
of them? And would we recognize those
long-lost family members in a galaxy
with billions of other stars?
Separation anxiety
The estrangement would have begun
like this: From almost the moment the
Sun and its stellar siblings formed, they
would have begun to drift apart, with
each pulled in different directions by
the gravitational effects of other stars in
the Milky Way. Within a few hundred
million years, our tight cluster would
become a loose grouping, spreading
apart ever more as the years passed.
Eventually, you would not know the
stars had been part of the same cluster.
A perfect example of this process,
familiar to even the most casual star-
gazer, exists in our night sky: The Big
Dipper. The dipper is an asterism, a pat-
tern of stars that is not a constellation. It
belongs to Ursa Major the Great Bear.
For most constellations and asterisms,
the distances to the stars are random,
so they’re not related to one other. In
the Big Dipper, however, astronomers
discovered six of the eight stars (the star
in the handle’s bend is an easily seen
double) moving in the same direction
through space. They call it the Ursa
Major Moving Group. These stars
formed several hundred million years
ago, between 78 and 84 light-years
away, and are now spread over an area
30 light-years in diameter.
On longer time scales, stars are also
pulled apart not just by other nearby
stars and matter, but by the rotation of
the galaxy itself. The Milky Way is
shaped like a disk containing spiral
arms and a barlike center, and all stars
in the Milky Way orbit the central point.
Our Sun has a roughly circular orbit
that takes some 220 million years to
complete. The Sun is about 4.5 billion
As the Sun began to condense out of its primordial nebula, it had lots of company. It formed as a single star within a cluster like the Pleiades (M45), an object easily
visible to the naked eye in the fall and winter from north of the equator. MARK HANSON AND JEFF HAPEMAN

years old, so we’ve orbited the center of
the Milky Way about 20 times — plenty
of time for stars already drifting apart to
become completely estranged.
“Physically nearby stars are not neces-
sarily siblings,” explains Jeremy Webb,
an astronomer at the University of
Toronto who searches for solar sibling
candidates. “Siblings can end up on the
opposite side of the galaxy and be spread
out quite a bit.”
But just because you separated doesn’t
mean you never run into one another
again. I graduated high school and col-
lege many years ago, and I still randomly
run into some of the same few hundred
people with whom I attended school in a
city full of otherwise complete strangers.
It turns out that stars are similar to
people in this way. First, while stars are
primarily hydrogen and helium, they
also have traces of other elements that
were present in the original nebula. If
you take spectra of the stars in the
Trapezium or the Pleiades, you find the
abundances of those trace elements are
the same for stars originating from the
same nebula.
Detailed spectra now exist for hun-
dreds of thousands of stars in our gal-
axy, so astronomers can compare the
elements that appear in them to the
abundances in the Sun. Using this
method, some have suggested certain
stars’ spectra are similar enough to the
Sun that they must be long-lost siblings.
However, other astronomers remain
skeptical, worrying that birth nebulae
might not be sufficiently different from
one another for such chemical tagging.
Are spectra really enough to find such
a needle in a haystack?

Sifting the data

Recently, a second way to solve the
As the cluster that contained the Sun formed and began orbiting the center of the Milky Way, the puzzle came online. Thanks to the Gaia
tremendous gravitational influence of our galaxy started to spread out its members. This process is
currently occurring in the Ursa Major Moving Group. Six of its stars help form the Big Dipper. Only the space observatory, astronomers can
stars at the end of the handle and the end of the bowl are not part of this group. JEFF DAI now study 3D data and obtain precise

WWW. ASTRONOMY.COM 47
The Sun’s spectrum reveals which elements are inside it, along with their abundances. Astronomers comb through spectral data to find stars with similar properties,
hoping that some will have formed from the same nebula as our star. N. A. SHARP/NOAO/NSO/KITT PEAK FTS/AURA/NSF

motions and positions for an astounding Armed with the new Gaia data, Price-Jones, a graduate student working
1.3 billion stars in our galaxy. astronomers have revisited the search with Webb to find solar siblings. “We’re
Launched in 2013 by the European for the Sun’s siblings. “We really cast the not looking to reproduce the exact
Space Agency, Gaia compiles this widest net possible,” explains Natalie velocity and orbit of the Sun,” she says.
impressive catalog using parallax. It
takes careful measurements of nearby f
stars, recording the minute apparent
shifts in position against more distant
stars. Using measurements six months
apart, astronomers can calculate a star’s
distance by knowing the size of Earth’s
orbit and using a bit of trigonometry. If
the star is monitored for years, research- HD 162826
ers also can discern the motion of the
star across our line of sight. Vega +
_
Gaia is able to take better measure- H ERC U LE S
ments than are possible from the /
ground, and its data release in 2018 e l
means astronomers now have the most
g
precise map of the galaxy ever con-
structed. There have been surprises. LYR A
For example, in early 2020 astronomers
announced the discovery of a gigantic
gaseous structure 9,000 light-years long
2° ¡
and 400 light-years from the Sun at its
closest. Known as the Radcliffe Wave,
In 2014, astronomers at the University of Texas at Austin announced the discovery of the first possible stellar
it is the largest such structure ever seen sibling of the Sun. HD 162826, which glows at magnitude 6.6, lies in the constellation Hercules about
in the Milky Way. 110 light-years away. It’s easily visible through binoculars or small telescopes. ASTRONOMY: RICHARD TALCOTT AND ROEN KELLY

48 ASTRONOMY • JULY 2020

That would be impossible. Instead, she
says, “we are looking for general param-
eters and trends in movement. For
example, if we know the angular
momentum of the Sun, lots of orbits can
fit a certain angular momentum.”
In other words, astronomers use
Gaia’s orbital parameters to trace a star’s
motion backward in time to see if it
intersects with the Sun’s.
Studying Gaia’s data is enough to rule
out many stars that may be physically
close to the Sun, or have similar spectra,
but which are unrelated to it. As one such
example, for many years astronomers
hypothesized that the open cluster M67
in the constellation Cancer may be the
parent cluster of our Sun, based on the
fact that it is home to 100 stars similar
to the Sun with roughly the same age.
The European Space Agency’s Gaia spacecraft has provided precise distances and motions of more than
However, “we have ruled it out as a a billion stars. Researchers use the data to identify stars with motions similar to the Sun through the Milky
potential solar birthplace because its Way, hoping some will be solar siblings. ESA/D. DUCROS
orbital properties were completely offset,”
explains Webb.
There was just no way to simulate A possible sibling field, you would never know our Sun and
M67 and the Sun’s orbit intersecting By reexamining stellar spectra combined SS1 might be long-lost relatives unless
5 billion years ago when the Sun formed, with the new orbital information, how- you had the clues provided by modern
no matter what permutation was used. ever, the Toronto team discovered a new astronomy at your disposal.
The University of Toronto team has also candidate with the same elemental abun- We don’t yet know for sure if SS1 orig-
discarded several previously suggested dances and orbital parameters as the Sun. inated in the same birth nebula. But as
solar sibling candidates on the grounds Dubbed SS1, short for “Solar Sibling 1,” it time goes on, the orbital calculations
that while they are chemically similar to is an unremarkable star some 1,100 light- used to determine whether it can be
the Sun, their orbits would never overlap years from us, located in the constellation traced back to the same birthplace as
with our own. Cygnus. Looking at the crowded star the Sun should improve.
While Gaia already has revolutionized
a astronomy with the most detailed picture
of the galaxy to date, huge questions
` remain about its structure. How many
spiral arms does the Milky Way have?
p
b What is its exact bar shape? Astronomers
still aren’t sure, and knowing these
h answers would help narrow down the
orbital dynamics further for SS1 and any
other potential candidates. Luckily, the
HD 186302 i Gaia mission is ongoing and the mission
j
team is planning a data release with
proper motions twice as precise as those
¡ PAVO in its 2018 dataset. The data are expected
/
in late 2020 or early 2021.
It’s a big galaxy out there. And
although we appear to be alone, one day
O CTA NS
c d we’ll know which stars we began our jour-
ney with, and where we’ve adventured.
2°
Yvette Cendes is a postdoctoral fellow
at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for
The AMBRE project, which searches for stellar siblings, announced another possible solar sibling in
November 2018. HD 186302 lies 184 light-years away in the far-southern constellation Pavo the Peacock. Astrophysics. She regularly posts on Twitter
It glows at magnitude 8.8. ASTRONOMY: RICHARD TALCOTT AND ROEN KELLY @whereisyvette.

WWW. ASTRONOMY.COM 49
 By studying this strange ur solar system’s comets
are believed to have deliv-
star, astronomers hope to ered a wealth of material
to early Earth. Among
better understand what the icy visitors’ suspected gifts
were rare gases, small amounts of
happened early in the life water, and organic material — all
of which could have helped ter-
of our own solar system. restrial life form and evolve. But
while ancient Earth received only
BY NOLA TAYLOR REDD a moderate influx of comets, any
planets around young nearby star
Eta Corvi are likely raking in com-
etary currency.
50 ASTRONOMY • JULY 2020
After planets form in a fledgling
system, the host star is surrounded
by a disk of leftover gas and dust
that didn’t get molded into new
worlds. In our solar system, this
surplus of material settled into two
bands: the asteroid belt between
Mars and Jupiter and the Kuiper
Belt beyond Neptune. While mem-
bers of the asteroid belt are rocky
and relatively dry, comets in the
Kuiper Belt tend to be ice-rich and
filled with gases. But both types of
objects can help seed planets with

the ingredients necessary for the
evolution of life as we know it.
And then there’s Eta Corvi —
a 1.5-billion-year-old star that sits
just 60 light-years away. Decades
ago, researchers used the Infrared
Astronomical Satellite (or IRAS)
to find evidence that Eta Corvi
sports a massive outer ring much
larger and more distant than the
solar system’s Kuiper Belt. But
when Mark Wyatt, then an
astronomer with The Royal
Observatory, Edinburgh, turned
the James Clerk Maxwell
Telescope in Hawaii toward the
star in 2005, he found a surprise:
The Eta Corvi system also boasts
a ring of hot material much closer
to the star itself. “There is some-
thing unusual going on in the
inner region of this system,”
Wyatt, now at the University
of Cambridge, says.
At first, astronomers thought
that Eta Corvi could just be going
through a period much like the
solar system’s suspected Late
Nearby star Eta
Corvi seems to be
surrounded by a
swarm of comets,
Heavy Bombardment (LHB), as seen in this
which saw the inner planets pum- artist’s concept.
meled by asteroids some 4 billion By examining the
infant system,
years ago. During this time, which sports two
Neptune and Uranus performed belts of debris,
astronomers hope
an intricate dance that banished to gain insight into
them to the outskirts of the solar how young systems
form and evolve.
system. And as the ice giants NASA/JPL-CALTECH
migrated, they kicked up material
from the Kuiper Belt and hurled it
back toward Earth and the other
rocky planets. Although the tim-
ing remains uncertain, some
astronomers think the material

