Portal:Astronomy

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The Astronomy Portal

Introduction

Astronomy is a natural science that studies celestial objects and the phenomena that occur in the cosmos. It uses mathematics, physics, and chemistry in order to explain their origin and their overall evolution. Objects of interest include planets, moons, stars, nebulae, galaxies, meteoroids, asteroids, and comets. Relevant phenomena include supernova explosions, gamma ray bursts, quasars, blazars, pulsars, and cosmic microwave background radiation. More generally, astronomy studies everything that originates beyond Earth's atmosphere. Cosmology is a branch of astronomy that studies the universe as a whole.

Astronomy is one of the oldest natural sciences. The early civilizations in recorded history made methodical observations of the night sky. These include the Egyptians, Babylonians, Greeks, Indians, Chinese, Maya, and many ancient indigenous peoples of the Americas. In the past, astronomy included disciplines as diverse as astrometry, celestial navigation, observational astronomy, and the making of calendars.

Professional astronomy is split into observational and theoretical branches. Observational astronomy is focused on acquiring data from observations of astronomical objects. This data is then analyzed using basic principles of physics. Theoretical astronomy is oriented toward the development of computer or analytical models to describe astronomical objects and phenomena. These two fields complement each other. Theoretical astronomy seeks to explain observational results and observations are used to confirm theoretical results.

Astronomy is one of the few sciences in which amateurs play an active role. This is especially true for the discovery and observation of transient events. Amateur astronomers have helped with many important discoveries, such as finding new comets. (Full article...)

General images - load new batch

The following are images from various astronomy-related articles on Wikipedia.

Image 1An image of the Cat's Paw Nebula created combining the work of professional and amateur astronomers. The image is the combination of the 2.2-metre MPG/ESO telescope of the La Silla Observatory in Chile and a 0.4-meter amateur telescope. (from Amateur astronomy)
Image 2Babylonian tablet in the British Museum recording Halley's Comet in 164 BC (from History of astronomy)
Image 3An assembly in Estonia to observe meteors (from Observational astronomy)
Image 4The Crab Nebula as seen in various wavelengths (from Observational astronomy)
Image 5Map of the Milky Way Galaxy, with the constellations that cross the galactic plane in each direction and the known prominent components annotated including main arms, spurs, bar, nucleus/bulge, notable nebulae and globular clusters (from History of astronomy)
Image 6Ultra HD photography taken at La Silla Observatory (from Observational astronomy)
Image 7The Oort cloud, one of the most successful theoretical models about the Solar System (from Theoretical astronomy)
Image 8The Antikythera Mechanism was an analog computer from 150 to 100 BC designed to calculate the positions of astronomical objects. (from History of astronomy)
Image 9Sunset at the equinox from the prehistoric site of Pizzo Vento at Fondachelli Fantina, Sicily (from History of astronomy)
Image 10Sir Patrick Moore was one of the world's leading popularisers of astronomy. (from Amateur astronomy)
Image 11History of the Universe – gravitational waves are hypothesized to arise from cosmic inflation, a rapidly accelerated expansion just after the Big Bang (from Physical cosmology)
Image 12Artist conception of the Big Bang cosmological model, the most widely accepted out of all in physical cosmology (neither time nor size to scale) (from Physical cosmology)
Image 13Mayall telescope at Kitt Peak National Observatory (from Observational astronomy)
Image 14Segment of the astronomical ceiling of Senenmut's Tomb (circa 1479–1458 BC), depicting constellations, protective deities, and twenty-four segmented wheels for the hours of the day and the months of the year (from History of astronomy)
Image 15The Nebra sky disk, Germany, 1800–1600 BC (from History of astronomy)
Image 16Amateur astronomer recording observations of the sun. (from Amateur astronomy)
Image 17Historical accuracy of atomic clocks from NIST. (from Theoretical astronomy)
$Image 1850 cm refracting telescope at Nice Observatory (from Observational astronomy)$

