Astronomy

With the help of NASA's Kepler space satellite, a team of astronomers has discovered for the first time a transiting circumbinary multiplanetary system, consisting of two planets orbiting two stars. It is located 4,900 light-years from Earth, in the constellation Swan, and the stars outshine each other every 7.5 days, the researchers explained. One of the stars is similar to the Sun in size but with 84% of its brightness. The other is a third of the size of our star and its brightness is negligible.

Until now the idea that a star could devour its inner planets was only a theory, but for the first time scientists believe they have firm evidence of this type of cosmic cannibalism on their hands. Specifically, the evidence comes from a star called BD + 48 740, specifically an old red giant from the constellation Perseus with 1.5 times the mass of our Sun, which has turned out to have more lithium than normal.

The Sun is the roundest natural object measured so far. In fact, if it were resized to the scale of a beach ball it would be so spherical that the difference between the widest and the narrowest diameter would not exceed the thickness of a human hair.

In the Large Magellanic Cloud galaxy is a star-forming region that has puzzled astronomers around the world for years. It is called the Tarantula Nebula and it is an object so luminous that, if it were at the same distance from Earth as the Orion Nebula, it would even cast shadows on our planet. This luminosity is due to the presence of four supermassive stars of enormous dimensions that were discovered in 2010 by a team of researchers.

This year, the Perseid Meteor Shower, also known as "Saint Lawrence's Tears", will be at its peak during the day, but can be seen quite intensely on the nights of Saturday 11 and Sunday 12 August. The summer meteor shower occurs when, each year around this time, our planet crosses the orbit of Comet Swift-Tuttle.

This August will be a special month because it begins on the night of the 2nd with a full Moon and ends on the 31st with a second full Moon. The coincidence of two full moons in the same calendar month is a rare phenomenon that astronomers call "Blue Moon".

The planet Gliese 581g has just been placed as number one on the list of the five planets outside our Solar System that could support life. The star was discovered two years ago by researchers at the University of Santa Cruz, California, but its existence was questioned by the scientific community. Now, new analyzes published in the journal Astronomical Notes confirm their presence.

The two brightest planets in the solar system, Venus and Jupiter, will shine together in the sky during the nights and sunrises of the first weeks of July, as reported by NASA. To be able to observe this spectacle, experts have pointed out that you only have to look to the east.