WWW. ASTRONOMY.COM 51
 e
which shine hotter than our
G-type Sun. Because A-type stars
rotate quickly, astronomers can
more easily spot the light-blocking
M104 e ¡
_ cometary material that’s around
Spica C R AT ER
them. The faster rotation means
f
it’s easier to determine whether a
b
VI RGO star’s brightness is changing due to
Eta Corvi b _ passing dust, says Isabel Rebollido,
d a a
d c a Ph.D. student at Spain’s
C ORVU S h Universidad Autónoma de Madrid.
Eta Corvi, however, is the
exception. As an F-type star, it’s
c ¡
still hotter than the Sun, but cooler
a ` `
than its fellow comet-bearing stars.
_
Plus, the system boasts a massive
M68
H YDR A outer belt of material that stretches
about 150 astronomical units (AU)
from its star, where 1 AU is equal
5°
to the average distance between
Eta Corvi sits some Earth and the Sun. The Kuiper
60 light-years away
in the constellation
delivered during this cosmic bar- Smashing comets, Belt, for comparison, reaches about
Corvus the Crow. rage played a vital role in helping smashing planets 55 AU from the Sun.
ASTRONOMY: ROEN KELLY
our planet become habitable. Comets are common, both within In addition to its massive exo-
But more recent studies seem to the solar system and beyond. And Kuiper Belt, Eta Corvi also has an
rule out an LHB equivalent for the although they are incredibly chal- interior belt of warm material
Eta Corvi system, instead favoring lenging to spot around other stars, within about 3 AU of its star. The
a steady stream of comets rather these icy chunks are expected to be inner band is rich in carbon mon-
than a flood. Whether that’s good widespread. Thanks to improved oxide, which gets destroyed by
During the news for the evolution of life technology and methods, astrono- stellar radiation in just over a cen-
Late Heavy
Bombardment, a
remains an open question. But mers have identified more than 25 tury. “The fact that we’re seeing
period when the even with its stunning differences, systems that are thought to host this carbon monoxide now, it
inner planets were Eta Corvi and its strange set of exocomets, as well as minor bodies either means that we’re very lucky
rocked by asteroids,
Earth would have belts could help reveal what our like dwarf planets. to be observing it, [or] it’s a con-
been transformed own solar system was like billions Most of the exocomets seen tinuous process,” says Sebastian
into a hellish
landscape. NASA GSFC
of years ago. today are around A-type stars, Marino, an exoplanet researcher
CONCEPTUAL IMAGE LAB

52 ASTRONOMY • JULY 2020

 THE SOLAR SYSTEM
Sun
st
lt
eroid be
A
Jupiter
2 AU Inner disk is 2–4 AU
Uranus
Saturn
K u i p e r B e lt
20 AU
at the Max Planck Institute for
Astronomy in Germany. The com-
position of the interior disk also
suggests it originally formed far-
ther from the star before later
migrating inward.
So where is the inner collection
of carbon monoxide coming from?
One possibility is that astronomers
caught a glimpse of debris ejected
after a large object collided with
an exoplanet. Astronomers haven’t
directly detected any planets
around Eta Corvi yet, but if the
material was expelled during a col-
lision, it could indicate the pres-
ence of a world inside the star’s
habitable zone — the region where
liquid water can exist on the plan-
et’s surface. Such a collision would
be remarkable timing for astrono-
mers, though — a stroke of luck
that it occurred in modern times.
Another possibility is that Eta
Corvi is still suffering a violent
childhood, with excess material
smashing together well after any
planets should have cleared out
their orbits. “While smashing,”
Marino says, “they release some of
the gases and ices that are inside.”
However, that stands at odds with
astronomers’ idea for an aging
toddler system like Eta Corvi.
“We expected that the younger
the system, the higher the dynami-
cal interactions because it’s still
ETA CORVI SYSTEM
Eta Corvi
2 AU Inner disk starts at 3 AU
Similar to the
solar system, the
Eta Corvi system
displays two
distinct belts of
dust and debris.
Neptune But unlike the
asteroid belt, Eta
Corvi’s inner belt
is surprisingly
warm and rich in
Outer disk Outer disk starts carbon monoxide.
30–55 AU at 100–150 AU 20 AU ASTRONOMY: ROEN KELLY
settling,” Rebollido says. After a ETA CORVI’S ODDITIES
billion and a half years, Eta Corvi
5" 5" 5"
should have calmed, most of its
debris swept up by successful
planets. “It doesn’t quite agree
with our idea of how planetary
systems form and when they
PACS 70 PACS 100 SCUBA2 850
settle down,” Rebollido says.
Planetary
bucket brigade
When Neptune and Uranus
underwent what scientists call
DUCHÊNE, G., ET AL. (APJ, 784, 2, 19 [2014])
dynamical instability, trading
places while moving outward
through the solar system, they
cleared debris from the inner
edge of a once-wider Kuiper Belt.
To get an idea of how Eta Corvi’s
belts formed, Marino and his col-
leagues decided to model possible Eta Corvi’s two-
component debris
configurations of worlds and how Previous studies suggest that, disk was imaged by
they might pass material inward, during the solar system’s LHB, the Herschel Space
as well as carve out the observed the Kuiper Belt would have been Observatory at 70, 100,
and 850 micrometers,
exo-Kuiper Belt. Marino wanted broad, and features such as spiral as seen in the top row.
to figure out what kind of planets arms could have formed within it. The middle row shows
synthetic images that
it would take to feed comets from Using the Atacama Large were created based
the system’s outermost edges to its Millimeter/submillimeter Array on best-fit models.
Finally, the bottom
innermost regions. (ALMA), Marino’s team probed Eta row shows residual
First, he and his colleagues Corvi’s outer disk for signs of a features that were
looked at whether Eta Corvi could giant planet stirring things up. left over after the
synthetic images
be undergoing its own version of Their observations showed no hints were subtracted
LHB. When Neptune and Uranus of spiral arms or other structures. from the real views,
highlighting features
migrated, they not only hurled “It seems unlikely that a dynamical that the models did
cometary material inward, they instability in the system similar to not fully replicate.
also foundationally changed the the LHB is responsible,” the authors
structure of the Kuiper Belt. concluded in their paper.
WWW. ASTRONOMY.COM 53
 ETA CORVI’S OUTER RING
200
100
AU
0
-100
-200
-200
A model of Eta
Corvi’s outer debris
disk suggests it’s
most heavily
concentrated about
100 to 130 AU from
the star. J. LEBRETON,
C. BEICHMAN, G. BRYDEN,
ET AL. (APJ, 817, 2, 165 [2016])
ALMA observations
of Eta Corvi’s disk
indicate debris rich
in carbon monoxide
can be ushered
inward by a chain of
so-far undetected
planets. MARINO, S. ET AL.
(MNRAS, 465, 3, 2595 [2017])
54 ASTRONOMY • JULY 2020
-100 0 100 200
AU
However, if a relatively low-
mass planet is either moving
slowly outward through the belt
or has settled in its midst, the
researchers think it could send
material inward. The planet would
have to be small enough that it
hasn’t made much of a dent in
clearing out the debris around it,
however, since the outer belt shows
no sign of a gap. A planet between
3 and 30 Earth masses, orbiting
between 75 and 100 AU, would be
sufficient to fling comets inward.
When Neptune and Uranus
plowed into the Kuiper Belt, they
sent roughly 30 Earth masses’
worth of cometary debris to the
inner solar system over a period of
15 million years. But not all of the
comets made it. Jupiter, the largest
of the planets, stands as sentinel
for the terrestrial planets. While
the gas giant lets some of the
Kuiper Belt material fly by, most
of it winds up getting diverted else-
where, sometimes being ejected
from the solar system entirely.
“Only one in a million comets that
got scattered inwards made it to
collide with Earth,” Wyatt says.
If Eta Corvi has its own chain
of worlds, the planetary conga line
could allow material to leapfrog
inward. But the existence of a giant
inner dust cloud suggests that
there is no Jupiter-like world
guarding any rocky planets near
Eta Corvi. According to Wyatt, the
rate at which comets are hurled
toward Eta Corvi is roughly 100
times less than the solar system
experienced in its prime. However,
without a Jupiter-like sentinel,
more of that material actually suc-
ceeds in making it to the inner
part of the Eta Corvi system.
Using simulations, Marino and
his colleagues found that a chain of
fewer than 10 worlds of roughly the
same size — each weighing
between 3 and 30 Earth masses
— could easily hand off cometary
material from one to the next. This
is one possible way in which the
system could continue to maintain
its inner, warm disk of material
that we see today.
The ingredients for life
Eta Corvi may provide more than
just an intriguing glimpse of giant
exoplanets working as a bucket
brigade, passing cometary ice and
gas to the inner system. Something
else unusual is happening only
3 AU from the star, roughly the
same distance our asteroid belt is
from the Sun. And both scenarios
have the potential to blow out
enormous amounts of hot dust.
When Wyatt and his colleagues
reexamined the system, they found
Eta Corvi’s inner dust cloud was
not spread evenly around the star.
Instead, a massive clump of mate-
rial appeared close to the star.
Once again, the clump could have
been produced by either comet-
comet or comet-planet collisions.
Marino’s team investigated how
likely it might be for the icy mate-
rial cast inward to collide with
other comets or a planet. In order
for the inner disk to have formed
from mutual cometary collisions,
though, the range in size of the
cometary dust grains would have
to be dramatically different from
what’s expected, and the grains
themselves would have to shine
significantly brighter than they
do. On the other hand, the excess
warm dust could form if a comet
collided with a rocky world
between four and 10 times as
massive as Earth, making this
the more likely scenario.
While most of Earth’s water
came from asteroids, comets pro-
vided some of the ingredients nec-
essary for life to evolve. Because
of that, Eta Corvi “can have some
quite important implications for
what’s going on on a planet in
terms of the potential for the
development of life,” Wyatt says.
Some researchers have sug-
gested Earth got part of its atmo-
sphere from comets, while others
think that impacts could have
aided in the development of life. So
by studying Eta Corvi, astronomers
may get a better understanding of
what happened early in the life of
the solar system. “Whenever we
look at a system younger than our
solar system, we’re kind of looking
in the past,” Rebollido says.
Of course, the best way to
understand how Eta Corvi’s hypo-
thetical worlds evolve is to actually
observe them. “It would be great
if we could detect the planets,”
Wyatt says. But that won’t happen
in the near future.
Eta Corvi’s outer planets are
likely Neptune-sized worlds.
Direct imaging, which is akin to
photographing a planet, is the best
method for spotting worlds that lie
so far out, but exo-Neptunes are
too small to be spotted with cur-
rent or even upcoming instru-
ments. Directly imaging an
exoplanet often relies on capturing
the residual heat seeping from a
recently formed world, and Eta
Corvi’s planets are likely too old
to have enough heat left from their
birth to be seen from afar.

