Spacetime With Stuart Gary

Happy New Year!*Fireworks predicted from Rare Stellar Encounter in 2018 Astronomers are gearing up for high-energy fireworks in the next few months when a pulsar plows through the outer atmosphere of one of the galaxy’s brightest stars. The cosmic light show spectacular will occur just 5000 light years from Earth – astronomers aren’t sure exactly when – but it will be soon. *Bright Areas on Ceres Suggest Geologic Activity If you could fly aboard NASA's Dawn spacecraft, the surface of the dwarf planet Ceres would generally look quite dark, but with notable exceptions. These exceptions are the hundreds of bright areas that stand out in images Dawn has returned. *2018 promises to be another stellar year for astronomy There’ll be three partial Solar Eclipse in 2018. And as solar eclipses always occur about two weeks before or after a lunar eclipse there’ll be a couple of total lunar eclipses as well. *Cometary close encounter The next big cometary visitor scheduled to make a close encounter with Earth is the come