A-Z Of The Sky | Vital Football

A-Z Of The Sky

herringthorpe

Alert Team
Staff member
This can be anything seen in the sky, to do with the sky (songs, books etc), space . . . .

A Asteroid - although, I'm told, too small to probably be seen by a normal telescope (so not sure how we really know they are there!)
 
We may see it if a big one hits the Earth - possibly only very briefly! (Game over for the dinosaurs a while ago).
A clue that they are flying around is the cratered surface of the moon. The atmosphere of the earth burns up smaller ones. Probability-wise, a lot will land in the sea, and so are not really noticed, but the moon has little atmosphere and no water and its surface gets bombarded a lot. There is little "weather" there , hence lots of craters remain on view long after the initial asteroid impacts.
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B Betelgeuse - usually the tenth brightest star in our sky, and relatively near to us. Also known as Alpha Orionis. It's one of "Orion's shoulders", left side as you look at that constellation. It's brightness does vary a bit though , like a dodgy lightbulb, which is a bit worrying! Er... is it supposed to do that?:unsure:
;)
Often mentioned in "Hitchhiker's guide to the Galaxy"
 
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'' It's brightness does vary a bit though , like a dodgy lightbulb, which is a bit worrying! Er... is it supposed to do that''

Maybe someone hasn't screwed it in right!

C Clouds - really big black ones last night!
 
D Dia - one of the 79(!) discovered moons of Jupiter. 26 of them have not even been given names yet. Dia was discovered and photographed in 2000, then disappeared from view, and some astronomers believed that it had crashed (!), but it was spotted again in 2007. It is only 1.2 miles in diameter. The four largest moons of Jupiter were observed by Gallileo back in the 1600s and are similar in size to our moon, but don't go looking for Dia unless you have a specialised high resolution astronomical telescope. It takes about 274 days for it to orbit Jupiter, but is difficult to pick out against the hazy background , even using modern equipment. Some of the small moons of Jupiter are just captured stray "space rubble" really and are on orbits that cross, so crashes sometimes happen! A few are in reverse orbits too (!) , although not Dia.
 
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F Funnel cloud - funnel-shaped cloud, with swirling wind stem. If the tip of the stem reaches the ground it can cause a tornado (or a water spout at sea)
 
H Hydrogen and helium - the elements which make up about 99% of the universe that you can see in the night sky, in a ratio of about three to one. The Sun is converting hydrogen to helium by fusion and is giving out energy (heat, light, etc) and so are the other visible stars. What happens when all the hydrogen is used up depends on the mass of the star. Some eventually become burnt-out cinders, some finish with a spectacular explosion and leave behind a neutron star (like Betelgeuse probably will... eventually). The title of the Van der Graaf Generator album "H to He Who am the only one" refers to these types of processes (sort of)
 
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J Jupiter - biggest planet in the solar system . It has a lot of moons (see previous entry for "Dia"). Can often be seen with the naked eye. It has a strong gravitational field and sweeps up a lot of rubble as it goes round its orbit... although it could also alter the trajectory of a comet to head towards us. Let's hope not!
 
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Named after Mr Arnason ? ;)
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L Lunar eclipse - next one visible from the UK should be on 19th November 2021. It is only a few percent though, and in November there is unlikely to be a clear sky anyway. Next total lunar eclipse is due on 16th May 2022.
 
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N Neptune - one of the planets in the outer solar system. Unlike Saturn and Jupiter, you need a fairly powerful telescope to see it. It is situated a long way out beyond them and it takes about 165 years for it to complete an orbit of the Sun.
 
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Q Quaoar - Discovered in 2002. Dwarf planet/Kuiper Belt object, which is out beyond the orbit of Neptune. About half the size of Pluto (see previous entry). Unlike Pluto , it has a fairly circular orbit, that is close to the plane of the major planets, so it may have been trundling along out there since the early days of the solar system. Can't be seen without a powerful telescope. It takes 286 years to complete its orbit of the Sun (Pluto takes 248 years). Unlike Pluto, its orbit doesn't cross that of Neptune. In recent times Pluto has spent some years closer to the Sun than Neptune is , but Quaoar doesn't do that. By the way Pluto's orbit is in stable "resonance" with that of Neptune, so although their paths cross , they won't crash (Phew!)

Another dwarf planet, nicknamed "Farfarout" , has recently been discovered that is even way beyond Quaoar, and takes abour a thousand years to orbit the Sun!
 
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R Rain - look up these last few days and nine times out of ten you will have got a raindrop in your eye - but it's good for the gardens!
 
Re Pluto - another dwarf planet , Ceres, which is in the asteroid belt beyond Mars, was similarly downgraded from planet status a long time ago, so it has happened before. Although smaller than Pluto , it is much nearer to us and it is easy to see Ceres using binoculars or a basic telescope.

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S Saturn - big planet in the outer solar system. Often visible to the naked eye. It has lots of moons, and rings (made up of rock and ice particles) . A Saturn day is fairly short , about 11 hours, but it takes 29 years to orbit the Sun.
 
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