It's that time of
year when everyone is making new year resolutions, and I am no different. My
goal this year for you, my readers, is to write a blog post at least once a
week. So today, I thought I'd share with you some exciting events of 2013; a
hint at blog posts to come.
This year is going
to be just as exciting as years past for astronomy enthusiasts. NASA has many
missions planned, including the launch of the Interface Region Imaging
Spectrograph (IRIS), Lunar Atmosphere and Dust Environment Explorer (LADEE),
and the Mars Atmosphere and Volatile Evolution mission (MAVEN). These
instruments are designed to study the solar atmosphere, moon's surface, and
Mars' upper atmosphere, respectively. Along with these new satellites, NASA and
other agencies will continue to support
the International Space Station and science experiments being conducted
there. The ESA will also be very active
in 2013, focusing on launching satellites to study the Earth as part of their
Living Planet Programme. Work will continue on the James Webb Space Telescope
(JWST), and the construction of the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter
Array (ALMA) should be completed. Data continues to pour in from the Great Observatories
Hubble, Chandra, and Spitzer, along with various missions exploring our solar
system. Astronomers are actively studying this information and continue to make
discoveries pertaining to star, planet and galaxy evolution. The Kepler space
telescope, along with ground based observatories, continue to discover new
exoplanets on a weekly basis. Maybe an Earth analog will be uncovered in 2013?
Towards the end of 2013, be on the lookout for comet ISON. It's expected to
whiz by Earth in December, and will appear as a small dot as bright as the full
moon traveling across the sky.
For more information
on these events, and, of course, some basic astronomy topics explained, check
back on a weekly basis!
Image Credit:
NASA/JPL-Caltech, space.com
