Hi everybody

Here's the latest article from the Astronomy site at BellaOnline.com and the two previous ones.

Astronomy and Space 2018 – Highlights
It's been a year of discoveries, celestial spectacles, and new developments, though tempered by some sadness, for those interested in astronomy and space. Here are my choices for the notable events in 2018.

https://www.bellaonline.com/articles/art20530.asp

Top Ten Astronomy Stories of 2018
The year 2018 was a good one for astronomers. Mars, asteroids, and the outer Solar System had the spotlight more than once. Gaia is bringing the Milky Way into focus, and Hubble found the most distant star ever seen. Here are my choices for the top astronomy stories of 2018. 

https://www.bellaonline.com/articles/art305873.asp

*Birth anniversaries*
January is a big month for astro birthdays. Here are some of them.
(1) January 4, 1643: Isaac Newton was born, though according to the Julian calendar in use at that time, he was born on Christmas Day 1642.
(2) January 8, 1942: Stephen Hawking. For thirty years he was the Lucasian Professor at the University of Cambridge, a prestigious post once held by Isaac Newton. He wrote books on cosmology for the general public, the most famous of which was A Brief History of Time, and was known for his work on black holes.
(3) January 12, 1907: Sergei Korolev. He was the mastermind of the Soviet space program, and he was a state secret – referred to, if at all, as the Chief Designer.
(4) January 17, 1647: Elisabetha Hevelius (née Koopmann). She is considered to be one of the first European female astronomers, and is often called 'The mother of Moon charts'. She helped her husband – Johannes Hevelius – manage his observatory, and published two of his works after his death.
(5) January 19, 1747: Johann Bode. Although his name lives on in "Bode's Law", he was, more importantly, a celestial cartographer who created two influential sky atlases.
(6) January 20, 1930: Edwin "Buzz" Aldrin. The second man to step onto the Moon has been an astronaut, Air Force combat pilot, aerial gunnery instructor and flight commander. His doctoral thesis at MIT was on techniques for manned orbital rendezvous.

Please visit https://www.bellaonline.com/site.asp?name=astronomy for even more great content about Astronomy. I hope to hear from you sometime soon, either in the forum https://forums.bellaonline.com/ubbthreads.php/forums/323/1/Astronomy or in response to this email message. I welcome your feedback!  

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I wish you clear skies.

Mona Evans, Astronomy Editor
www.bellaonline.com/astronomy
.