On what planet was a large rectangular outcrop that is composed mainly of sandstone first observed by an English astronomer born 1618?
2302a04af1e117cac8a14c9bd5ecdee2
Horrocks Block Horrocks Block ( ) is a large rectangular outcrop that is composed mainly of sandstone, lying on the north side of Venus Glacier, 2 nmi southwest of the Keystone Cliffs, on the east side of Alexander Island, Antarctica. It was mapped by the Directorate of Overseas Surveys from satellite imagery supplied by the U.S. National Aeronautics and Space Administration in cooperation with the U.S. Geological Survey, and was named by the UK Antarctic Place-Names Committee from association with Venus Glacier after Jeremiah Horrocks, the British astronomer who predicted and first observed a transit of Venus, in 1639.
b285f6189da3381298d032f7e3b185b0
Jeremiah Horrocks Jeremiah Horrocks (1618 – 3 January 1641), sometimes given as Jeremiah Horrox (the Latinised version that he used on the Emmanuel College register and in his Latin manuscripts), was an English astronomer. He was the first person to demonstrate that the Moon moved around the Earth in an elliptical orbit; and he was the only person to predict the transit of Venus of 1639, an event which he and his friend William Crabtree were the only two people to observe and record.
bf62584265a1fdafffabaaa099eb98e8
Kepler-47b Kepler-47b (also known as Kepler-47(AB)-b and by its Kepler Object of Interest designation "KOI-3154.01") is an exoplanet orbiting the binary star system Kepler-47, the innermost of three such planets discovered by NASA's "Kepler" spacecraft. The system, also involving two other exoplanets, is located about 4,900 light-years (1,500 parsecs, or nearly km) away in the constellation Cygnus. The binary system is the first to be found with more than one circumbinary planet.
7dfc489d0ae4a755ace5e8d728761cf0
Martian soil Martian soil is the fine regolith found on the surface of Mars. Its properties can differ significantly from those of terrestrial soil. The term Martian soil typically refers to the finer fraction of regolith. On Earth, the term "soil" usually includes organic content. In contrast, planetary scientists adopt a functional definition of soil to distinguish it from rocks. Rocks generally refer to 10 cm scale and larger materials (e.g., fragments, breccia, and exposed outcrops) with high thermal inertia, with areal fractions consistent with the Viking Infrared Thermal Mapper (IRTM) data, and immobile under current aeolian conditions. Consequently, rocks classify as grains exceeding the size of cobbles on the Wentworth scale.
2906d564e309f4b21a536071293d0f1e
Kepler-1229b Kepler-1229b (also known by its Kepler Object of Interest designation "KOI-2418.01") is a confirmed super-Earth exoplanet, likely rocky, orbiting within the habitable zone of the red dwarf star Kepler-1229, located about 770 light years (236 parsecs, or nearly km) from Earth in the constellation of Cygnus. It was discovered in 2016 by the "Kepler" space telescope. The exoplanet was found by using the transit method, in which the dimming effect that a planet causes as it crosses in front of its star is measured.
76c400c4d5364e28016c5f5fd7813111
Mega-Earth A mega-Earth is a massive terrestrial exoplanet that is at least ten times the mass of Earth. Mega-Earths are substantially more massive than super-Earths (terrestrial and ocean planets with masses around 5–10 Earths). The term "mega-Earth" was coined in 2014, when Kepler-10c was revealed to be a Neptune-mass planet with a density considerably greater than that of Earth.
4cfce42cf0d1665c9db8676f53c79289
Red Sandstone Red sandstone is sandstone appearing red due to the inclusion of iron oxides (hematite). Red Sandstone may also refer to:
6b4e2bbe037dda505ec2ec44ba0cc26a
International Halley Watch Halley's Comet, named after English astronomer Edmund Halley who first demonstrated its periodicity, returns to the vicinity of the Sun and Earth approximately every 76 years. Since comets are believed to be the most primordial objects in the solar system, their study is of great importance to planetary science. At the time of the 1986 return (technically, "apparition") of the comet, astronomical telescopes and related instrumentation were vastly more sensitive than for any previous apparition. Consequently, the International Halley Watch (IHW) was organized to stimulate, standardize, collect, and archive observations of the comet.
