Dome Planetarium - Peoria Riverfront Museum

Halley's Comet last visited the inner Solar System back in 1986. (Did you see it?) For the past 37 years it's been getting farther and farther away, now well beyond the orbit of Neptune. Finally, TODAY, it turns around and begins its long journey back to the inner Solar System. Mark your calendars for its next appearnace in Earth's skies in the year 2061...
Photo taken by W. Liller in 1986.
https://earthsky.org/space/comet-halley-reaches-its-farthest-point-from-the-sun-aphelion-dec-9-2023/

Venus and the Moon will be in conjunction tomorrow (Sat Dec 9). Take a look around 7:00 AM or earlier and they will be easy to spot. And lovely. After the sun rises, you can still see them together in the daytime sky, just not as easily - give it a try!
https://skyandtelescope.org/astronomy-news/observing-news/this-weeks-sky-at-a-glance-december-1-9-2/

Check out The Planetary Society's "Best of 2023." The best image, seen here, shows the Moon's shadow on the Earth during the October solar eclipse, taken from lunar orbit! Unfortunately, the commercial Japanese spacecraft subsequently crashed when attempting to land, but still...

The best of 2023 The results are in for the Best of 2023! People around the world voted, and here are the winning space images, missions, exploration milestones, and more.

The Peoria Astronomical Society will be meeting in the planetarium tonight (Wed. Dec. 6) at 7:00 - the meeting is free and open to the public. We'll show our 25-minute fulldome movie about the upcoming eclipse, and members will talk about their plans for viewing the upcoming eclipse, as well as their experience viewing the annular eclipse back in October.

ESA's latest Hubble Picture-of-the-Week is of globular cluster NGC 2210. The Milky Way has more than 150 ancient globular clusters orbiting in its halo, but this isn't one of them. This one is actually part of the Large Magellanic Cloud, a smaller satellite galaxy to the Milky Way. It is relatively young as far as globulars go, estimated to be "only" 11.6 billion years old.
https://esahubble.org/images/potw2349a/

Hannah is the one millionth person to send their name to Europa, an icy moon of Jupiter's with an underground, saltwater ocean. Her name, and the 999,999 others, will be etched onto a microchip with an electron microscope, and then attached to the Europa Clipper, NASA's robotic spacecraft launching next October on a S**ceX Falcon Heavy rocket.
There's still time to get your name etched onto the spacecraft; NASA is accepting submissions through the end of the year, Dec. 31: https://europa.nasa.gov/message-in-a-bottle/sign-on/?utm_source=twitter&utm_medium=organic&utm_campaign=message_in_a_bottle&utm_content=europa_clipper

https://twitter.com/EuropaClipper/status/1731789133243130210/photo/1

Ever-elusive Mercury is farthest from the Sun today in its current evening appearance, about 21° away. Never easy to see as it's always so close to the Sun, you'll have to look during twilight and you may want to use binoculars to help find the little planet so close to the SW horizon. In the coming weeks, Mercury will get closer to the Sun in the sky before crossing over to the other side of the Sun on Dec 22, thus beginning its next morning appearance when it becomes visible before sunrise.
https://earthsky.org/tonight/mercury-after-sunset-greatest-elongation-east/

ESA's latest Hubble Picture-of-the-Week shows two massive galaxy clusters, each warping the space around them into a gravitational lens. The closer one is about 2.3 billion light-years away, the farther one about 5.4 billion light-years away.
https://esahubble.org/images/potw2348a/

2 blobs from the Sun (coronal mass ejections) crashed into Earth last night, sparking an outburst of auroral activity. This photo was taken with a smartphone by Rob King in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan. Can you spot Cassiopeia the Queen in the sky?
https://spaceweathergallery2.com/indiv_upload.php?upload_id=202119

For the first time, a protoplanetary disk has been spotted... in another galaxy! Protoplanetary disks, or proplyds, are leftover disks of dust, gas, and rock surrounding newly-formed stars, out of which planets, moons, comets, and asteroids form. This one was spotted in our Milky Way's satellite galaxy, the Large Magellanic Cloud, using the biggest array of radio telescopes in the world - Europe's ALMA Observatory in Chile.
https://www.eso.org/public/news/eso2318/

