NASA’s Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter launched at 5:32 p.m. EDT Thursday aboard an Atlas V rocket from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida. The satellite will relay more information about the lunar environment than any other previous mission to the moon.
The orbiter, known as LRO, separated from the Atlas V rocket carrying it and a companion mission, the Lunar … Read the rest of this article
The annual Arietid meteor shower peaks on Sunday, June 7th. The Arietids are unusual because they are daytime meteors; they stream out of a point in the sky not far from the sun. Their radiant is in the constellation Aries, which lies just 30 degrees from the Sun at this time of year.
Arietid meteoroids hit Earth’s atmosphere with a … Read the rest of this article
The first noctilucent clouds of 2009 have been seen over northern Europe. On May 29th, photographers recorded wispy electric-blue tendrils spreading across the twilight skies of Denmark, Northern Ireland and Scotland. This follows a similar display over Russia on May 27th. These sightings signal the beginning of the 2009 Noctilucent Cloud season, which is expected to last until late July. … Read the rest of this article
Discovered By: G. Pojmanski, D. Szczygiel, and B. Pilecki (Warsaw University Astronomical Observatory)
Discovery Date: 2009 May 08.235
Discovery Magnitude: m=8.235 (ASAS V)
Position: RA = 13h 31m 15.76s , Dec = -63d 57m 38.5s (from L. Elenin, Moscow, Russia, using the Tzec Maun-Pingelly 0.15-m refractor near Perth, Australia)
Charts:… Read the rest of this article
NASA released an interactive, 3-D photographic collection of internal and external views of the International Space Station and a model of the next Mars rover on Thursday, May 7.
NASA and Microsoft’s Virtual Earth team developed the online experience with hundreds of photographs and Microsoft’s photo imaging technology called Photosynth. Using a click-and-drag interface, viewers can zoom in to see … Read the rest of this article
AAVSO Alert Notice 395:
Discovered By: K. Nishiyama (Kurume, Fukuoka-ken, Japan) and F. Kabashima (Miyaki-cho, Saga-ken, Japan)
Discovery Date: 2009 April 21.711 UTC (JD 2454943.211)
Discovery Magnitude: m=11.7 (unfiltered)
Position: RA = 17h 44m 08.44s , Dec = -26d 05m 48.7s (from K. Kinugasa, S. Honda, and O. Hashimoto, Gunma Astronomical Obs.)
Charts: Finder … Read the rest of this article
Six minutes and 39 seconds – that’s the duration of this week’s total solar eclipse, the longest of the 21st century.
The event begins at the crack of dawn on Wednesday, July 22nd, in the Gulf of Khambhat just east of India. Morning fishermen will experience a sunrise like nothing they’ve ever seen before. Rising out of the waves in … Read the rest of this article
Only a memory now, but a memory that returns with thoughts of the solar eclipse of coming on July 22, 2009 and the eclipse back on December 4th, 2002. By amazing coincidence that latter Christmas eclipse crossed a similar path over Africa to the eclipse in the summer of 2001. The weather prospects however were not so good there, as … Read the rest of this article
NASA is inviting the public to vote online for the most important contribution the space agency has made to exploring Earth and improving the way we live on our home planet. NASA is conducting the survey as part of its celebration of Earth Day, April 22. Voting begins today, and closes on April 21. Poll results will be announced on … Read the rest of this article
The sunspot cycle is behaving a little like the stock market. Just when you think it has hit bottom, it goes even lower.
2008 was a bear. There were no sunspots observed on 266 of the year’s 366 days (73%). To find a year with more blank suns, you have to go all the way back to 1913, which had … Read the rest of this article
The Sun Now (Visible light)
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The Sun Now (H-Alpha light)
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Aurora Oval
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Aurora Oval
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