As for the inner planets, the
dust that hints at their existence
ironically might keep us from
spotting them. Eta Corvi’s giant
outer cloud is a much more effec-
tive veil than the dust surrounding
our inner solar system, where
material dropped by comets dis-
plays itself on Earth as zodiacal
light. This has led researchers to
conclude that the Eta Corvi system
is not a good target for missions
hoping to image an exo-Earth.
Either way, Wyatt and his col-
leagues want to re-observe the sys-
tem. If the clump they spotted in
the inner disk is orbiting the star,
they should see it move with time.
The researchers also hope to con-
firm the system’s cometary finger-
prints with further observations.
“We should be able to map the
carbon monoxide distribution,”
Wyatt says. “That will tell us more
about what’s going on.”
At the same time, the recent
arrival of an exocomet in our own
solar system could help decode the
mysteries of Eta Corvi. At the time
of this writing, Comet 2I/Borisov,
discovered in August 2019, is cur-
rently breaking up. By studying its
spilled guts, astronomers hope to
probe the object’s composition to
learn how comets in other star
systems compare to our own.
“This kind of comet visiting us
could have formed in a system like
Eta Corvi,” Marino says. But
instead of colliding with another
comet or planet, Borisov was
ejected. This, he adds, “will tell us
about comets that are farther out.”
Rebollido is also excited to see
the interstellar interloper pass
through our solar system. “It’s the
Comet 67P/
Churyumov-
proof that cometlike bodies are Gerasimenko, seen
being formed [in other systems],” in this image taken
she says. “I’m curious about the by the Rosetta
spacecraft on
composition — and, specifically, January 31, 2015,
whether it’s similar to our solar originated from
the solar system’s
system comets or not.” distant Kuiper Belt.
Researchers might also better Until last June,
understand our solar system’s own NASA was strongly
considering a
past by continuing to study the Eta sample-return
Corvi system. But with its unique mission to Comet
67P, but instead
pair of disks, Eta Corvi clearly has opted to proceed
something special going on. with a mission that
Regardless, this single young will send a large
rotorcraft to Saturn’s
system rich in cometary material moon Titan.
may reveal a lot about how our ESA/ROSETTA/NAVCAM
solar system and others formed
and evolved over time. According
to Marino, “Eta Corvi is kind of
the tip of the iceberg.”
Nola Taylor Redd is a freelance
science writer and frequent
contributor to Astronomy.
WWW. ASTRONOMY.COM 55
 RR Lyrae variables
allow precise distance
measurements, reveal
the history of the
regions they populate,
and trace how galaxies
are structured.
BY ATA SARAJEDINI

arth is fortunate to be orbiting a

star that is fairly constant in its
light production. The amount
of light energy reaching Earth
from the Sun has varied by much
less than 1 percent over the past few
hundred years.
Our star is stable because the balance
between the inward force of gravity and
the outward force exerted by the hot gas
in its interior allows it to maintain a con-
stant radius and thus a constant luminos-
ity. But this will not always be the case.
The Sun is a typical main sequence star
fusing hydrogen into helium in its core. In
about 5 billion years, when it runs out of
hydrogen in its core, the Sun will evolve
into a red giant, and soon after, it will
enter the “horizontal branch” chapter
of its life. In this phase, it will shine by
combining three helium nuclei to produce
one carbon nucleus at temperatures of
100 million kelvins in its central regions.
During its life in the horizontal branch
phase, the Sun may experience an imbal-
ance between the outward flow of energy
and the force of gravity trying to hold it
together. When this happens, our star will
become unstable and begin to pulsate, its
radius increasing and decreasing by as
much as 20 percent over a period between
12 and 24 hours. As it experiences this

This infrared view of the Milky Way’s crowded

center was taken as part of the European Southern
Observatory’s VISTA Variables in the Via Lactea
Survey. Images such as this have revealed numerous
RR Lyrae stars in our galaxy’s bulge, hinting that it is
old and may have been built up as primordial star
clusters merged together over time. ESO/VVV SURVEY/D. MINNITI

56 ASTRONOMY • JULY 2020

WWW. ASTRONOMY.COM 57

M33 is the second-closest spiral galaxy to our own. Observations of RR Lyrae stars in this galaxy
have allowed astronomers to decipher clues about its structure, including where the majority of its
dust resides. ESO
change, the Sun’s light will vary by
as much as four times between its faint-
est and brightest points. It will become
a type of variable known as an RR
Lyrae star.
RR Lyrae stars
Named after the prototype of the
group — RR Lyrae, a variable star in
the constellation Lyra the Harp — these
pulsating variables are common in the
night sky and are favorite targets of
amateur astronomers such as those in
the American Association of Variable
Star Observers. RR Lyraes are impor-
tant to professional astronomers as well,
because they serve as the lynchpin for
galactic structure studies, revealing
important clues about the regions in
which they are found.
RR Lyrae stars are grouped into two
classes based on the shapes of their
light curves. A light curve shows the
change in the star’s brightness over
time and measures the period, ampli-
tude, and shape of the variation. The
period is how long it takes the RR
Lyrae to undergo one complete cycle,
and the amplitude is the amount of
brightening that the star exhibits.
RRab variables are the most common
and exhibit sawtooth-shaped light
curves, while RRc variables have
shorter periods and roughly sinusoidal
light curves. The RRab-type variables
can help astronomers decipher many
of the properties of galaxies and, as
such, researchers such as myself refer
to them as the Swiss Army knives
of astronomy.
What RR Lyraes reveal
The most basic property of a stellar pop-
ulation, such as a star cluster or a galaxy,
is its distance. RR Lyrae variables are
standard candles — objects for which
their intrinsic brightness is known, so
that a comparison with their observed
apparent brightness allows astronomers
to calculate their distance. Thus, these
stars can be used to map out the regions
of our galaxy in which they reside.
Another important property of stel-
lar populations is age, or how long ago
the stars in a galaxy or star cluster
formed. RR Lyrae variables “shine” here
as well. In order to become an RR Lyrae
variable, a star must evolve beyond the
main sequence and onto the horizontal
branch. Thus, these stars are advanced
in age. As it turns out, only stars older
than about 10 billion years can become
RR Lyrae variables. If we find such a
star in a particular galaxy or globular
cluster, then that object must be at least
10 billion years old. Since the universe
is about 13.8 billion years old, this
implies that the globular clusters and
galaxies that contain RR Lyrae variables
were formed relatively soon after the
Big Bang that created the universe itself.
Along with their distances and ages,
globular clusters and galaxies are also
characterized by the metal content of
their stars. (In astronomy, “metals” are
all elements heavier than helium.) The
Big Bang produced mostly hydrogen
and helium, along with a negligible
fraction of metals. The vast majority of
metals in the universe today — and,
thus, all of the elements that make up
the everyday objects we encounter on
Earth — were synthesized in stars.

There are two major classes of RR Lyrae stars, based on the shape of their light curve, which
RR LYRAE LIGHT CURVES measures a star’s brightness over time: RRab- (left, middle) and RRc-type stars. ASTRONOMY: ROEN KELLY

14.8 14.8 14.8

RRa RRb RRc
15.0 15.0 15.0
Magnitude

Magnitude

Magnitude

15.2 15.2 15.2

15.4 15.4 15.4

15.6 15.6 15.6

15.8 15.8 15.8

0.5 1.0 1.5 0.5 1.0 1.5 0.5 1.0 1.5
Phase Phase Phase

58 ASTRONOMY • JULY 2020

WHAT IS THE 30,000
Effective temperature (kelvins)
10,000 7,000 6,000 4,000
-10
HORIZONTAL BRANCH? -8
SUPERGIANTS

Astronomers use a tool call the Because RR Lyraes are moving

-6

ip
Hertzsprung-Russell (HR) diagram across the horizontal branch, they

str
to easily characterize stars. The HR can be used as standard candles.

ity
-4

bil
diagram plots a star’s temperature This is because their luminosity RR Lyrae

sta
and luminosity, or brightness. (brightness) remains constant in -2 variables

In
h
Where a star falls on the HR dia- this phase of their lifetime, even as anc

Absolute magnitude
0 Horizontal br
gram can tell researchers how far their temperature changes.
GIANTS Helium

along the star is in its life cycle, as
the temperature and brightness of
a star change as it evolves.
Stars located on the main
sequence part of the diagram, like
our Sun, are fusing hydrogen into
helium. After a star exhausts the
hydrogen in its core and becomes a
Brighter
Furthermore, as stars move 2 burning
through the horizontal branch, they MA
IN ignites
SEQ
may cross a region astronomers call 4 UE
NC
the instability strip. While in this E
6 Sun
region, which is associated with
specific properties, stars can 8
become unstable and pulsate as
variables, such as RR Lyrae stars. 10

W
HI
red giant, it begins fusing hydrogen Although their brightness cycles

in a spherical shell just outside the
core. It also moves onto the giant
branch of the HR diagram. Next,
helium fusion ignites in the core, as
the star fuses helium into carbon.
This process causes the star’s tem-
perature to increase, while its radius
decreases; as a result, its luminosity,
or brightness, remains the same.
This causes the star to move hori-
zontally on the diagram, creating
the horizontal branch.
TE
D
during each pulsation, RR Lyraes 12 W
AR
exhibit a period-luminosity relation- FS
14
ship, where the time it takes to com-
plete one full cycle of dimming and
brightening is related to the star’s O B A F G K M
intrinsic brightness. By measuring Hotter
the period of an RR Lyrae’s bright-
ness changes, astronomers can When helium fusion ignites in a star’s core, its temperature increases
but its brightness remains constant and it moves horizontally in the
infer how bright it is, allowing them HR diagram, creating the horizontal branch. The black line shows the
to calculate the distance to that star path a star with slightly less mass than the Sun will take as it evolves,
based on how bright it appears. moving across the horizontal branch and into the instability strip,
— Alison Klesman becoming an RR Lyrae star for a time. ASTRONOMY: ROEN KELLY

Each generation of stars produces metals;

upon reaching the end of its life, each
star distributes those metals through the
interstellar medium, where the enriched
gas is used as raw material to make more
stars. As a result, each successive genera-
tion of stars has more metals than the
previous generation. This is known as
chemical enrichment.
The Sun, which was born roughly
5 billion years ago, has a metal content of
2 percent. That is to say, the mass of the
Sun is composed of 70 percent hydrogen,
28 percent helium, and 2 percent all of
the other elements. So, elements that are
major constituents of Earth, such as car-
bon, nitrogen, oxygen, iron, and calcium,
make up only 2 percent of the Sun’s com-
position by mass. Within the range of
measured metal abundances of most
stars, the Sun is relatively metal rich.
The chemical enrichment history of
a stellar population is related to its age,
but not always in an expected and pre-
dictable manner. For example, one of
the most perplexing aspects of open star
clusters in the Milky Way is that there is M3 is an 8-billion-year-old globular cluster in our galaxy. The cluster, arguably one of the Milky Way’s most
no apparent correlation between their beautiful, contains more than 270 variable stars, of which at least 170 are RR Lyraes. ESA/HUBBLE & NASA, G. PIOTTO ET AL.

WWW. ASTRONOMY.COM 59
 Here, too, RR Lyrae variables show
their promise by providing a means by
which to measure the amount of extinc-
tion and reddening along the line of
sight. Observations of nearby ab-type
RR Lyrae variables — the ones with the
sawtooth-shaped light curves — that
present zero or negligible reddening
show they all have the same color at the
faintest part of their light curve, also
known as minimum light. Therefore,
the intrinsic minimum-light color of
these variable stars is constant regard-
less of their other properties. This
means that we can compare the
observed minimum-light color of an
ab-type variable to what we know it
should be in the absence of dust and
calculate the amount of reddening
along the line of sight to the RR Lyrae.
From that knowledge, we therefore get
the amount reddening to the star clus-
ter or galaxy that hosts the star.