343e03d12c0cf611e8499a27a351869a
NGC 6326 NGC 6326 is a complex and irregularly structured planetary nebula located in the constellation Ara. It is designated as PN in the galaxy morphological classification scheme and was discovered by the Scottish astronomer James Dunlop on 26 August 1826. NGC 6326 is the result of the ejected material from the central binary star, which is nearing the end of its life. The blue and red color is due to the amount of radiation the star releases, thus causing the gasses to glow. NGC 6326 is located at about 11,000 light years away from earth.<ref name="NASA/IPAC"> </ref>
32f292564a1cc878d46eb309aeeb9835
1566 Icarus 1566 Icarus ( ), provisional designation 1949 MA, is an extremely eccentric asteroid, approximately 1.4 kilometers in diameter. It is a near-Earth object of the Apollo group and the lowest numbered potentially hazardous asteroid. In 1968, it became the first asteroid ever observed by radar. Its orbit brings it closer to the Sun than Mercury and further out than the orbit of Mars, which also makes it a Mercury-, Venus-, and Mars-crosser. This stony asteroid and relatively fast rotator was discovered by German astronomer Walter Baade at the Palomar Observatory, California, on 27 June 1949. It was named after the mythological boy Icarus, who flew too close to the Sun.
721ad364feaa28815c3dcfd48ad3a55b
Gullies on Mars Martian gullies are small, incised networks of narrow channels and their associated downslope sediment deposits, found on the planet of Mars. They are named for their resemblance to terrestrial gullies. First discovered on images from Mars Global Surveyor, they occur on steep slopes, especially on the walls of craters. Usually, each gully has a dendritic "alcove" at its head, a fan-shaped "apron" at its base, and a single thread of incised "channel" linking the two, giving the whole gully an hourglass shape. They are estimated to be relatively young because they have few, if any craters. A subclass of gullies is also found cut into the faces of sand dunes, that are themselves considered to be quite young. Linear dune gullies are now considered recurrent seasonnal afeatures.
0655b7d8a4e05214f1eba37849681517
History of Mars observation The recorded history of Mars observation dates back to the era of the ancient Egyptian astronomers in the 2nd millennium BCE. Chinese records about the motions of Mars appeared before the founding of the Zhou Dynasty (1045 BCE). Detailed observations of the position of Mars were made by Babylonian astronomers who developed arithmetic techniques to predict the future position of the planet. The ancient Greek philosophers and Hellenistic astronomers developed a geocentric model to explain the planet's motions. Measurements of Mars' angular diameter can be found in ancient Greek and Indian texts. In the 16th century, Nicolaus Copernicus proposed a heliocentric model for the Solar System in which the planets follow circular orbits about the Sun. This was revised by Johannes Kepler, yielding an elliptic orbit for Mars that more accurately fitted the observational data.
1c69f15795180837e9d1084936e69b4d
Kepler-440b Kepler-440b (also known by its Kepler Object of Interest designation KOI-4087.01) is a confirmed super-Earth exoplanet orbiting within the habitable zone of Kepler-440, about 261 pc from Earth. The planet was discovered by NASA's Kepler spacecraft using the transit method, in which the dimming effect that a planet causes as it crosses in front of its star is measured. NASA announced the confirmation of the exoplanet on 6 January 2015.
c8def8a3cb84fa82bbd5bd85019b3524
Kepler-12b Kepler-12b is a Hot Jupiter that orbits G-type star Kepler-12 some 600 parsecs away. The planet has an anomalously large radius that could not be explained by standard models at the time of its discovery, as it is almost 1.7 times Jupiter's size while being 0.4 times Jupiter's mass. The planet was detected by the Kepler spacecraft, a NASA project searching for planets that transit (cross in front of) their host stars. The discovery paper was published on September 5, 2011.
a70877e5736a774312141c13176392a0
Kepler-9 Kepler-9 is a sunlike star in the constellation Lyra. Its planetary system, discovered by the Kepler Mission in 2010 was the first detected with the transit method found to contain multiple planets.
