Astronomy (USA) 2024-03.pdf

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FIELD
REPORT
COMPLETE ANNULAR SOLAR ECLIPSE COVERAGE!
p. 36
MA RC H 2024
The world’s best-selling astronomy magazine
COSMIC
CATASTROPHES
HOW THE
UNIVERSE
THREATENS
LIFE ON
EARTH
p. 16
THE LATEST FROM THE WEBB SPACE TELESCOPE
p. 26
www.Astronomy.com
STELLARVUE’S 180MM REFRACTOR REVIEWED
p. 44
ASTRONOMY ESSAY CONTEST WINNER!
p. 42
BONUS
ONLINE
THIS MONTH’S SKY EVENT HIGHLIGHTS
p. 28
CONTENT
YOUR READER QUESTIONS ANSWERED
p. 50
Vol. 52
•
Issue 3
CODE
p. 3
Online Content Code: ASY2403
Enter this code at
www.astronomy.com/code
to gain access to web-exclusive content.
MARCH 2024
VOL. 52, NO. 3
ON THE COVER
Earth faces a plethora of threats,
from coronal mass ejections to
radiation from supernovae.
RON MILLER
CONTENTS
FEATURES
16
COVER STORY
JOHN DILEO
36
42
COLUMNS
These are the ways
our world will end
Whether by the bang of a
supernova or the whimper
of a faltering magnetic
field, Earth and everything
on it is doomed. Sorry.
RANDALL HYMAN
28
Secret Sky
14
STEPHEN JAMES O’MEARA
Sky This Month
Enter the springtime sky.
MARTIN RATCLIFFE
AND ALISTER LING
A personal
Perseids story
This poignant tale of sharing
the night sky won our 50th-
anniversary contest — and
a Celestron telescope.
ASTRONOMY
STAFF
AND VICKI WILSON
Observing Basics
48
MOLLY WAKELING
30
Star Dome and
Paths of the Planets
RICHARD TALCOTT;
ILLUSTRATIONS BY ROEN KELLY
7
QUANTUM GRAVITY
Everything you need
to know about the
universe this month: See
a glittering galactic core,
read up on planets in sync,
learn about a telescope
team-up, and more.
26
Free-floating binary
‘planets’ baffle theorists
JWST found 40 Jupiter-
mass objects with binary
companions in the Orion
Nebula. Now scientists have to
figure out how they got there.
RICHARD TALCOTT
44
36
‘Ring of fire’ blazes
across the Americas
From city centers to scenic
state parks,
Astronomy
editors caught October’s
annular eclipse at sites across
the American Southwest.
MARK ZASTROW
Reviewing the
amazing Stellarvue
180mm refractor
This hand-crafted apochromat
raises the bar for refinement in
build and image quality.
TONY HALLAS
50
Ask Astro
Green stars.
Go to
www.Astronomy.com
for info on the biggest news and
observing events, stunning photos,
informative videos, and more.
ONLINE
FAVORITES
From the Editor
4
Astro Letters
6
New Products
49
Advertiser Index
49
Reader Gallery
54
Breakthrough
58
Ask Astro
Archives
Answers to all
your cosmic
questions.
Astronomy
(ISSN 0091-6358, USPS 531-350)
is published monthly by Kalmbach Media
Co., 21027 Crossroads Circle, P. O. Box 1612,
Waukesha, WI 53187–1612. Periodicals postage
paid at Waukesha, WI, and additional offices.
POSTMASTER: Send address changes to
Astronomy,
PO Box 8520, Big Sandy, TX 75755.
Canada Publication Mail Agreement #40010760.
IN EVERY ISSUE
My Science
Shop
Perfect gifts for
your favorite
science geeks.
Trips and
Tours
Travel the world
with the staff of
Astronomy.
Sky This
Week
A daily digest
of celestial
events.
W W W.A S T R O N O MY.CO M
3
FROM THE EDITOR
The end of it all
Hey folks, if you didn’t already
know this, the universe is a
dangerous place.
Life can seem pretty nice down here
on Earth — well, sometimes. But our
daily lives carry us away from contem-
plating that we’re orbiting one star in a
gigantic disk of stars and gas, and our
galaxy is but one of at least 100 billion
others in this vast cosmos. And despite
our human stories, fables, and fairy tales,
the universe is indifferent about our
existence. The universe just
is
— we don’t
have protection from imaginary forces
keeping us safe from real hazards.
In this month’s cover story (page 16),
science journalist Randall Hyman carries us through a catalog of
potential cosmic dangers. We all know the well-told story of 66 mil-
lion years ago, when the K-Pg Impact ruined the weekend for the
dinosaurs and allowed us to eventually rise up to our current level.
But varieties of other troubles could sweep in from beyond our
fragile atmosphere. Asteroids and comets could (and will eventually)
impact us again — just because we now know that no rock large
enough to be a civilization killer orbits in near-Earth space does
not mean that other big ones couldn’t approach from farther away.
You might remember a couple of years ago when the bright star
Betelgeuse, in Orion, seemed a little unstable in its light output, and
everyone started hoping that it might be about to go supernova?
Well, don’t hold your breath, but it will within the next 100,000 years,
give or take. At 550 light-years, it’s pretty close, and other elderly
supergiants are in the neighborhood too. And, believe me, a dose of
sterilizing radiation from a nearby supernova would put an abrupt
end to people wishing for exploding stars.
What about a superflare from our own Sun? A neighborly visit
of antimatter? A micro black hole whizzing past us? Lots of dangers
are out there, if they stray too close.
Enjoy the story, and peer into the cosmos tonight with just a little
different idea in mind about what awaits us.
Solar flares, such as
these shown in an
image from NASA’s
Solar Dynamics
Observatory,
represent one danger
the cosmos poses to
the continued health
of life on Earth.
NASA’S
SCIENTIFIC VISUALIZATION STUDIO,
THE SDO SCIENCE TEAM, AND THE
VIRTUAL SOLAR OBSERVATORY.
Yours truly,
Follow Dave on
Facebook:
facebook.com/
davidjohneicher
X (formerly Twitter):
@deicherstar
Instagram:
eicher.david
David J. Eicher
Editor
FOLLOW
ASTRONOMY
facebook.com/AstronomyMagazine
twitter.com/AstronomyMag
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instagram.com/astronomy.magazine
4
ASTRONOMY
•
MARCH 2024

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