Beyond the Milky Way

Not only are RR Lyrae variables the
This jam-packed Hubble Space Telescope image shows a portion of the Andromeda Galaxy’s stellar Swiss Army knives of astronomy in
stream — a structure made of stars that astronomers believe came from a past companion galaxy that galactic studies, they are also appli-
has since been torn apart by the larger Andromeda’s gravity. Observations of this stream, which harbors
RR Lyrae variables, have helped researchers characterize the ages and origins of the stars that make up
cable to extragalactic environments.
Andromeda today. NASA, ESA AND T.M. BROWN (STSCI) With the high-resolution imaging
capabilities of the Hubble Space
ages and metal abundances. This Lyrae variables — as metal-rich as the Telescope (HST), it is routinely pos-
means younger open clusters don’t Sun — are not uncommon in the Milky sible to identify and characterize RR
necessarily have more metals than Way, presenting an especially puzzling Lyrae stars in galaxies well beyond
older ones. The reason for this is not scenario to researchers working to the Milky Way. A good example that
immediately clear. Nevertheless, the understand their origins. illustrates the broad applicability of RR
metal abundance of a star cluster or Lyrae variables is my own work using
galaxy is an important clue that helps Lifting the veil HST observations of these stars in the
us to piece together its formation and I want to highlight one more way in nearby late-type spiral galaxy M33,
evolutionary chronology. which these stars help astronomers bet- also known as the great spiral galaxy
RR Lyrae variables are also a power- ter understand the universe. To appreci- in Triangulum. This system is located
ful tool for measuring the metal content ate this aspect of RR Lyrae stars, it is at a distance of 2.8 million light-years
of stellar populations. As it turns out, important to realize that the dust in and we think it is a satellite of the
the periods and amplitudes of these interstellar space acts like an absorbing Andromeda Galaxy (M31), which is
stars can be used to determine their curtain that limits our ability to study 2.5 million light-years distant.
metal abundances, and thus infer the certain parts of the galaxy and in some M33 is seen nearly face-on in the
metal content of their host stellar sys- directions of the sky. This dust makes sky. Prior to HST, ground-based obser-
tems. In general, the shorter the period background starlight fainter and redder. vations using the Palomar 5.1-meter
of an RR Lyrae variable, the more We use the term extinction to refer to telescope and early-generation CCD
metal-rich it is. Given that a stellar pop- the former and reddening for the latter. detectors in 1985 were able to show
ulation must be ancient to produce an Researchers also call reddening “color that M33 contains RR Lyrae stars, but
RR Lyrae star, it stands to reason that excess”; it is calculated by comparing had a difficult time measuring their
most, if not all, RR Lyraes are relatively the observed color of an object (through properties such as their periods and
deficient in metals. That is to say, their dust) to its intrinsic color in the absence amplitudes of variation. HST’s superior
progenitors were formed early in the of dust. Dust extinction and reddening high-resolution imaging capabilities
history of the universe when the overall are often the most challenging obstacles have allowed us to not only identify
metal content of galaxies was compara- to our ability to study objects in the gal- these stars in M33, but also to precisely
tively low. However, metal-rich RR axy and located outside of it. measure their properties.

60 ASTRONOMY • JULY 2020

 The discovery of RR Lyrae stars in
M33 yielded the first evidence that
this galaxy contains a population as
old as the ones in the Milky Way and
Andromeda. As described above, the fact
that RR Lyrae variables are in the hori-
zontal branch phase of evolution means
that they are older than about 10 billion
years. Therefore, soon after the Big Bang,
all three of the spiral galaxies in our local
galactic neighborhood began forming
stars at about the same time, within
1 billion years of one another.
The observations of M33 also show
that its RR Lyrae stars fall into two dis-
tinct reddening regimes. One set exhibits
low reddening consistent with being
affected solely by dust in the Milky Way
Galaxy. The other set is fainter and red-
der, apparently affected by an additional
The Draco dwarf spheroidal galaxy is a small companion of the Milky Way. Astronomers have used variable
source of reddening and extinction. At stars, including RR Lyraes, to accurately measure its distance and decipher its star formation history. GIUSEPPE
first, the presence of an additional layer DONATIELLO USING SDSS/PANSTARRS DATA

of dust in the direction of these RR Lyrae

stars presents an intriguing puzzle. But a abundance, are similar. This is the first construction in the Chilean Andes, the
glance at M33 itself reveals the possibility time we have isolated stellar populations 8.4-meter Simonyi Survey Telescope
that we may be viewing these stars in distinct line-of-sight components in a at the Vera C. Rubin Observatory (for-
through the spiral arms of M33 and on galaxy that is so far away. merly called the Large Synoptic Survey
the other side of the galaxy. The stars Telescope) will map the entire southern
with low reddening are located on the The future of RR Lyraes sky every few nights. As it does, the
near side of M33, while those with high RR Lyrae stars have taught us much telescope will observe close to 1 million
reddening are on the far side. Yet, besides about our galaxy and even those nearby, RR Lyrae stars in the Milky Way.
their reddening, all of their other proper- but their contribution to astronomy These RR Lyrae stars and the infor-
ties, such as period, amplitude, and metal is far from complete. Currently under mation on age, metal abundance, and
reddening that they yield will revolution-
ize the field of galactic archeology. This
field endeavors to understand the struc-
Age THE SWISS ture, formation, and evolution of the
10
billion
years
ARMY Milky Way — our galactic home. And
tion tracers old KNIVES OF the distances inferred for every single
Old-popula
one of these stars will provide a struc-
ASTRONOMY tural map of the Milky Way, allowing us
RR RR Lyrae stars can to visualize it in three dimensions.
Chemistry
Metallic be considered the With the power of the Rubin
 ity Swiss Army knives of
 ors Observatory, particularly over time, the
 indicat astronomy. These stars
 provide astronomers reach of new RR Lyrae research will also
with invaluable details

about the places in
extend out into the Local Group. The

 which they are found, growing pool of RR Lyrae stars will

Distance including distance, allow astronomers to bring to bear this
 s chemistry, history, and
 ndle versatile tool on our efforts to better
ca even the amount of
rd
 nda obscuring material understand the formation and evolution
Sta between Earth and

the target region.
of our larger galactic neighborhood.
ASTRONOMY: ROEN KELLY
Red Dust Ata Sarajedini is dean of the Charles
d eni
ng E. Schmidt College of Science at Florida
est
ima
tes Atlantic University in Boca Raton, Florida.
In addition to his research on stellar
populations in Local Group galaxies, he
is an avid model railroading enthusiast.

WWW. ASTRONOMY.COM 61
 SECRET SK Y
Is T CrB rising?
In the next few years, we may witness a stellar outburst.
Corona Borealis
the Northern Crown
(left) is a small The extraordinary dimming of Betelgeuse
constellation in the (Alpha [α] Orionis) that began in October
spring northern sky. 2019 captured the attention of astronomers
To find it, look about
20° northeast of worldwide. The star’s dip was a golden moment for
brilliant Arcturus Edward Guinan and colleagues at Villanova University,
(Alpha Boötis). The who have been monitoring the star for the past 25 years.
photo illustration to
the right shows how They were the first to report its recent dimming.
T CrB may appear Betelgeuse’s brightness varies on three known cycles:
in outburst. STEPHEN one between 100 to 180 days, one about every 425 days,
JAMES O’MEARA
and one about every 5.9 years. “The current faintness
of Betelgeuse appears to arise from the coincidence of
the star being near the minimum light of the 5.9-[year]
light-cycle as well as near the deeper than usual mini-
mum of the 425-[day] period,” Guinan announced in
an International Astronomical Union Circular on
December 23, 2019.
We live in a time when predicting events like the
eruption of recurrent novae — ordinary novae that have
multiple eruptions — are becoming ever-more familiar.
Take, for example, how Louisiana State University
astronomer Bradley Schaefer predicted the 2010 erup-
tion of the recurrent nova U Scorpii and the 2014 erup-
tion of the recurrent nova V745 Sco.
A bit of history
Now that Orion has left the evening sky, it’s a perfect
time to start keeping an eye on yet another stellar won-
BY STEPHEN der: recurrent nova T Coronae Borealis (T CrB).
JAMES O’MEARA Popularly known as the Blaze Star, it may erupt in
Stephen is a globe-
brightness any time in the near future.
trotting observer who
is always looking Originally recorded as a magnitude 9.5 star in the
for the next great Bonner Durchmusterung (1859–62), T CrB made history
celestial event. on May 12, 1866. That night, Irish astronomer John
62 ASTRONOMY • JULY 2020
Birmingham was on a road near his hometown in
Tuam, Galway County, when he noticed a nova in
Corona Borealis (T CrB) “at least equal to Alphecca
(Alpha CrB) and decidedly more brilliant.”
Birmingham reported his observation to W.T. Lynn
of the Royal Observatory Greenwich. Julius Schmidt,
director of the National Observatory of Athens, inde-
pendently discovered T CrB’s outburst the following
night, writing to Lynn that he had surveyed Corona
Borealis four hours prior to Birmingham’s discovery
and did not notice a change to the constellation. Lynn
concluded, therefore, that the star must have risen from
beyond naked-eye visibility to 2nd magnitude, “either
suddenly or with great rapidity,” in about four hours.
Birmingham added that the star’s color was “nearly
white with a bluish tinge,” though others reported see-
ing warmer hues. For instance, on May 18, 1866, F. Bird
of Birmingham, England, said that through apertures
up to 12 inches and powers up to 400x, the star appeared
“decidedly yellow, inclining toward red.”
T CrB dropped to 10th magnitude in only a few days.
This behavior was repeated during its next outburst
when it achieved roughly magnitude 3 on February 9,
1946. So, the next few years may prove important for
T CrB, which is again showing signs of unrest.
An upcoming event?
T CrB is a binary star system comprising a red giant
with a close white dwarf companion. Gas from the giant
star spills onto the white dwarf until a runaway ther-
monuclear explosion occurs on the dwarf star’s surface,
which we see as a novalike outburst.
The American Association of Variable Star Observers
(AAVSO) data show that T CrB’s minimum brightness
plateaued between April 2011 and February 2015. It
then entered an active state, including fluctuations in
its minimum brightness of up to a magnitude.
In July 2019, Schaefer related by private communica-
tion that T CrB was then “in the middle of its decade-
long pre-eruption plateau, with this being a weird and
very high energy event.” Specifically, he says, the star’s
“continuum has gone very blue and very high excitation
lines are popping in and changing fast. Any such long-
term pre-eruption plateau is ‘impossible.’  The identical
pre-eruption rise happened back in 1936–1946. So I am
predicting that T CrB will have its third known erup-
tion in the year 2023.6 +/-1.0.”
So, keep your eyes on this star. Familiarize yourself
with this constellation and watch for an aberration in
its shape. Or head to the AAVSO’s website for a chart to
monitor the star telescopically. As always, let me know
what you see or don’t see at sjomeara31@gmail.com.
BROWSE THE “SECRET SKY” ARCHIVE AT
www.Astronomy.com/OMeara
 An $80 Value,
Yours For $49.95

from the makers of

Explore the wonders of the universe from the comforts of your own
home with Space & Beyond Box. Our team of astronomy experts will
keep you connected with the latest products, trends and topics. Get
premium products and expertly curated themes, delivered 4x per year.

GIFT THE GALAXY

Give the gift of exploration with a Space & Beyond Box gift
subscription! It’s the perfect surprise delivered directly to their door.

