99 Words

Supernova, an exploding star, illuminates the galaxy as it spews out stellar materials at a pace one-tenth the speed of light. Such massive force sends out a shock front into interstellar space within the boundary. Even if the explosion is not for long, some supernovae emits more energy than the sun could radiate. When a massive star wears out, its stops releasing energy from nuclear fusion. Sudden disruption of gravitational force creates great gravitational field that heats up the stars external layers. Thus, most supernovae become blackholes. The expelled stellar matter swirls around the outer space and eventually become new stars in the long run.

Orion could be that bright group of stars you see in the night sky. The most observable among the constellations, Orion will remain visible in every corner of the Earth for the next millions of years. In Greek mythology, Orion was the great giant hunter with two hunting dogs, Cani Major and Canis Minor. The constellation is easily spotted through three stars that comprise the hunter’s “belt” and hanging from it are also several stars that forms its “sword”. Thus, the Orion is often times used to locate other stars. It is said that the constellation Orion is as ancient as the human civilization.

Lunar Rover is popularly known for its moniker, the moon buggy. It was used to traverse the surface of the moon during the three Apollo missions. The lunar rover has an aluminum alloy frame, about 10 feet (3 meters) long, with a hinged chassis for easy transportation. Like the regular car, the lunar rover has four wheels, two seats with an armrest and set of seatbelts, footrests, brakes, and navigation handles. Power is derived from rechargeable electric battery. The astronaut can gaze at the control and display screen to know vital information (speed, temperature, power) about the lunar rover. The television camera situated at the front can only be accessed by Mission control.

Cirrus clouds is a type of cloud that is characterized by thin, wisplike strands, often accompanied by tufts, leading to their common name of “mare’s tail”. A sheet of Cirrus clouds is called cirrostratus, this happens when cirrus clouds are so extensive that they become indistinguishable from one another. The convection at high altitudes produces another form of cirrus called cirrocumulus, a pattern of small cloud tufts which include droplets of supercooled water. They are formed when water vapor freezes into ice crystals at altitudes above 8000 meters.

Oberon is Uranus’ large moon. It orbits the planet at a distance of about 583,000 km, making it Uranus’ most distant known satellite. It takes 13.5 Earth days for the moon to completely orbit the planet. Oberon’s orbit is circular and is parallel to Uranus’ equator. It measures about 1520 km across or about half the diameter of Earth’s moon and is spherical.

Oberon has a surface that is heavy cratered with many large craters indicating the moon’s great age. The moon’s top layer surface is dark but asteroids that hit the moon sometimes punch through to a bright ice layer below. Oberon was discovered in by British astronomer Sir William Herschel in 1787 was was named after a character in William Shakespeare’s play A Midsummer Night’s Dream.

Polaris is the brightest star in the constellation Ursa Minor and has the reputation of being the brightest star in the sky. Sometimes it is called the Lodestar, Northern Star and the Pole Star, Polaris is the closest to the north celestial pole making it the current northern pole star. Polaris marks the end of the handle of the Little dipper, a prominent figure of Ursa Minor, the smaller bear.

Those who observe using a binocular may see a ringlet of the 7^th to 8^th magnitude stars south of Polaris; this asterism is called ‘the engagement ring” of Polaris.

Triton is the largest moon of planet Neptune and the 7^th largest in the Solar System. It was discovered by British Astronomer William Lassell on October 10, 1846. It follows a retrograde orbit - an orbit that turns in the opposite direction to it’s planet’s rotation. Triton circles once every 5.877 Earth days and completes an orbit in the same amount of time, which means that a side of the moon faces Neptune at all times while the other side faces out into space.

Triton is about one-quarter ice and three-quarters rock; it has a complex, young surface that is scarred by several cracks. Triton’s southern hemisphere has a pinkish polar cap with a blue edge, the pink color is said to be caused by compounds when frozen methane is exposed to sunlight while the blue color indicated fresh deposits of nitrogen ice.

Particularly bright and spectacular to a casual observer on Earth, Great Comets is a comet that usually appears, on average, once in every decade. Tagging whether a comet can be called a ‘Great Comet’ is difficult to tell since many factors may cause a comet’s brightness to fade or depart quickly from predictions. Although generally, if a comet is huge and has active nucleus, passes close to the Sun and is not obscured by the Sun as viewed from the Earth when at it’s brightest, it has a big chance of being called a great comet.

Normally comet’s are named after their discoverer but sometimes they me reffered to as ‘The Great Comet of…’ after the year that they were seen brightest. To most people, a great comet is simply an attractive spectacle and could be quite subjective; however as long as a comet is bright enough to be noticed my normal people on the earth who are not very familiar or fond of heavenly bodies, they are referred to as great comets. Some of the popular great comets are the Comet Hailey, Comet Hale-Bopp and Comet Hyakutake.

The planet Mars has two known moons: Phobos and Deimos. Of the two, Phobos is larger and is closer to Mars. It is so close to Mars that it slowly spirals into the planet. It orbits the planet 3 times in one Earth day. It rotates once in one revolution, keeping one face towards Mars at any time.

Phobos is made mostly of rocks, but scientists suspect that it may contain ice. The moon is heavily cratered, with the biggest one – Stickney – as wide as 10 kilometers.

Phobos was named after the son of the deities of Greek mythology, Ares and Aphrodite. “Phobos” is the Greek word for fear and is the root of the word phobia.

This orange giant star is estimated to be 34 light-years away from the constellation of Gemini. Pollux is currently the brightest star in Constellation Castor and has been confirmed to have an extrasolar planet orbiting it. Beta Geminorum or Pollux is considered as the sky’s 17^th brightestest star. It’s name refers to the twin sons of Zues, Castor and Pollux. Castor and Pollux are the two heavenly twin stars that gives the Constellation Gemini it’s name however these two have nothing alike. Castor is comprised of hot, bluish-white A-type stars and dim red dwarfs while Pollux is a single cooler yellow-orange giant.