For the first time, China has released hi-res photos of its Tiangong space station in orbit. These photos were taken by Chinese astronauts ("taikonauts") coming to and going from the "sky palace." You can watch Tiangong brightly passing over Central Illinois tonight from 5:43-5:48, moving from West to South to East and fading away into Earth's shadow near Jupiter; 3 taikonauts are currently onboard.
https://arstechnica.com/space/2023/11/china-says-its-space-station-seen-in-new-photos-is-poised-for-growth/

How would Mars look to astronauts orbiting the Red Planet? This wonderful new panorama was taken by NASA's Mars Odyssey spacecraft from a height of 250 miles (the same as the ISS above Earth), and is the 1st time in its 22 years orbiting Mars that the spacecraft has looked to the horizon (its cameras normally point straight down). Clouds and dust are visible in the thin atmosphere above the craters, mountains, and valleys on the surface.
Odyssey is the longest-serving planetary spacecraft, and still going strong; future panoramas from a similar perspective are being planned by NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory.
https://mars.nasa.gov/news/9514/nasa-orbiter-snaps-stunning-views-of-mars-horizon/

Another fantastic new image from the James Webb S**ce Telescope showing the beautiful turbulence around newly-forming stars. Two parallel jets of gas are shooting left and right from a thick layer of dust near the bottom of this picture. That dust cloud is obscuring 2 protostars - a new binary star system, forming about 1000 light-years away! Similar, smaller jets are also visible near the top of this false-color infrared picture.
https://esawebb.org/images/potm2311a/

Fantastic photo of a beautiful halo around the Moon, with extremely bright Jupiter also nestled inside, all shining in the sky right above iconic Stonehenge. This was taken over the weekend by Stonehenge Dronescapes.
Happy Moon-day!

That amazing Moon halo with Jupiter below over a cold and frosty Stonehenge 😇😍

After all Northern Lights activity died off i had to race round and get this shot, really lucky as 20 minutes later it had gone and the clouds thickened up 😲

The moon's halo or lunar halo is an optical illusion that causes a large bright ring to surround the moon. This striking and often beautiful halo around the moon is caused by the refraction of moonlight from ice crystals in the upper atmosphere.

In effect, these suspended or falling flecks of ice mean the atmosphere is transformed into a giant lens causing arcs and halos to appear around the moon or the sun depending on whether the effect is happening during the night or day respectively.

Full Moon tonight! And it will be right next to the beautiful star cluster known as The Seven Sisters, aka The Pleiades, aka Messier 45, aka Subaru (in Japan).
https://earthsky.org/astronomy-essentials/visible-planets-tonight-mars-jupiter-venus-saturn-mercury/

ESA's latest Hubble Picture-of-the-Week is of an irregular galaxy about 85 million light-years away. One bright foreground star from the Milky Way is visible in the foreground at the top right (and a fainter one to the top right of it), and numerous more distant galaxies are visible in the background.
https://esahubble.org/images/potw2347a/

Check out the waxing gibbous Moon near giant Jupiter tonight (Fri Nov 24) - the two brightest objects in the early evening sky. They'll be pretty close tomorrow, too, but by then the Moon will have moved to the other side of Jupiter.
https://skyandtelescope.org/astronomy-news/this-weeks-sky-at-a-glance-november-24-december-3/

Webb's recent look towards the center of the galaxy reveals a turbulent scene of gas, dust, and approximately 500,000 stars. Since Webb sees infrared light, this is necessarily a false-color picture.
https://webbtelescope.org/contents/news-releases/2023/news-2023-148

Tonight should give people in Central Illinois a good chance to see a new train of S**ceX Starlink satellites crossing the sky. This new batch of 22 was launched early Monday morning and should cross the sky from ~5:49-5:52 PM tonight (Wed Nov 22). They'll be moving west to south to east, passing just above Saturn and the Moon before fading into Earth's shadow above Jupiter. They should reach a brightness similar to the 2 stars at the bottom of the Big Dipper's bowl.
https://heavens-above.com/
https://findstarlink.com/
https://james.darpinian.com/blog/how-see-a-satellite-tonight-works