FREE SHIPPING!
SpaceandBeyondBox.com/LearnMore
Connect with us:
#BeyondTheBox
 F O R Y O U R C O N S I D E R AT I O N

The coolest cat Bohr’s interpretation is powerful in a shut-up-and-

calculate way, but it is also a shell game. Bohr knew in

on the web
his gut what reality was supposed to look like, and
funny mixed-state wave functions weren’t it. To force
the theory into the mold of his preconceptions, Bohr
posited ill-defined “observers” that somehow stand
Quantum entanglement: Coming soon to a cellphone near you. apart from physical systems, then used them to arbi-
trarily collapse wave functions into the kind of classical
The other day, a friend reality his gut demanded.
showed me what has to be the Bohr’s sleight of hand did not go completely unno-
coolest thing on the internet. ticed. Eventually, a Princeton University graduate
It’s an app that turns you into a human student named Hugh Everett III had the temerity to call
version of Schrödinger’s cat (minus the foul. Everett threw out Bohr’s assumptions about what
whole dead-in-a-box thing, of course). it means to be “real,” stripped observers of their special
You read Astronomy magazine, so status, added them back into the wave function with
you know the basics. A cat is sealed in a everything else, then let the machinery of quantum
box, along with a Geiger counter and a mechanics do its thing.
radioactive source with a half-life of Amazingly, the wave functions naturally split into
one hour. The Geiger counter is rigged multiple isolated, noninteracting components, each
so that if it registers a single radioactive corresponding to a different classical outcome. The
The Universe Splitter decay, it will break a vial of deadly entire wave function remained, but you wouldn’t know
app lets you explore hydrocyanic acid. Bye-bye, kitty. it from the inside. Applied to Schrödinger’s cat, the
different quantum Schrödinger probably needed therapy. live-cat-happy-observer component of the wave func-
states. UNIVERSE SPLITTER
Anyway, in quantum mechanics (which, having tion and the dead-cat-sad-observer component of the
never made an incorrect prediction, is the crème de la wave function cannot interact after they split.
crème of theories), physical systems are described by Everett’s 1956 Ph.D. thesis, “The Theory of the
wave functions. Those wave functions con- Universal Wave Function,” kicked off what
tain all of the information there is about the is now called the Many Worlds Interpretation
system, a nd evolve accord ing to How does it of quantum mechanics. At first, Everett’s
Schrödinger’s Equation. In the case of feel to be the heresy wasn’t taken very seriously, but some
Schrödinger’s cat, after an hour, the wave real-life star ideas have to await their time. As experi-
function of the stuff in the box is an equal ments have slammed the door on more and
mix of two quantum states. One state cor- of one of the more of its alternatives, Many Worlds has
responds to no radioactive decay and a very most famous moved squarely into the mainstream.
lucky cat, while in the other the cat doesn’t and mind- Which brings me back to the coolest
have to worry about it anymore. bending thing on the internet. Check out the smart-
Living/dead quantum cats aren’t the phone app called Universe Splitter. The app
worst of it. “What about the observer?” you
thought asks you to let it choose between two
might ask. “She is also part of the physical experiments courses of action you might take. Hit “go”
system. Shouldn’t the wave function ever? and Universe Splitter contacts a machine
describing her also be a mixture of live-cat that automatically generates a single photon
and dead-cat states?” in a mixture of two quantum states; “mea-
Bingo! Here’s where Schrödinger throws up his sures” the photon, finding it in one state or the other;
hands and declares, “I don’t like it and I’m sorry I ever then tells you what to do. Of course, while you are doing
had anything to do with it!” one thing, the version of you in the other branch of the
In 1920, one of the early pioneers of quantum newly split universal wave function is doing the other.
mechanics, Niels Bohr, confronted the same basic prob- Like Schrödinger’s cat, your macroscopic reality is
lem. In Bohr’s view, a quantum system in a mixed state now and forever entangled with the mixed state of a
isn’t quite real until it is measured by an observer, at single quantum particle. How does it feel to be the real-
which point the wave function collapses unpredictably life star of one of the most famous and mind-bending
BY JEFF HESTER into a single one of the allowed classical states. It’s thought experiments ever?
Jeff is a keynote
meaningless to even talk about the state of the cat until Meow.
speaker, coach,
and astrophysicist. the observer opens the box. This is the “Copenhagen
Follow his thoughts Interpretation” that became physics orthodoxy for most BROWSE THE “FOR YOUR CONSIDERATION”
at jeff-hester.com of the 20th century. ARCHIVE AT www.Astronomy.com/Hester

64 ASTRONOMY • JULY 2020

 MARKETPLACE
INDEX of A new take on our
Build Your Own assumptions of
ADVERTISERS Custom Astronomical Adapter
the Universe.
www.preciseparts.com
ADM Accessories . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 65 Our Universe: An Alternate View
Authored by Damon Farris.
+1 305 253-5707
info@preciseparts.com
Available for purchase on Amazon
Astro Haven . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 65

Astro-Physics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6
$
50
Astronomy Binders . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15

Astronomy Books. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3 ADM ACCESSORIES

www.admaccessories.com

Bob's Knobs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 65

Keeping it “Beautifully” Simple

Celestron. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 76 Almost Zero Replacement... Robust quality for a Professional life cycle
Almost Zero Anxiety... The Astro Haven team is behind every product

Complete Star Atlas . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 75

Cosmos Special Issue . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 69

Damon Farris . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 65

iOptron . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15

domesales@astrohaven.com
Oberwerk . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 65 949.215.3777 www.astrohaven.com

Omegon . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2
Optic Wave Laboratories . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 65
Galaxy, Black Hole and
Pumping Hole (new name)
Only new understandings (discoveries) about the
galaxy, black hole and pumping hole have been stated
below. These are based on newly understood (discov-
ered) materialistic particle properties of the rays.
If Discoverer Ramesh Varma (India) had been academ-
Optical Structures . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6 LF TXDOL¿HG 3K' VFLHQWLVW QRW FLWL]HQ VFLHQWLVW GLVFRYHU\ FODLP
LQVWHDG RI EHLQJ DQ DGYHUWLVHPHQW ZRXOG KDYH DSSHDUHG LQ
DOO 6FLHQFH -RXUQDOV DV SXEOLFDWLRQ UHVXOWLQJ WR PDNH LW YL-
UDO DPRQJ WKH FRQFHUQHG 0RGH RI QHZ GLVFRYHU\ LQIRUPD-
Precise Parts. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 65
Rainbow Symphony . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 65
WLRQ VHW E\ WKH $FDGHPLF :RUOG LV D FXUVH RQ WKH PDQNLQG
 6FLHQWLVWV KDYH QRW \HW FRUUHFWO\ XQGHUVWRRG IRUPDWLRQ DQG ZRUN-
LQJ PHFKDQLVP RI WKH VRODU V\VWHP WKHQ KRZ FDQ WKH\ XQGHUVWDQG
FRUUHFWO\ IRUPDWLRQ DQG ZRUNLQJ PHFKDQLVP RI WKH FHOHVWLDO ERGLHV
ZKLFKDUHWKRXVDQGVRIOLJKW\HDUVDZD\IURPXV'LVFRYHU\FODLPHU
5DPHVK 9DUPD KDV DOUHDG\ FKDOOHQJHG WKH :RUOG WR SURYH KLV GLV-
FRYHU\FODLPZURQJRYHUZRUNLQJPHFKDQLVPRIVRODUV\VWHPEDVHG
Revolution Imager. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15
Scope Buggy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15
RYHUXQGHUVWRRGPDWHULDOLVWLFSDUWLFOHSURSHUWLHVRIWKHUD\V,QFDVH
WKH\FDQQRWSURYHLWZURQJWKHQWKH\PXVWDFFHSWWKHGLVFRYHU\FODLP
Galaxy:5RWDWLRQRIWKHJDOD[\LVQRWGXHWRDQ\DQJXODUPRPHQ-
WXPEXWLWLVGXHWRWKHPDWHULDOLVWLFVSKHULFDOSDUWLFOHVFXUYHGUD\VRI
WKHFOXVWHURIPDVVLYHVWDUVDORQJZLWKWKHLUVWDU¶VHMHFWVZKLFKIRUP
WKHJDODFWLFEDU,QYLVLEOHPDWWHUQRWLFHGE\WKHVFLHQWLVWVLQDJDOD[\
LV QRW GDUN PDWWHU EXW LW LV ZKLWH PDWWHU LQ WKH IRUP RI PDWHULDOLVWLF
SDUWLFOHV UD\V DQG RWKHU VWDUHMHFWV JHQHUDWHG DQG UHOHDVHG E\ WKH
VWDUV DQG RWKHU FHOHVWLDO ERGLHV RI WKH JDOD[\ E\ ORVLQJ WKHLU PDVV
Black hole: 0D[LPXP PDVV D EODFN KROH FDQ KDYH GHSHQGV
XSRQ WKH SUHVVXUH RI WKH ZKLWH PDWWHU RYHU LW $ EODFN KROH NHHSV
RQ JDLQLQJ PDVV IURP WKH VXUURXQGLQJ VSDFH ZKHUHDV SUHVVXUH
RYHU LW E\ WKH ZKLWH PDWWHU ZKLFK VXUURXQGV LW NHHSV RQ GHFUHDV-
LQJ GXH WR WKH RXWZDUG H[SDQVLRQ RI WKH 8QLYHUVH %RWK WKH VWDWHG
IDFWRUV FUHDWH D FOLPD[ FULWLFDO VWDJH ZKHQ D EODFN KROH H[SORGHV
Space & Beyond Box. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 63  )RUPDWLRQ RI RQH ELJJHU EODFN KROH E\ PHUJLQJ RI WZR QHDUE\
EODFN KROHV LQFUHDVHV LWV JUDYLW\ RU VXFNLQJ SRZHU WR VXFN WKH VXU-
Technical Innovations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 65
True Astronomy and Sciences. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 65
URXQGLQJ PDWWHU RU ZKLWH PDWWHU 7KLV SKHQRPHQRQ FUHDWHV UDU- HOME-DOME AND PRO-DOME
HIDFWLRQ VKHOO LQ WKH ZKLWH PDWWHU PHGLXP RYHU WKH QHZO\ IRUPHG
ELJJHU EODFN KROH UHVXOWLQJ WR WULJJHU IRUPDWLRQ RI FRPSUHVVLRQV
DQG UDUHIDFWLRQV LQ WKH VSDFH RFFXSLHG E\ WKH ZKLWH PDWWHU 7KLV LV
OBSERVATORIES
VLPLODU WR FRPSUHVVLRQV DQG UDUHIDFWLRQV FUHDWHG LQ WKH DLU PHGLXP
E\ WKH LPSDFW DQG FROOLVLRQ EHWZHHQ WKH WZR REMHFWV 5HFHQWO\ VFL-
HQWLVWV KDYH FODLPHG WKDW WKH\ KDYH GHWHFWHG JUDYLWDWLRQDO ZDYHV
FUHDWHG E\ WKH PHUJLQJ RI WZR EODFN KROHV ,Q IDFW WKHVH DUH FRP-
SUHVVLRQV DQG UDUHIDFWLRQV DQG QRW JUDYLWDWLRQDO ZDYHV 6FLHQWLVWV
ZKLOH VKRZLQJ PHUJLQJ RI WZR EODFN KROHV LQ WKHLU DUWLVWLF FUHDWLRQ
VKRZ WKHLU URWDWLRQ GLUHFWLRQ LQ WKH RSSRVLWH ZKHUHDV WZR QHDUE\
RU ELQDU\ EODFN KROHV FDQ QHYHU URWDWH LQ WKH RSSRVLWH GLUHFWLRQV
 <RXQJDFWLYHDQGPDVVLYHJDOD[\GRHVQRWKDYHVLQJOHRUWZLQELQDU\
EODFNKROHVDWLWVFHQWUH7KHEODFNKROHVXQGHUVWRRGE\WKHVFLHQWLVWV
TravelQuest International . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 67
True Astronomy and Sciences. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 65
The Advertiser Index is provided as a service to Astronomy
magazine readers. The magazine is not responsible for
omissions or for typographical errors in names or
DUHLQIDFWWKHSXPSLQJKROHVKDYLQJVLPLODUIHDWXUHVWRWKHEODFNKROH
Pumping hole: <RXQJ PDVVLYH DQG DFWLYH JDOD[\ KDV SXPS-
LQJ KROH DW LWV FHQWUH FUHDWHG E\ WKH FOXVWHU RI PDVVLYH VWDUV E\
SXPSLQJ WKHLU RXWJRLQJ PDWHULDOLVWLF SDUWLFOHV FXUYHG UD\V DORQJ
ZLWK RWKHU HMHFWV ,Q D JDOD[\ WZLQ SXPSLQJ KROHV FDQ VWLOO H[-
LVW FORVH WR HDFK RWKHU GXH WR WKHLU UHSXOVLRQ FDXVHG E\ WKHLU
PDWHULDOLVWLF SDUWLFOHV FXUYHG UD\V EXW ELQDU\ EODFN KROHV FDQ
QHYHU H[LVW FORVH WR HDFK RWKHU GXH WR WKHLU PXWXDO DWWUDFWLRQ
3K\VLFDOIHDWXUHVQRWLFHGRIWKHGHQVHSXPSLQJKROHDQGWKDWRIWKH
EODFNKROHZLOODSSHDUDOPRVWWKHVDPH%ODFNKROHGHYHORSVE\LWVRZQ
JUDYLW\GXHWRVXFNLQJDWWUDFWLRQRIVSDFHPDWWHUIURPWKHVXUURXQGLQJ
ZKHUHDVSXPSLQJKROHLVFUHDWHGDWWKHFHQWUHE\WKHFOXVWHURIPDV-
VLYHVWDUVE\SXPSLQJWKHLUJHQHUDWHGZKLWHPDWWHU%RWKSXPSLQJDQG
page numbers. EODFNKROHHMHFWMHWVIURPWKHLUSROHVEXWHMHFWHGZKLWHPDWWHUGLIIHUV
 5HDG LQ GHWDLO WKH GLVFRYHU\ FODLP µ0$7(5,$/,6-
7,& 81,9(56(¶ RQ ZHEVLWH www.newtonugeam.com
Phone: 407-601-1975 • www.homedome.com

