Search results
Results from the WOW.Com Content Network
The most famous deep-sky object in Andromeda is the spiral galaxy cataloged as Messier 31 (M31) or NGC 224 but known colloquially as the Andromeda Galaxy for the constellation. [54] M31 is one of the most distant objects visible to the naked eye, 2.2 million light-years from Earth (estimates range up to 2.5 million light-years). [55]
The Andromeda Galaxy is visible to the naked eye in dark skies. [21] Around the year 964 CE, the Persian astronomer Abd al-Rahman al-Sufi described the Andromeda Galaxy in his Book of Fixed Stars as a "nebulous smear" or "small cloud". [22] Star charts of that period labeled it as the Little Cloud. [23]
Immediately northeast of the constellation of Pegasus, it is the upper left star of the Great Square of Pegasus. Although it appears to the naked eye as a single star, with overall apparent visual magnitude +2.06, it is actually a binary system composed of two stars in close orbit.
Around Dec. 14, Jupiter will be visible in the night sky between the nearly full moon and a reddish-orange star called Aldebaran, which shines brightest in the Taurus constellation and can be seen ...
For premium support please call: 800-290-4726 more ways to reach us
Close to sunset and sunrise, bright stars like Sirius or even Canopus can be spotted with the naked eye as long as one knows the exact position in which to look. Historically, the zenith of naked-eye astronomy was the work of Tycho Brahe (1546–1601). He built an extensive observatory to make precise measurements of the heavens without any ...
The closest in the past 1,000 years was in 1761, when Mars and Jupiter appeared to the naked eye as a single bright object, according to Giorgini. Looking ahead, the year 2348 will be almost as close.
The stellar classification of Kappa Andromedae is B9 IVn, indicating that it is a subgiant star in the process of evolving away from the main sequence. The star has an estimated 2.8 [6] times the mass of the Sun and is radiating 78.5 [7] times the Sun's luminosity. It is spinning rapidly, with a projected rotational velocity of 162 km/s.