Image 1850 cm refracting telescope at Nice Observatory (from Observational astronomy)
Image 19Calendrical functions of the Berlin Gold Hat c. 1000 BC (from History of astronomy)
Image 20The inflationary theory as an augmentation to the Big Bang theory was first proposed by Alan Guth of MIT. Inflation solves the 'horizon problem' by making the early universe much more compact than was assumed in the standard model. Given such smaller size, causal contact (i.e., thermal communication) would have been possible among all regions of the early universe. The image was an adaptation from various generic charts depicting the growth of the size of the observable universe, for both the standard model and inflationary model respectively, of the Big Bang theory. (from Physical cosmology)
Image 21The main platform at La Silla hosts a huge range of telescopes with which astronomers can explore the Universe. (from Observational astronomy)
Image 22Places like Paranal Observatory offer crystal clear skies for observing astronomical objects with or without instruments. (from Amateur astronomy)
Image 23An example of a gravitational lens found in the DESI Legacy Surveys data. There are four sets of lensed images in DESI-090.9854-35.9683, corresponding to four distinct background galaxies—from the outermost giant red arc to the innermost bright blue arc, arranged in four concentric circles. All of them are gravitationally warped—or lensed—by the orange galaxy at the very center. Dark matter is expected to produce gravitational lensing also. (from Physical cosmology)
Image 24A voting session is conducted in 2006 International Astronomical Union's general assembly for determining a new definition of a planet (from Astronomer)
Image 25"El Caracol" observatory temple at Chichen Itza, Mexico (from History of astronomy)
Image 26Portrait of the Flemish astronomer Ferdinand Verbiest who became head of the Mathematical Board and director of the Observatory of the Chinese emperor in 1669 (from Astronomer)
Image 27Arabic astrolabe from 1079 to 1080 AD (from History of astronomy)
Image 28The Northern Hemisphere page from Johann Bayer's 1661 edition of Uranometria - the first atlas to have star charts covering the entire celestial sphere (from History of astronomy)
Image 29Southern Hemisphere (from History of astronomy)
Image 309th-century diagram of the positions of the seven planets on 18 March 816, from the Leiden Aratea (from History of astronomy)
Image 31The Hubble Space Telescope (from History of astronomy)
Image 32Overview of types of observational astronomy by observed wavelengths and their observability. (from Observational astronomy)
Image 33Historical Jantar Mantar observatory in Jaipur, India (from History of astronomy)
Image 34An amateur astrophotography setup with an automated guide system connected to a laptop (from Observational astronomy)
Image 35ALMA is the world's most powerful telescope for studying the Universe at submillimeter and millimeter wavelengths. (from Observational astronomy)
Image 36Amateur astronomy groups are often involved in outreach to introduce astronomy to the general public (from Amateur astronomy)
Image 37One of the Oldest Observatories in South America is the Quito Astronomical Observatory, founded in 1873 and located 12 minutes south of the Equator in Quito, Ecuador. The Quito Astronomical Observatory is the National Observatory of Ecuador and is located in the Historic Center of Quito and is managed by the National Polytechnic School. (from Observational astronomy)
Image 38Comparison of CMB (Cosmic microwave background) results from satellites COBE, WMAP and Planck documenting a progress in 1989–2013 (from History of astronomy)

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Featured article - show another

This is a Featured article, which represents some of the best content on English Wikipedia.

Composite image using optical images from the HST and X-ray data from the Chandra X-ray Observatory.

The Cat's Eye Nebula (also known as NGC 6543 and Caldwell 6) is a planetary nebula in the northern constellation of Draco, discovered by William Herschel on February 15, 1786. It was the first planetary nebula whose spectrum was investigated by the English amateur astronomer William Huggins, demonstrating that planetary nebulae were gaseous and not stellar in nature. Structurally, the object has had high-resolution images by the Hubble Space Telescope revealing knots, jets, bubbles and complex arcs, being illuminated by the central hot planetary nebula nucleus (PNN). It is a well-studied object that has been observed from radio to X-ray wavelengths. At the centre of the Cat's Eye Nebula is a dying Wolf Rayet star, the sort of which can be seen in the Webb Telescope's image of WR 124. The Cat's Eye Nebula's central star shines at magnitude +11.4. Hubble Space Telescope images show a sort of dart board pattern of concentric rings emanating outwards from the centre. (Full article...)

List of featured articles

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Did you know - show different entries

... that the asteroid 2011 XC2 missed the Earth by less than 1 lunar distance on 3 December 2011?
... that the mass-luminosity relation, first derived by Arthur Eddington in 1924, helps astronomers find the distances to binary star systems?
... that the planetary nebula Abell 39 is unusually spherical, yet its central star is offset from the center?
... that data from Mariner 10 led to the discovery of Mercury's magnetic field in 1974?
... that the Toronto Magnetic Observatory had to be moved as the University of Toronto's electric lighting was interfering with observations?

More Did you know facts

More Did you know (auto generated)

... that Kim Ye-ji's performance in the 10 meter air pistol at the 2024 Summer Olympics led her to be dubbed the "coolest person on the planet"?
... that the star TRAPPIST-1 has seven planets, several of which may have temperatures that would allow the existence of liquid water (artist's impression depicted)?
... that King Gizzard & the Lizard Wizard's "cli-fi" thrash metal album addresses a mix of current ecological threats and attempts to find another planet to live on?
... that the active galaxy 3C 120 was given the variable-star designation BW Tauri because of its variability in the visible spectrum?
... that the Springfield Science Museum is home to the oldest operating projection planetarium in the United States?
... that in many works of fiction, the asteroid belt is the remnants of a destroyed planet?

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WikiProjects

WikiProject Astronomy	WikiProject Solar System



WikiProject Cosmology	WikiProject Spaceflight

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Selected image - show another

Credit: NASA / JPL-Caltech / Space Science Institute

Mimas is a moon of Saturn. It was discovered in 1789 by William Herschel, after whom the large crater in the image is named. It is the twentieth-largest moon in the Solar System, and the smallest astronomical body that is known to be rounded in shape because of self-gravitation. This photograph of Mimas was taken by the unmanned spacecraft Cassini in 2010.

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Astronomy News

15 July 2024 – Mare Tranquillitatis pit: In the journal Nature Astronomy, American and Italian scientists announce the discovery of a lunar cave, approximately 250 miles (400 km) from the landing site of Apollo 11. (AP) (Nature Astronomy)

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November anniversaries

2 November 1917 – The Hooker Telescope at Mount Wilson Observatory, the largest telescope in the world from 1917 until 1948, sees first light
14 November 1971 – Unmanned probe Mariner 9 arrives at Mars and becomes the first spacecraft to orbit around another planet
18 November 1989 – Explorer 66, a satellite designed to study cosmic microwave background radiation and supply evidence in support of the Big Bang theory, is launched
20 November 1998 – Zarya, the first module of the International Space Station, is launched
28 November 1967 – PSR B1919+21 becomes the first pulsar to be observed when it is discovered by Jocelyn Bell Burnell and Antony Hewish