WWW. ASTRONOMY.COM 65
 OBSERVING BASICS

Summertime At the other end of the telescope, your own body mois-
ture can fog your lens as you peer into the eyepiece.

observing
The good news is that a hazy evening is often accom-
panied by steady seeing conditions. Jupiter and Saturn
both reach opposition this month, so look for planetary
details you might not be able to capture on a turbulent,
Combat shorter nights, hazy skies, and irritating insects. cool-weather night. And though faint galaxies and
nebulae may be off the menu, double stars and bright
One of the all-time star clusters are a worthy alternative.
classic summer-themed When it comes to the fogging of optical surfaces,
hits is the 1902 song “In reflecting telescopes are the least susceptible. Nestled
the Good Old Summertime,” inside the tube assembly, the primary and secondary
written by George Evans (music) mirrors are reasonably immune to condensation. The
and Ren Shields (lyrics). I don’t front-end objectives of refractors and catadioptrics
know much about either song- can be protected with the use of a dew shield. If your
writer, but I can make the follow- scope doesn’t have one, or if the existing one isn’t
ing statement with the utmost doing the job, make your own from a sheet of flexible
confidence: Neither was an black foam board purchased from a local craft shop.
amateur astronomer. Not only does a dew shield limit lens fogging, it also
Summertime astronomy for reduces the amount of stray light entering the tube. If,
Northern Hemisphere observers, despite your best efforts, your eyepiece still fogs up,
especially those who live in fan it vigorously with your hand to evaporate the dew.
higher latitudes, is nothing less Ditto with the telescope’s finder. If an electric outlet
than a nightmare. We suffer from is handy, you can even use a hairdryer dialed to its
three seasonal ills: god-awfully lowest heat setting.
late sunsets, god-awfully hazy Then there are the bugs. Not only are they a nuisance,
and humid weather, and god- but we also must be vigilant against mosquito-borne
awfully annoying mosquitoes. illnesses like West Nile virus, Zika virus, and eastern
The author’s summer What can we do to combat equine encephalitis (or EEE). The assault isn’t just from
observing setup relies
on a dew shield and these summertime maladies? We’re pretty much at the the air, either. We also must deal with ground attacks
a hairdryer to deal mercy of late summer sunsets. In mid-northern lati- from ticks, which can lead to diseases like Lyme disease
with the fogging of tudes, July sunsets don’t happen until after and Rocky Mountain spotted fever.
optical surfaces, as
well as bug spray to 8 p.m. local time. And the onset of true dark- There are several ways to handle the
combat mosquitoes ness — the end of astronomical twilight — What can insect problem. Avoid observing from areas
and other biting
insects. GLENN CHAPLE
occurs after 10 p.m. local time. If you need we do to frequented by nighttime biting insects. And
to get up early for work the next morning, before going outside, spray insect repellent
observing this late is impractical. And even
combat (preferably containing DEET) on all exposed
if you don’t have to work at first light, late- these skin and thin clothing. Unless the heat is
night lethargy still usually trumps any summertime unbearable, also wear a long-sleeved shirt
enthusiasm you might have had for a back- maladies? and full-length slacks or jeans. Then, once
yard astronomy session. back indoors, undress and thoroughly check
If a must-see happening like an occulta- yourself for ticks.
tion is in the offing, you can always head to bed early The good news is that the days begin to shorten dur-
and set your alarm to wake you when it’s time to go ing July. Cool, dry air from the polar regions will begin
outside. Or, for casual observing, limit your summer to push away the summer murk and drive mosquitoes
evening outings to an hour or so after it gets dark. That and other biting insects into hibernation. Before you
way, you can still be in bed by midnight. know it, you’ll be trudging with your telescope through
But this isn’t a perfect solution. Even if you’re able to knee-deep snow while enduring frostbite-inducing cold
muster the energy to go outside, you’ll come face to face — and wishing it were summer.
BY GLENN CHAPLE with summertime haze and humidity. A hot summer Questions, comments, or suggestions? Email me at
Glenn has been an
day leads to a lot of evaporation, and the cooling night gchaple@hotmail.com. In the next two columns:
avid observer since
a friend showed air causes that water vapor to condense. That means Women in astronomy clubs. Clear skies!
him Saturn through hazy skies. Worse yet, humid air at ground level loves
a small backyard to condense on your telescope — particularly on the BROWSE THE “OBSERVING BASICS” ARCHIVE
scope in 1963. objective lenses of refractors and catadioptric scopes. AT www.Astronomy.com/Chaple

66 ASTRONOMY • JULY 2020

 Astronomy Magazine and TravelQuest International Present

Experience Totality in 2020

Don’t miss one of the biggest years in astronomy!

Wonders of Chile
Total Solar Eclipse
Tour
Dec. 6–15, 2020
Enjoy gazing at the spectacular
southern deep-sky, see the
ALMA Observatory, and enjoy
accommodations located directly
on the eclipse centerline.

Other Exciting Eclipse Tours...

South Pacific Cruise Argentina and Brazil

to Totality Total Solar Eclipse Tour
Dec. 5–19, 2020 Dec. 6–18, 2020
Enjoy 15 days aboard the M/S Luxuriate in three nights each in
Paul Gauguin discovering gems Rio de Janeiro, Iguazu Falls, and
like Fakarava, Bora Bora, and Buenos Aires.
Moorea.
P36881

For complete details and to book, go to: TravelQuestTours.com


BINOCULAR UNIVERSE
Riches of the
Scorpion
The region of Scorpius contains numerous breathtaking
binocular targets for amateur observers.
This month, we dive head-
first into the deep end of
the summer Milky Way by
visiting everyone’s favorite bad guy,
Scorpius the Scorpion. In one Greek
myth, the goddess of the hunt
Artemis and her mother, Leto, dis-
patch Scorpius to kill Orion after the
hunter brags that he could slay any
animal on Earth. Another version
puts the blame on Artemis’ twin
brother, the god Apollo. Either way,
the scorpion prevails. To memorial-
The globular cluster ize Orion and Scorpius, Zeus places
M4, located near the them in the sky directly opposite each another, so they
bright star Antares,
makes an appealing are never visible at the same time.
binocular target. Like Orion, Scorpius is also famous as the home to
GERALD RHEMANN
one of the largest stars visible to the naked eye. Antares
(Alpha [α] Scorpii) is a monster of a star, a spectral-type
M1.5 red supergiant. Compared to the Sun, its
outer edge would encompass the orbit of Mars.
Through binoculars, Antares looks like a Scorpius is between Sigma (σ) and Nu (ν) Scorpii in the
glimmering ruby surrounded by countless
grains of diamond dust. Depending on Earth’s home
atmospheric turbulence, Antares may look
more like a flashing kaleidoscope of colors. At largest stars lower-power binoculars. Discovered by
their most turbulent, those arrhythmic pulses visible to the Messier on a winter morning in January 1781,
can have an almost hypnotic effect.
After snapping out of the Antarian trance,
naked eye: M80
shift your attention just a degree to the star’s Antares.
west. There, you will find a hidden surprise:
a small puff of celestial cotton afloat amongst
the stars. That’s one of my favorite globular clusters:
M4, a colossus of some 100,000 stars.
M4 was discovered in 1746 by Swiss astronomer
Jean-Philippe Loys de Chéseaux. But, in a sort of “pub-
lish or perish,” no one else knew about it until French
astronomer Nicolas-Louis de Lacaille independently
found it and published an account six years later.
Charles Messier added it to his fledgling catalog in
1764, noting it as a “cluster of very small stars.” Indeed,
BY PHIL
M4 is the only globular among the 29 in his catalog that
HARRINGTON
Phil is a longtime he saw as anything more than a nebulous smudge.
contributor to At magnitude 5.8, M4 appears as bright as M13 in
Astronomy and the Hercules, even though it is not as large or as concen-
author of many books. trated. It appears so bright not because of its size or girth,
68 ASTRONOMY • JULY 2020
but rather its distance. M4 is the closest globular to our
solar system, about 5,600 light-years away. M13 is about
22,000 light-years away. M4 would appear even brighter
were it not for all of the intervening clouds of interstellar
dust between us and it, which muffle the view.
M4 is arguably the easiest globular in the sky to
locate, owing to its proximity to such a bright star. But
that can also make it a challenge to see through lower-
power binoculars for the same reason. Antares can be
distracting. If you have a problem seeing M4, move
Antares just off the eastern (likely the left) edge of the
field and try again. Once you spot it, you’ll wonder how
you ever missed it in the first place.
Through my 16x70s, M4 reveals a feature that is
unique among globulars: a bright central “bar.” In real-
ity, this bar is formed by a coincidental queue of
brighter-than-average stars. Some of those stars are
resolvable in 70mm and larger binoculars if you look
carefully using averted vision.
Those same giant binoculars just might show a sec-
ond, far fainter globular cluster that appears even closer
to Antares. NGC 6144 often goes unnoticed because of
its proximity to both the star and M4. Messier missed it
altogether, but it was finally noticed by William Herschel
in May 1784. Lying some 30,000 light-years away, NGC
6144 is also subdued by intervening clouds of dust. With
careful scrutiny, I’ve seen it through my 16x70s by first
moving the distracting glare of Antares out of the field.
Be aware that any interference from sky haziness, or dust
or dew on a lens, will render it invisible.
If NGC 6144 proves difficult, try a more accessible
Scorpion globular. M80 is fainter than M4, but far easier
than NGC 6144. To find it, scan 4.5° northwestward
through your binoculars from Antares to a
position just east of the halfway point
Scorpion’s head. There, we find M80 nestled
to one among faint field stars and framed by Sigma
of the and Nu, still in the field of most 10x and
shines at 7th magnitude and appears
about one-third as large as M4. In reality,
however, M80 is both larger and more con-
centrated. It’s just farther away, at more than
32,000 light-years from us. Binoculars reveal
a perfect sphere focusing to a brighter central core.
Buried within M80’s several hundred thousand stars
are many so-called “blue stragglers.” These blue giant
stars appear much younger than other cluster members,
seemingly defying the cluster’s overall age. Studies con-
clude that these stars may have lost their cooler outer
shells in close encounters with other stars, thereby expos-
ing hotter inner shells.
Suggestions for future columns? Contact me through
my website, philharrington.net. Until next time,
remember that two eyes are better than one.
BROWSE THE “BINOCULAR UNIVERSE” ARCHIVE AT
www.Astronomy.com/Harrington
 NEW PRODUCTS

H-alpha scope
DayStar Filters
Warrensburg, Missouri
DayStar’s SE Grade 127-QT
Prominence model features
a 5-inch clear aperture and a
2,667-millimeter focal length
in a carbon fiber tube. The tube
with rings weighs 13.6 pounds
(6.2 kilograms) and measures
31.1 inches (79 centimeters) long
with its dew shield retracted.
$5,995
866.680.6563
Attention, www.daystarfilters.com
manufacturers:
To submit a product
for this page,
email mbakich@
astronomy.com.
Observing journal
Gleg Photography
Georgetown, Kentucky
Gleg Photography’s Astronomy
Observer’s Journal is a perfect-
bound paperback measuring
7½ by 9½ inches (19 by 24 cm).
With it, an observer can record
site conditions, object notes, and
equipment used. It also has an Teaching tool
area for sketching the object or Armstrong Metalcrafts
for making additional notes. Albany, Oregon
Armstrong Metalcrafts’
$19.88
Cometarium demonstrates Kepler’s
859.333.9743
second law: An object in orbit
www.gleg.photography
sweeps out equal areas in equal
amounts of time. The Cometarium
uses elliptical gears with an
eccentricity of 0.65 to achieve
the correct motions. Armstrong
has a limited number for sale.
$1,250
541.924.9419
www.armstrongmetalcrafts.com

Astronomy

ake Learning FUN!

