Skytalk

A supercluster of galaxies was recently found lurking on just the other side of the Milky Way. Only 800 million light years out, it is similar in size to the neighboring Shapley supercluster, itself home to more than 8,600 galaxies. Given that galaxies can have between 100 and 400 billion stars each, researchers are estimating that the Vela cluster could contain between 1000 trillion and 40 quintillion stars!

Direct imaging of exoplanets is now possible – a new instrument on the 8m Subaru telescope in Hawaii is imaging exoplanets.

With clear skies, the Leonid Meteors are available to be viewed from November 15 – 20, peaking on the 18th. The Leonids are typically a weak shower of minimal numbers. However, it periodically erupts in a major storm; the 2002 storm showed 3,000 meteors per hour.

‘Supermoons’ Explained- including the supermoon optical illusion.

Venus and Mars can be seen in the evening sky just after sunset. Jupiter sits well up in the east at 6 a.m., in the stars of Virgo, having moved on from its constellation perch in Leo from last year.

360 years ago Tuesday (in 1656) Edmund Halley was born.

Finally, a Thirty Meter Telescope is ready to be built . . . but where ?

Clocks change back one hour to Standard Time on Sunday.

It turns out that the universe is more crowded with stuff than we previously thought. A new estimate of the number of galaxies in the Universe is 10 times greater than what was estimated based on Hubble Space Telescope images from 1995. So rather than 100 billion galaxies, there may be as many as 1 trillion.

Summer constellations are still visible just after sunset.

Where are we in the zodiac now, and why would it matter? This week on SkyTalk, Dave and Dr. Pitts discuss the difference between astronomy and astrology.

On October 13 at 9:24 pm, Orbital Sciences will launch from Mid-Atlantic Regional Spaceport in Virginia, sending 2,400 kilos of supplies to the International Space Station. Their last launch attempt was two years ago in October 2014 when the rocket failed shortly after launch.

Chinese space station Tiangong 1 will re-enter sometime late next year. You can see it on October 14 at 7:30pm, 46 degrees up in the SSE sky. Tiangong 2 is visible at 5:40 am that same day, 72 degrees up in the NNW.

October is a landmark space month: NASA celebrates its 58th year of space exploration. Tuesday marks the 59th anniversary of the first artificial satellite, Sputnik(1957 – Soviet Union). And Wednesday would be the father of American rocketry, Robert Goddard’s, 127th birthday – he was born in 1889.

First, evidence has been discovered supporting a subsurface salt-water ocean at Pluto! It would have the right mass to account for how Pluto and its moon Charon interact with each other.

Elon Musk reveals more of his plan for Mars – In short, every 26 months (timed to coincide with the Earth-Mars alignments) SpaceX intends to send cargo to Mars to be used to establish not just a colony, but as Musk puts it, ‘a city’ on Mars.

This week: watch the moon as it waxes past Venus tonight at 7:30, Saturn on Wednesday, and Mars on Saturday.

Last Saturday Rosetta completed its final orbit and began its direct descent to the comet’s surface. It should impact on Friday in a region of active gas-jet producing pits. The satellite will conduct science observations to its very end.