Hello ...
Here's your Cosmic Pursuits newsletter for April 2025!
1. Jupiter and Mars linger in the evening sky, while dazzling Venus, Saturn and Mercury hang low in the east before sunrise. The first meteor shower since early January arrives with a favorable moon this year. And galaxy season begins as the night side of the Earth points out of the dusty plane of the Milky Way and into the deep cosmos. Here's what to see in the Night Sky This Month...
2. Speaking of galaxies, let's tour a few spring favorites, not with a big Dobsonian, but with a 2-inch smart scope that reveals amazing detail in a some starburst galaxies in our own local intergalactic neighborhood.
3. Speaking of starburst galaxies, here's a piece from the Cosmic Pursuits archives about Halton Arp, his catalog of peculiar galaxies, his own peculiar background, and his controversial views on Big Bang.
4. The lunar eclipse last month was a stunner. But
the view from Earth was outclassed by an image of the eclipse taken from the Moon where we see the Earth pass in front of the Sun for more than 2 hours. It's an amazing photograph.
5. While the Hubble and Webb space telescopes steal all the headlines, one of the most productive instruments, the European Space Agency's Gaia, has enabled a staggering leap in our understanding of the distance, speed, and structure of the Milky Way. Now, it's reached the end of its life and has been sent into perpetual orbit around the sun for its final resting place. Here's what the telescope accomplished (gift link from the New York Times).
And the astronomy quote of the month (one from my favorite poet):
“Keep up the good work, if only for a while, if only for the twinkling of a tiny galaxy."
- Wislawa Szymborska
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Wishing you clear skies!
Brian Ventrudo
Publisher
CosmicPursuits.com