M

Get kids and students of all ages interested in the stars and planets
with educational STEM toys!
P35018

MyScienceShop.com/AstronomySTEM
WWW. ASTRONOMY.COM 69
 ASK ASTRO Astronomy’s experts from around the globe answer your cosmic questions.

at longer wavelengths, in the

infrared, microwave, and radio.
Our Sun emits light at progres-
sively shorter wavelengths,
too: the ultraviolet, X-ray, and
even gamma-ray parts of the
spectrum.
But most of the Sun’s light is
in the infrared, visible, and
ultraviolet parts of the electro-
magnetic spectrum. Its output
at the longest (radio) wave-
lengths is much less than its
output at visible wavelengths;
conversely, the Sun’s short-
wavelength X-rays come only
from the hottest and most active
parts of its outer atmosphere,
the corona. The gamma rays our
star generates through fusion
processes in its core never make
it out of the Sun before they are
converted into lower-energy
light. So, the only gamma rays
from the Sun we receive here on
Earth are from extreme solar
events, such as the most power-
ful solar flares.
Alison Klesman
Senior Associate Editor

The Sun appears here

QI
in ultraviolet light, ON PAGE 51 OF THE FEBRUARY
which has a wave-
length slightly shorter
than that of visible
light. Looking at the
The Sun’s ISSUE, THERE IS A PICTURE
CLAIMING TO SHOW VENUS IN
Sun in this portion of
the electromagnetic
spectrum highlights
its delicate — and
extremely hot — outer
light RETROGRADE. I HAVE BELIEVED
AND TAUGHT FOR 40 YEARS THAT
RETROGRADE MOTION ONLY OCCURS
atmosphere, the WITH THE PLANETS BEYOND EARTH’S

QI IN WHAT PART OF THE ORBIT. SO PLEASE EXPLAIN HOW VENUS

corona. SOHO (ESA & NASA)

ELECTROMAGNETIC SPECTRUM COULD BE IN RETROGRADE, OR WAS

DOES THE SUN EMIT ENERGY? THIS A MISTAKE?
Jason Perry John Shonle
Phoenix, Arizona Amherst, New Hampshire

AI The Sun emits light in virtually every part of

the electromagnetic spectrum, albeit some
more than others. The sunlight that we see — aptly
named visible light — falls into only a very narrow
range of the spectrum, from about 400 to 750 nano-
meters (a nanometer is one-billionth of a meter, or
about 400 millionths of an inch). The Sun also emits
AI The apparent retrograde motion of planets (and
other objects) on the sky is an illusion caused
by the fact that objects in our solar system orbit the
Sun at different distances and speeds. This is certainly
easiest to picture for superior planets — those outside
of Earth’s orbit — such as Mars. Earth circles the Sun
every 365 days; Mars takes 687 Earth days to do the

70 ASTRONOMY • JULY 2020

same. Our planet has a shorter path to travel, so at some
point, we “catch up” to Mars and then pass it. Just as
VENUS’ RETROGRADE MOTION
passing a slower-moving car on the highway makes that N j
car artificially appear to move backward from your point PERSEUS
of view, Mars appears to move backward, or retrograde, AUR IG A
relative to the background stars for a period of time. Once a May 1
your car (or our planet) has pulled far enough ahead, the 10
retrograde motion disappears. Path o
f Ve nus
20
But as your question brings up, can this happen with 20 Pleiades
the inferior planets Venus and Mercury? The answer is 10
still yes, these planets do exhibit retrograde motion. Their E
retrograde motion occurs because they circle the Sun April 1
June 1
much faster than Earth and sometimes overtake our
planet as they swing around our star. That same effect
causes them to first pause, then move “backward” (or 10
westward) relative to the background stars, before paus- ¡ TAU RU S
ing and resuming their eastward motion. 10 20
Alison Klesman
Aldebaran July 1
Senior Associate Editor a
5°

QI IF BETELGEUSE WERE TO
EXPLODE, WOULD IT DAMAGE
OUR EYES TO STARE AT IT? WHAT ABOUT
brightness recently, astronomers still aren’t sure when
exactly in the next 100,000 years or so it will explode as
When an inferior
planet, such as
Venus, passes Earth,
differences in the
a supernova. But they do know it will explode and can
LOOKING THROUGH A TELESCOPE? planets’ orbits make
estimate how bright it will become. the planet appear
John Hanson
Currently, Betelgeuse is about the 10th-brightest star to stop and then
Huntsville, Alabama
move backward, or
in the sky, shining at magnitude 0.58. When it goes

AI
retrograde, in the sky
Betelgeuse is a red supergiant star some supernova, it will experience a few different phases, for a brief time. This
650 light-years away. Although it underwent first brightening for a short period of time, then fading chart shows Venus’
path between April 1
some interesting — and noticeable — changes in slightly before again brightening more slowly, and and July 10, 2020, as
finally fading for good. In the first phase, Betelgeuse it appears to back-
would flare up quickly to appear brighter than Venus, track against the
background stars
but only for a few moments. It would then fade to a few for about 40 days.
times its current brightness, before slowly brightening ASTRONOMY: ROEN KELLY

again over the course of about a week. Estimates vary,

but ultimately, Betelgeuse could shine roughly as bright
as the Full Moon, although it might appear even
brighter because the Moon’s light is spread out over
about 0.5° on the sky, while Betelgeuse would appear SEND US YOUR
only as a point source. It will be visible during the day
and, at night, likely cast shadows similar to those from
QUESTIONS
Send your
the Full Moon. The star will certainly appear as the
astronomy questions
brightest point in the sky until it finally begins to fade via email to askastro@
a few weeks later. astronomy.com, or
Many observers know that looking at the bright write to Ask Astro,
Moon through a telescope without a filter, especially P.O. Box 1612,
with dark-adapted eyes, can be a bit uncomfortable and Waukesha, WI 53187.
certainly ruin your night vision. Even at its brightest, Be sure to tell us
This artist’s concept shows how the constellation Orion might your full name and
appear when Betelgeuse, the Hunter’s shoulder, goes supernova though, Betelgeuse would not damage your eyes, with where you live.
and briefly becomes the brightest object in the night sky. or without a telescope.
Although the star will be visible during the day and cast a Unfortunately, we
Alison Klesman cannot answer all
shadow at night, you still would be able to look at it safely,
Senior Associate Editor
with or without a telescope. HENRYKUS/WIKIMEDIA COMMONS questions submitted.

WWW. ASTRONOMY.COM 71
 READER GALLERY

Cosmic portraits

1. A DEEP VIEW
Globular cluster M15 lies in the
constellation Pegasus the Winged
Horse. The imager’s goal here was
to capture the stars deep in the core
without overexposing them.
• Rodney Pommier

2. RING OF FIRE
These exposures, taken through
thickening clouds, capture the
climactic moments of the annular
eclipse that occurred December 26,
2019, at Rempang Island, Batam,
Indonesia. • Muhammad Rayhan

72 ASTRONOMY • JULY 2020

 3. COMET AND CLUSTERS
Comet PanSTARRS (C/2017
T2) passed the Double Cluster
in Perseus (NGC 869 and
NGC 884) on January 24,
2020. This image combines
116 minutes of exposures
taken through a 12-inch f/3.6
astrograph. • Gerald
Rhemann

4. A LIT PAIR
This pairing of the crescent
Moon and Venus occurred
December 28, 2019.
Earthshine (sunlight reflected
from Earth onto the lunar
surface) illuminated the dark
part of the Moon. The
photographer captured a
1/20-second exposure at ISO
2500 from Pittsburgh.
3 • Matt Dieterich

5. GLOWING GAS
Sharpless 2–207 (left) and
4 Sh 2–208 are two emission
nebulae in the constellation
Camelopardalis the Giraffe.
Both objects have begun
the process of star formation,
but are so faint that this
image required 20.4 hours
of exposures to record them.
• Douglas J. Struble

6. EXTRAGALACTIC
The small group of galaxies to
the left includes two spirals
(NGC 5350 and NGC 5371)
and two lenticulars (NGC
5354 and NGC 5353). The
luminary of the group is NGC
5371 at magnitude 10.0, just
0.1 magnitude brighter than
NGC 5350. All of these
objects lie in the constellation
Canes Venatici the Hunting
Dogs. • Vasilis Misirlis
5

NGC 5350

NGC 5354

SEND YOUR IMAGES TO:

NGC 5353 Astronomy Reader Gallery,
P.O. Box 1612, Waukesha,
WI 53187. Please include
the date and location of the
image and complete photo
NGC 5371 data: telescope, camera,
filters, and exposures.
Submit images by email to
6 readergallery@
astronomy.com.

WWW. ASTRONOMY.COM 73
 BREAKTHROUGH

VIRGO’S STRIKING SUPERNOVA FACTORY

The loosely wrapped spiral arms of NGC 5468 sparkle with brilliant star clusters glowing blue from the high-energy
radiation pouring from the hot young stars within. A more careful look also reveals a smattering of pinkish nebulae well on
their way to creating a new generation of dazzling clusters. This face-on galaxy lies about 140 million light-years from Earth
in eastern Virgo. With a diameter of 110,000 light-years, NGC 5468 closely matches the Milky Way’s size. But the stars in this
distant galaxy explode at a far greater rate than those in our home system. Astronomers have observed five supernovae in
NGC 5468 in the past 21 years, but haven’t seen one in the Milky Way in more than 400 years. ESA/HUBBLE AND NASA/W. LI ET AL.

74 ASTRONOMY • JULY 2020

 UNCOVER THE
SECRETS OF THE SKY

The Complete Star Atlas: A Practical Guide to Viewing the Night

Sky is the all-in-one guide to the stars. It is a must-have 160-page
book for anyone who wants to learn the constellations and find the
brightest stars.

Discover a multitude of lesser-known

deep-sky objects, such as Maffei 1, EXPLORE:
Copeland’s Septet, Palomar globular 87,000 Stars
clusters, Abell galaxy clusters, and 1,200 Deep-Sky Objects
more with 24 accurate, easy-to-use star
maps perfect for all stargazers!

Item #81372 • $29.99

Explore a multitude of challenging and lesser-known

gems, such as Maffei 1, Copeland’s Septet, Palomar
globular clusters, and Abell galaxy clusters.

