Venus and Mars: Passing in the Night

Two planets can be seen near each other for a week or more when they pass in the night sky. Venus and Mars passed within 4 degrees of each other earlier this month. The featured image was taken a few days before Venus was slowing rising in the pre-dawn sky, night by night, while Mars was slowly setting. The mosaic was captured in Brazil from a small town. The morning sky now has Venus and Mars, as well as the distant planet Saturn. Venus, Mars, and Saturn are in different parts of our Solar System and are only part of the equation. The angle between Mars and Saturn will fall to below a quarter of a degree next week.

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What is a Cosmic Puzzle that no one expected to see? Odd Radio Circle is also known as ORCs. The ORC-1 is one of the five objects that were discovered using the new Australia n SKA Pathfinder radio array. The data from the South Africa n MeerKAT array is used in the final image in the video. The radio data is combined with a Dark Energy Survey map. An illustration by an artist explores one idea about the origins of the ORC. If two black holes collide in the center of a galaxy, they could create a ring of radio radiation. These grow to fill the frame. The expansion of the ORC can be tracked until it is a million light-year s across. The Square Kilometer Array can help test this and other promising scenarios.