A nifty new light show has recently been discovered. When the second stage of S**ceX's Falcon 9 rocket burns its engines to de-orbit into the ocean, exhaust from the rocket punctures the ionosphere and creates a colorful glowing ball visible to the naked eye for up to 10 minutes.
This sequence of photos was taken by Stephen Hummel at McDonald Observatory in Texas: https://spaceweathergallery2.com/indiv_upload.php?upload_id=201257

The 1st quarter Moon passes by Saturn tonight; the closest and farthest Solar System worlds visible to us with the naked eye; about 1 light-second and 1 light-hour away. Happy Moon-day!
https://skyandtelescope.org/astronomy-news/observing-news/this-weeks-sky-at-a-glance-november-17-26/

Some pretty photos of yesterday's Starship launch. 1st & 3rd pics by Trevor Mahlmann, middle pic by Andrew McCarthy.
https://twitter.com/TrevorMahlmann/status/1725951462134476815/photo/1
https://twitter.com/AJamesMcCarthy/status/1725922028333547840/photo/1
https://twitter.com/TrevorMahlmann/status/1725886675564245254/photo/1

Some pics from this morning's 2nd test of S**ceX's Starship, the largest and most powerful rocket ever launched. The 1st test in April ended with a RUD - a "Rapid Unscheduled Disassebly", i.e. explosion - when the 1st & 2nd stages tried to separate, unsuccessfully. Today they successfully achieved stage-separation, although the 1st stage did eventually explode while falling back to the ocean; and the 2nd stage did as well, but only shortly before the engines were expected to cut-off. And the launch pad, which had been destroyed in the 1st test, appears to have withstood today's test. All in all, an improvement over the 1st test, with plenty of room for improvement in the next test...
https://www.spacex.com/

The Leonids meteor shower peaks tonight (Nov 17-18). The best time to look is between midnight and dawn. You'll see more if you're in a darker sky, and you'll see more if you can see more of the sky; the "shooting stars" will appear everywhere. Current estimates predict 10-15 meters per hour in a dark sky.
This annual shower is produced by debris from Comet 55P/Tempel-Tuttle, a 2-mile ball of ice and rock that orbits the Sun every 33 years, stretching from a distance as far from the Sun as Uranus to one as close as Earth. It'll pass in our vicinity again in the year 2031.
More info at EarthSky's website: https://earthsky.org/astronomy-essentials/everything-you-need-to-know-leonid-meteor-shower/

Laser Beatles, Taylor Swift, and Prince in the dome this Friday night!

6:00 – Laser Beatles
7:15 – Laser Taylor Swift
8:30 – Laser Prince

https://cart.peoriariverfrontmuseum.org/performancecalendar.aspx

S**ceX's Starship is on the launchpad and ready for flight - it's the largest & most powerful rocket ever built. You may remember the 1st test launch back in April, which ended 4 minutes after liftoff with Starship exploding. Well, S**ceX is ready to try again, hopefully tomorrow (Fri. Nov. 17) when a 2-hour window opens at 7:00 AM (central). You can watch S**ceX's livestream here: https://www.spacex.com/launches/mission/?missionId=starship-flight-2
This pic was taken by John Kraus: https://twitter.com/johnkrausphotos/status/1725136564664054020/photo/4

Nice nighttime view from the ISS flying east over the US just before sunrise last Friday morning, around 4:30 AM. You can see the bright lights of Chicago at left, and Dallas-Fort Worth at right. Can you find Peoria? Any other cities you can ID?
https://www.flickr.com/photos/nasa2explore/53332473614/

ESA’s latest Hubble Picture-of-the-Week features a spiral galaxy about 30 million light-years away. One of Hubble’s filters reveals pink fluorescent clouds of hydrogen along the spiral arms; these are powered by UV light from hot, massive new stars forming within. https://esahubble.org/images/potw2346a/