Easy-to-read details for practical

use outdoors!
24 FULL-COLOR MAPS
• Work under dim, red flashlights
• Are large enough to use practically in the field
• Include text describing major attractions within each map
• Highlight tips and background information

See everything in the night sky with the

P37471

naked eye or a small telescope.

Order now!
MyScienceShop.com/StarAtlas
Sales tax where applicable.
 NexStar SE NexStar Evolution NexStar Evolution HD
UP TO $200 OFF UP TO $300 OFF $350 OFF
• Fully automated GoTo mount with • Evolution mount with worm gear for All the features of NexStar Evolution
SkyAlign superior tracking plus these upgrades:

• NexStar+ hand control with 40,000 • Built-in WiFi for control via • 8” EdgeHD optical tube for razor
object database smartphone sharp views across wide field
eyepieces and imaging sensors
• Compact and portable • 10-hour rechargeable LiFePO4 battery
• StarSense AutoAlign accessory for
• Available in 4”, 5”, 6” and 8” apertures • Available in 6”, 8”, 9.25” apertures quick self-alignment included

Sale ends June 30, 2020

B&H Photo – 800.947.9970 – bhphotovideo.com Woodland Hills – 888.427.8766 – telescopes.net

High Point Scientific – 800.266.9590 – highpointscientific.com Adorama – 800.223.2500 – adorama.com
Optics Planet – 800.504.5897 – opticsplanet.com Focus Camera – 800.221.0828 – focuscamera.com
Astronomics – 800.422.7876 – astronomics.com Agena AstroProducts – 562.215.4473 – agenaastro.com
OPT Telescopes – 800.483.6287 – optcorp.com
SOUTHERN SKY
Jupiter and Saturn excel
With spring arriving
this month and the
nights growing warmer,
September offers nearly perfect
conditions for observing the
Sun’s two largest planets. Both
Jupiter and Saturn stand high
in the northeast during evening
twilight and pass almost over-
head within a couple of hours.
Jupiter appears far brighter
than its companion. The mag-
nitude –2.5 planet actually out-
shines every other point of light
in the evening sky. The giant
world remains nearly stationary
this month against the back-
drop of eastern Sagittarius.
Jupiter’s high altitude makes
it a showpiece object through
any telescope. Even the smallest
instrument shows two dark
cloud belts straddling a brighter
zone that coincides with the
planet’s 43"-diameter equator.
You can also track the planet’s
four bright moons as they circle
the planet from night to night.
Beautiful Saturn follows
less than 10° — about 30 min-
utes — behind Jupiter as they
cross the sky from east to west.
The ringed planet also resides
in eastern Sagittarius, just a few
degrees from that constella-
tion’s border with Capricornus.
Many observers consider
Saturn their favorite telescopic
object, and a glance through a
any instrument shows why. The
planet’s spectacular ring sys-
tem, which spans 40" in mid-
September, surrounds the
world’s 18"-diameter globe. The
rings tilt 23° to our line of sight,
affording a mesmerizing view
September 2020
of their structure. Look more
closely and you should see
Saturn’s shadow falling on the
rings behind and just east of
the planet’s limb.
Normally elusive Mercury
begins its best evening appear-
ance of 2020 in September. It
becomes easy to see low in the
west after sunset by the month’s
second week, when it shines at
magnitude –0.2. The planet
passes 0.3° north (to the lower
right) of Spica, Virgo’s most
prominent star, on the 22nd.
At magnitude –0.1, Mercury
shines a magnitude brighter
than Spica. The pair lies 11°
high in the west an hour after
sunset. Mercury climbs another
degree higher by month’s end.
When viewed through a tele-
scope, the planet starts to look
attractive late in the month. On
the 30th, it sports a 7"-diameter
disk that appears 63 percent lit.
Mercury’s appearance improves
in October as its size swells and
its phase wanes to a crescent.
Shortly after Earth’s rotation
carries Jupiter and Saturn past
the zenith, Mars rises in the
east. The Red Planet appears
unmistakable against the back-
drop of Pisces by late evening.
Mars nearly doubles in bright-
ness during September, increas-
ing from magnitude –1.8 to
–2.5. And by month’s end, the
Red Planet shines a bit brighter
than Jupiter. Earth’s neighbor
will continue to improve as it
heads toward opposition in
mid-October.
Mars’ apparent diameter
increases in tandem with its
BY MARTIN GEORGE
brilliance. On September 1, its
disk measures 18.9" across; by
the 30th, it spans 22.4". As it
climbs higher in the sky, take
a few moments to explore the
planet through a telescope.
Several dusky surface features
as well as the south polar cap
should pop into view during
moments of good seeing.
As dazzling as Jupiter and
Mars appear, neither comes
close to matching magnitude
–4.2 Venus. The inner planet
rises before the first hint of
dawn and stands out in the
northeast as twilight brightens.
Venus begins September among
the background stars of eastern
Gemini, 9° due south of 1st-
magnitude Pollux. It then
moves eastward through
Cancer and into Leo, ending
the month 4° west of 1st-
magnitude Regulus, the Lion’s
brightest star.
Unfortunately, Venus no
longer shows the dramatic
changes in its telescopic
appearance we experienced
this past autumn and winter.
In mid-September, the planet
shows a disk that spans 17" and
appears two-thirds lit.
The starry sky
The Milky Way arches across
the early evening sky during
September, with Sagittarius
— and the two bright planets
it currently hosts — near the
zenith. The constellation holds
a treasure-trove of deep-sky
objects visible through binocu-
lars and small telescopes. This
month I want to highlight one
on its lesser-known gems: the
open star cluster M23.
You can locate M23 in
the northwestern corner of
Sagittarius, some 6° north-
northwest of the Lagoon
Nebula (M8). I find it to be
a beautiful object through a
telescope-eyepiece combination
that yields a field of view of 0.5°
or a bit more. The cluster con-
tains many stars of seemingly
almost equal brightness scat-
tered across its 30' diameter.
The famous 18th-century
French astronomer Charles
Messier discovered M23 on
June 20, 1764. He clearly
noticed a 6th-magnitude star
nearby, and mentioned in his
notes that it appeared very
close to the star English astron-
omer John Flamsteed had des-
ignated 65 Ophiuchi.
The problem is that astrono-
mers can’t identify 65 Ophiuchi.
They assume it was an errone-
ous position for 6 Sagittarii.
Indeed, no star brighter than
8th magnitude lies within a
degree or so of the position
Flamsteed gave.
Sixth-magnitude 6 Sgr
stands 2° northeast of M23, so
it’s tempting to consider it to be
the star Messier was referring
to. But I suspect Messier’s star
is more likely magnitude 6.5
SAO 160909, which stands only
20' northwest of M23’s center,
just beyond the cluster’s edge.
Unfortunately, we may never
know which star Flamsteed
designated 65 Ophiuchi, nor
why Messier thought it was the
star tucked up against M23.
STAR DOME
S

S
VOL A N

CR C A R I NA
b UX
a
_ ELEON
C HA M A 2070
HOW TO USE THIS MAP `
NGC
C
This map portrays the sky as seen C4
NG
near 30° south latitude. Located SA
7 55
MEN

GC N
inside the border are the cardinal

SW
NG

51
28
directions and their intermediate
C
51 ` SCP
39 AU US
points. To find stars, hold the map
CE S
TR TRAL DR
N IA N E HY
overhead and orient it so one of
TA
U _ GU
RU LU
the labels matches the direction S
M
SM
C
you’re facing. The stars above RC
CI O C TA N S

the map’s horizon now match IN 104

U NG C
what’s in the sky. S

The all-sky map shows AR PA V O NA A

UC
how the sky looks at: A T

N
O
NG
10 P.M. September 1

R
C

M
63 TE S U
9 P.M. September 15

A N
97 IND

LU
LE
SC
8 P.M. September 30

P
S

GC
US
OP U
IU R
G

6
LIB

SC
Planets are shown

23
M

AU R O N
Ant

CO
1

OR
RA

at midmonth

ST
ares
M4

M
P

R
IU

IU
AL
A
M7
M6
S

P
I

CO
S

AG I

OS
MAP SYMBOLS

T TA

R
IC

S
M8

NU
W

Open cluster

M
M20

RIU

TRI
AU S I S
Globular cluster Sa

S
M22

C
tu

PIS
rn
M17

Diffuse nebula
Jup
M5

M1 6

ite
SC

Planetary nebula S
r ORNU
UT

IC
OP

Galaxy CAPR
UM
HIU

AQ
SE

UI
CH

RP

11

LA
SER UT

US

EN
CA

STAR LEU
S
S

U
P
PEN

QU
CA

MAGNITUDES E
U
S

f
Sirius Eni
A

Altair
0.0 3.0
S AG M1 5
1.0 4.0 ITT
A DELPHINUS
VU
2.0 5.0 LPE
CU
LA

H
STAR COLORS ER
C
A star’s color depends U
LE
N

on its surface temperature. S LY

W

RA
R
CE
•• The hottest stars shine blue
Slightly cooler stars appear white
Veg
a
C YG N
US
LA

• Intermediate stars (like the Sun) glow yellow

• Lower-temperature stars appear orange Deneb
• The coolest stars glow red
• Fainter stars can’t excite our eyes’ color
receptors, so they appear white unless you
use optical aid to gather more light

N
BEGINNERS: WATCH A VIDEO ABOUT HOW TO READ A STAR CHART AT
www.Astronomy.com/starchart.
 SEPTEMBER 2020
SUN. MON. TUES. WED. THURS. FRI. SAT.

UM L 1 2 3 4 5
CU
TI
L RE

6 7 8 9 10 11 12

SE
M
IU
G
LO
RO

ILLUSTRATIONS BY ASTRONOMY: ROEN KELLY

O 13 14 15 16 17 18 19
S

H
U
AN
ID
ER

rn
ar 20 21 22 23 24 25 26
he
Ac
X
NA

27 28 29 30
R
FO

Note: Moon phases in the calendar vary in size due to the distance
IX

from Earth and are shown at 0h Universal Time.

N
OE
PH
OR

CALENDAR OF EVENTS
PT

SGP
L

1
CU

Venus passes 9° south of Pollux, 17h UT

53
aut

NG C 2
S

2
Fomalh

Full Moon occurs at 5h22m UT

Mira
CETUS

Asteroid Pallas is stationary, 13h UT

E

The Moon passes 4° south of Neptune, 21h UT

6 The Moon passes 0.03° north of Mars, 5h UT
The Moon is at apogee (405,607 kilometers from Earth), 6h29m UT
7 The Moon passes 3° south of Uranus, 4h UT
Mars

Path of
the Sun (ecli 9 Mars is stationary, 18h UT
S

ptic)
IU
R

10 Last Quarter Moon occurs at 9h26m UT

A
U
Q
A

11
ES

Asteroid Fortuna is at opposition, 7h UT

SC

Neptune is at opposition, 20h UT

PI

13 Jupiter is stationary, 0h UT
14 The Moon passes 4° north of Venus, 5h UT
17
S

New Moon occurs at 11h00m UT

SU
A
EG

18 The Moon is at perigee (359,082 kilometers from Earth), 13h48m UT

P

The Moon passes 6° north of Mercury, 22h UT

22 Mercury passes 0.3° north of Spica, 9h UT
E

A
N

RT
A ED
M September equinox occurs at 13h31m UT
O
R
D
A
N 24 First Quarter Moon occurs at 1h55m UT
25 The Moon passes 1.6° south of Jupiter, 7h UT
The Moon passes 2° south of Saturn, 21h UT
29 Saturn is stationary, 3 UT
30 The Moon passes 4° south of Neptune, 2h UT
Asteroid Leto is at opposition, 3h UT