November Stargazing

Looking forward to some stargazing in West Texas this month...

Stargazing Summary

Planets and stars team up to stage two pretty conjunctions this month, with the Moon passing by each duo. Mars and Regulus, which rise shortly after midnight, remain within a few degrees of each other all month, with Mars nearly doubling in brightness by month's end. Saturn and Spica, which are low in the southeast at first light, also snuggle close together throughout the month. In the meantime, Taurus climbs high across the sky, reaching its zenith around midnight late in the month. Orion and Gemini climb skyward earlier each evening, and by month's end are in good view by the middle of the evening. More stargazing information: http://stardate.org/nightsky

Radio Program Highlights

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November 1-6: A great show. One of the brightest comets of the last few centuries lit up Earth's night sky two centuries ago. We'll have details. We'll also talk about an attempt to get back in the game of planetary exploration.

November 7-13: Moon meanderings. The Moon passes by a brilliant planet this week, and they're on display for most of the night. And two other planets team up to put on their own display in the evening sky. Join us for this and more.

November 14-20: Moon, Mars, and meteors. The Moon passes a bright orange companion this week: the planet Mars. We'll have details. And we'll also talk about an autumn meteor shower. Join us for these, plus a spacecraft that's on the edge.

November 21-27: Mars battlewagon. The largest Mars rover yet will head for the Red Planet as early as this week. It's equipped with armloads of experiments, from a laser to zap the rocks to a chemical laboratory for analyzing them.

November 28-30: Rare birds. Two birds stroll across the southern horizon at this time of year — a crane and a phoenix. We'll have details, including the story of two of phoenix's stars that are locked in a tight dance. Join us for this and more.

November Program Schedule: http://stardate.org/radio/calendars
Find an Affiliate: http://stardate.org/radio/affiliates

This Month in StarDate Magazine

The editors of StarDate bring you ideas for astronomy- or space-themed holiday gifts in our November/December issue in our feature "Astro Gifts for Everyone." And astronomer and author Barbara Ryden of Ohio State University returns to StarDate to celebrate the 100-year anniversary of the birth of Grote Reber, one of the pioneers of radio astronomy, in her feature "Tuning into the Radio Universe."

News from the Observatory

Texas-led Team Discovers Unusual Multi-Planet System with Kepler
A team of researchers led by Bill Cochran of The University of Texas at Austin has used NASA's Kepler spacecraft to discover an unusual multiple-planet system containing a super-Earth and two Neptune-sized planets orbiting in resonance with each other. They announced the find recently in Nantes, France at a joint meeting of the American Astronomical Society's Division of Planetary Science and the European Planetary Science Conference. The research will be published in a special Kepler issue of The Astrophysical Journal Supplement Series this month.

Find out more: http://mcdonaldobservatory.org/news

The Hole Story

We've added a new Research section to the StarDate Black Holes Encyclopedia, and the first profile is online: the effort to confirm the supermassive black hole at the center of the Milky Way galaxy.

Find out more: http://blackholes.stardate.org/research

Watch Award-Winning Videos on the HETDEX Channel

Our exciting project to study dark energy, the Hobby-Eberly Telescope Dark Energy Experiment (HETDEX), now has its own channel on YouTube. Watch as scientists from The University of Texas at Austin, Texas A&M, and around the world discuss the challenges in studying this mysterious force whose discoverers were recently awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics. And don't forget to watch our video "Dark Energy: Speeding up the Universe," that recently won two prestigious film awards of its own!

Watch now: http://www.youtube.com/hetdex

Earth is only 6,000 years old? Pull your heads out of the Bible and GROW UP!!