2016 Update

2016 was another very good year for the expansion of our knowledge of the Universe.

Inside the Solar System we have:

• A solar flare
• Mars at opposition
• Juno reached Jupiter
• Rosetta ended

In the Milky Way we have:

• Major data from Gaia
• Updates on several nebula and star clusters
• A close look of the Crab Nebula pulsar
• The discovery of a new Magnetar

We’ll go into what a magnetar is which will also lead us into a deep dive on how we used radio astronomy to piece together our galaxy’s rotation curve.

Beyond the galaxy, we have some beautiful photographs of:

• Nebula inside orbiting galaxies
• The discovery of Eta Carina twins
• A skyrocket galaxy
• A report from a Great Observatories Survey that has changed the number of galaxies we believe exist in the Universe.

We’ll end with a look at the Palomar Observatory and its new Zwicky Transit Facility that can cover the whole sky in 8 hours; compare one day to the next; and report differences of any kind. It’s great for finding things like distance supernova to nearby asteroids.