Earth laps Uranus today, meaning the 7th planet from the Sun is at its closest to us for the year, "only" about 1.73 billion miles away (about 2.6 light-hours away). This also means Uranus is at its brightest, and despite being the 1st planet discovered with a telescope, it is possible to see Uranus as a faint "star" with the naked eye, if you're in a dark enough sky. If you're up for the challenge, links to detailed maps to help you find it are available here:
https://earthsky.org/astronomy-essentials/uranus-at-opposition-closest-brightest-best/

The dynamic duo, Hubble and Webb, have teamed up to image the false-colorful Christmas Tree Galaxy Cluster, about 4.3 billion light-years away. Imaged across the spectrum from infrared to ultraviolet, the longer wavelengths are false-colored more red and the shorter wavelengths are false-colored more blue. https://hubblesite.org/contents/news-releases/2023/news-2023-146

The latest Hubble Picture-of-the-Week is this beautiful face-on spiral galaxy about 55 million light-years away. https://esahubble.org/images/potw2345a/

Venus and the Moon were close together as seen from the US yesterday morning, but even closer from the UK. In fact, from the UK the Moon was seen to pass right in front of Venus - a lunar occultation.
Here's a beautiful pic just 2 minutes before the occultation started, from Thierry Legault; the Moon is a crescent and Venus is half-full: https://twitter.com/ThierryLegault/status/1722691264095650107/photo/1

Did you catch Venus & the Moon close together before sunrise this morning? Lisa Kendall in Burlington, Wisconsin did, and took this lovely photo to prove it. There's a nice gallery of other photos of the pair over at EarthSky's website: https://earthsky.org/todays-image/photos-of-venus-and-the-moon-nov-9-2023/

Go out before sunrise tomorrow (Thursday, Nov. 9) to catch the beautiful crescent Moon passing by the brilliantly bright Venus. These are the 2 brightest objects in the sky after the Sun, and will look lovely paired together in the dawn twilight before sunrise. They should be about 1-2° apart. Sunrise in Peoria will be at 6:37 AM.
https://skyandtelescope.org/astronomy-news/observing-news/this-weeks-sky-at-a-glance-november-3-12/

An amazing new telescope has just released its first amazing photographs: ESA's Euclid S**ce Telescope. Over 6 years, Euclid will map the positions, shapes, and motions of billions of galaxies out to a distance of 10 billion light-years, creating the largest intergalactic map ever assembled. Using this map, scientists hope to uncover clues about the mysterious natures of dark matter and dark energy, which combined make up 95% of the known matter & energy of the Universe.
https://www.esa.int/Science_Exploration/S**ce_Science/Euclid/Euclid_s_first_images_the_dazzling_edge_of_darkness

Some beautiful pics here from the outbreak of auroras over the weekend. These were caused by two Coronal Mass Ejections from the Sun slamming into Earth.
More pics in this nice gallery: https://earthsky.org/sun/sun-activity-solar-flare-cme-aurora-updates/

Another mesmerizing mid-infrared pic of the core of a face-on spiral galaxy from the James Webb S**ce Telescope. This false-color pic reveals infrared-glowing dust heated by stars, the dust tracing out the beautiful winding paths of the spiral arms. M83 is "only" 15 million light-years away in the direction of the constellation Hydra.
https://esawebb.org/images/potm2310a/

Beautiful new Hubble pic of face-on spiral nicknamed the Spanish Dancer Galaxy. The pink places are fluorescent clouds of hydrogen powered by new stars. This galaxy is about 60 million light-years away in the direction of the constellation Dorado.
https://esahubble.org/images/potw2344a/

Recognize this planet?
It's a new picture of Jupiter taken by the Hubble S**ce Telescope... in ultraviolet light. As our eyes can't detect UV light, this picture is necessarily in false-color. Notice the Great Red Spot is dark since its high-altitude hazes absorb lots of ultraviolet light.
Keep an eye out for Jupiter as it's currently up in the sky all night long and very, very bright.
https://science.nasa.gov/missions/hubble/hubble-provides-unique-ultraviolet-view-of-jupiter/