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The shower is best around 2 a.m., but watch from late evening until dawn. The best morning is likely December 14. Mornings leading up to it might also offer some meteors as well, in the rich and reliable Geminid shower.
Nebula IC 63 – in the direction of our constellation Cassiopeia – is slowly dissipating under the influence of ionizing ultraviolet radiation from a hot, luminous variable star known as Gamma Cas.
Why does Venus’ upper atmosphere circle the planet in just 4 Earth-days, while the planet itself takes 243 Earth-days to spin once? Japan’s Akatsuki spacecraft probed the mysterious “super-rotation” of Venus’ clouds.
Launched in 2018, the BepiColombo mission will have the first of its 2 encounters with Venus – while on its way to Mercury – in October 2020. Coordinated observations at that time will involve 2 spacecraft and multiple ground-based telescopes.