Three kinds of rain to stretch the brain: On Saturn’s moon Titan, methane droplets (very cold) fall; on Venus, sulfuric acid rain drizzles & on the Sun coronal rain (extremely hot) occurs as hot plasma in the outer atmosphere cools, condenses & drops. #GAM2024 #RandomAstroFact

Over 3,000 pulsars were found since the first one in 1967. Each is just city-size but more massive than the Sun & spinning fast. Beams of pulsar radio waves or X-rays flash by Earth like clockwork. They may be used to steer future probes through space. #GAM2024 #RandomAstroFact

Gamma-ray bursts come from supernova explosions & probably also neutron star collisions. A GRB, in 1 second, can emit as much energy as the Sun will emit over 10 billion years. No GRBs have yet been reported from our Milky Way galaxy, thankfully. #GAM2024 #RandomAstroFact

Trillions of neutrinos from the Sun’s interior pass through your body per second, whether it’s day or night. The subatomic particles do you no harm; there’s no risk of neutrino sunburn or even a tan. Physicists detect them at huge underground labs. #GAM2024 #RandomAstroFact

Galactic center crowd: Besides giant black hole Sagittarius A* (4 million x the mass of the Sun), there’s a cluster of binary systems within a few light-years. Each consists of a normal star & a small black hole (5 to 15 solar masses), producing X-rays. #GAM2024 #RandomAstroFact

The Orion Nebula is visible by eye although about 1,300 light-years away. In 2019, a telescope measuring submillimeter waves caught a stellar flare 10 billion times stronger than one from the Sun blasting from a new star in the nebula. #GAM2024 #RandomAstroFact

Saturday, 2 May, is #AstronomyDay ! Astronomy clubs, planetariums, museums & observatories will sponsor public viewing, presentations, workshops & other activities to increase awareness about astronomy & our wonderful universe. #GAM2020 #RandomAstroFact

Worldwide network of 8 radio telescopes made 1st picture of a black hole, showing the object, centered in M87 galaxy 55 million light-years from Earth, has 6.5 billion x the Sun’s mass, is about 38 billion km (24 billion miles) across & spins clockwise. #GAM2024 #RandomAstroFact

Hypergiant VY Canis Majoris is one of largest, most massive & brightest stars in our galaxy. Matter flowing from it makes a clumpy nebula. VY is 300,000x brighter than Sun & much bigger than supergiant Betelgeuse. It may explode or become a black hole. #GAM2024 #RandomAstroFact

The Milky Way has 1.5 trillion times the mass of the Sun. Note that the Sun has 333,000 times the Earth’s mass & the Earth's mass is 5.97 x 10^24 kg (1.32 x 10^25 pounds), give or take. #GAM2024 #RandomAstroFact

Most pictures of the Apollo 11 astronauts on the Moon show Buzz Aldrin. That’s because Neil Armstrong mostly held on to the camera. Armstrong’s & Aldrin’s footprints can still be seen undisturbed at Tranquility Base where their lunar module Eagle landed. #GAM2024 #RandomAstroFact

The Rho Ophiuchi cloud complex is the closest star-forming region to Earth. In stellar nurseries like this one, jets from young stars impact surrounding molecular gas, lighting it up. #GAM2024 #RandomAstroFact

Pluto’s subsurface ocean formed from melting ice, perhaps heated by icy, rocky matter falling together as Pluto formed or later, from internal radioactivity. Heart-shaped region Sputnik Planitia is a great basin, probably made by a huge impact. #GAM2021 #RandomAstroFact

Hypergiant VY Canis Majoris is one of largest, most massive & brightest stars in our galaxy. Matter flowing from it makes a clumpy nebula. VY is 300,000x brighter than Sun & much bigger than supergiant Betelgeuse. It may explode or become a black hole. #GAM2021 #RandomAstroFact

Venus is low in the west after dusk this week. Venus’s surface is baking at about 860°F (460°C) with an atmospheric pressure over 90 times Earth’s at sea level. So NASA is developing technology for probes to survive there. via American Astronomical Society (AAS) #gam2018 #RandomAstroFact

Ground-penetrating radar on Yutu 2 rover revealed 3 layers of fine soil, broken rock & boulders down to 130 ft beneath Von Karman crater on the lunar farside. The rocks presumably fell in Von Karman after ejection by impacts that formed newer craters. #GAM2021 #RandomAstroFact

27jun2020 Marte entrando a Aries (su signo) empezando con una cuadratura al punto del eclipse de ayer, para quedarse hasta enero del año que viene y mira que ese señor se va a dar duro en su casa, sin duda el comienzo no se si del fin pero sin duda de algo fuerte, randomastrofact