032e6fa01333e52d99e969c66726c005
Benjamin Herschel Babbage Benjamin Herschel Babbage (6 August 1815 – 22 October 1878) was an English engineer, scientist, explorer and politician, best known for his work in the colony of South Australia. He invariably signed his name "B. Herschel Babbage" and was frequently referred to as "Herschel Babbage".
5cc7c5604b3866872e4fc84f7aa2f0d5
Periodic Bedrock Ridges Periodic Bedrock Ridges (PBRs) are features of the surface geomorphology of Mars and formerly unknown on Earth, first described in a paper in the Journal of Geological Research - Planets, in March 2012, by Professor David R. Montgomery, Joshua L. Bandfield, and Scott K. Becker of the University of Washington.
72e67fcc51a20d39688a5677d5a44d78
Gliese 3470 b Gliese 3470 b, abbreviated as GJ3470b, is an exoplanet orbiting the star Gliese 3470, both of which are located in the constellation Cancer. With a mass of just under 14 Earth-masses and a radius approximately 4.3 times that of Earth's, it is likely something akin to a mini-Neptune despite the initially strong belief that the planet was not covered in clouds like the gas giants we are familiar with in our solar system. The exoplanet’s atmosphere was first observed by researchers Akihiko Fukui, Norio Narita and Kenji Kuroda at the University of Tokyo in 2013, and afterwards, Fukui commented, "Suppose the atmosphere consists of hydrogen and helium, the mass of the atmosphere would be 5-20% of the total mass of the planet. Comparing that to the fact that the mass of Earth's atmosphere is about one ten-thousandth of a percent (0.0001%) of the total mass of the Earth, this planet has a considerably thick atmosphere." Recently in 2015, a team using the Las Cumbres Observatory Global Telescope (LCOGT) network reported their detection of Rayleigh scattering in the atmosphere of this planet. In the Las Cumbres researchers' paper published in The Astrophysical Journal, they conclude that the most plausible explanation for the scattering effect to be an atmosphere made predominantly of hydrogen and helium, causing the exoplanet to be veiled by dense clouds and hazes. It is thought that the planet would appear blue to the human eye due to this scattering. As of now, GJ3470b is the only exoplanet orbiting the Gliese 3470 star that has been observed and analyzed by astronomers and astrophysicists.
c2156a755237298265e807fb7a4745b3
King's Observatory The King's Observatory (called for many years the Kew Observatory) is a Grade I listed building in Richmond, London. Now a private dwelling, it formerly housed an astronomical and terrestrial magnetic observatory founded by King George III. The architect was Sir William Chambers; his design of the King's Observatory influenced the architecture of two Irish observatories  – Armagh Observatory and Dunsink Observatory near Dublin.
08d8e07f72826028fa6eca0dced0cd6b
William Henry Finlay William Henry Finlay (born 17 June 1849 in Liverpool; died 7 December 1924 in Cape Town, South Africa) was a South African astronomer. He was First Assistant at the Cape Observatory from 1873 to 1898 under Edward James Stone. He discovered the periodic comet 15P/Finlay. Earlier, he was one of the first to spot the "Great Comet of 1882" (C/1882 R1). The first telegraphic determinations of longitude along the western coast of Africa were made by Finlay and T. F. Pullen.
340caadc044b4a77edcb9afe5b61285e
Planetary geology Planetary geology, alternatively known as astrogeology or exogeology, is a planetary science discipline concerned with the geology of the celestial bodies such as the planets and their moons, asteroids, comets, and meteorites. Although the geo- prefix typically indicates topics of or relating to the Earth, planetary geology is named as such for historical and convenience reasons; applying geological science to other planetary bodies. Due to the types of investigations involved, it is also closely linked with Earth-based geology.
e6f8e5ceba956a6381977c2b1ae4f05e
Sydney Observatory Sydney Observatory is located on a hill now known as Observatory Hill in the centre of Sydney. The site evolved from a fort built on 'Windmill Hill' in the early 19th century to an astronomical observatory during the nineteenth century. It is now a working museum where evening visitors can observe the stars and planets through a modern 40 cm Schmidt-Cassegrain telescope and a historic 29 cm refractor telescope built in 1874, the oldest telescope in Australia in regular use.