Birthday Blogging



My birthday cake, inspired by @ProfBrianCox and his show BBC Stargazing Live earlier this month. The constellation is Aquarius.

Planetary systems

* Gliese 876 is the first planetary system found around a red dwarf star. The planetary system has four planets, including one terrestrial planet 6.6 times the mass of Earth.
* 91 Aquarii b is a planet found around the orange giant star. Its mass is 2.9 times Jupiter and the semimajor axis of its orbit is 0.3 AU.
* Gliese 849 b is the first long-period Jupiter-like planet found around the red dwarf star. Its mass is 0.82 times Jupiter and the semimajor axis of its orbit is 2.35 AU.

Deep sky objects

There are three deep sky objects that are on the Messier catalog: the globular clusters Messier 2, Messier 72, and the open cluster Messier 73. Two well-known planetary nebulae are located in Aquarius: the Saturn Nebula (NGC 7009), to the southwest of η Aquarii; and the famous Helix Nebula (NGC 7293), southwest of δ Aquarii.