Astro-Event of the Week, August 5th-11th, 2008: The Perseid Meteors!
August always meant one thing for me as a kid; the Perseid Meteor shower . Arguably one of the best, or at least most dependable meteor showers of the year, this shower also has the advantage of...
View ArticleAstroEvent of the Week: 13.04.09: New Comet Yi-SWAN!
The Path of Comet Yi-Swan from April 11th to May 11th. (Created in Starry Night). We interrupt our usual astro-event of the week to bring you a last minute shout-out a tad early; a fairly bright comet...
View Article27.10.09: Exploring Shiva Crater.
Move over, Chicxulub; we may have a new contender in the realm of cosmic extinction events. Recently, paleontologist Sankar Chatterjee of Texas Tech University has dubbed a ring shaped subsurface...
View Article08.11.09:Does Cometary Mass Extinction Need to be Rewritten?
The disconnection event of comet 73P Schwassmann-Wachmann-3 as seen from the Hubble Space Telescope. (Credit: NASA/ESA/H. Weaver STScl.) Comets are cause all mass extinctions in Earth’s history, right?...
View Article04.03.10- The Edgar Wilson Award: A Look at Last Years Winners.
In this age of astronomical automation and ever increasingly deeper sky surveys, many believe the era of the amateur comet discoveries to be over. A look at last years Edgar Wilson Award winners,...
View Article11.04.10- Pale Blue Crescent.
Earth as seen from Rosetta. It has been said innumerable times that in traveling into space, weve discovered the Earth. The Rosetta spacecraft reminded us what a unique place our home is on its...
View ArticleEvent: Mars passes the Beehive.
This week offers a two-fer, an easy to spot naked eye conjunction of two very different objects and a difficult to observe occultation. 1st up is a close pairing of the planet Mars and M44,...
View Article13.04.10- Mammoth Extinction vs. Impact Theory.
An Ice Age extinction mystery has just got more complicated. North America used to be home to some amazing mega-animal life, including wooly mammoths, saber-toothed cats the size of grizzly...
View Article20.04.10: Hubble Smashes KBO record.
The Structure of the Kuiper Belt. The Hubble Space Telescope has shattered yet another record; the smallest Kuiper Belt Object yet recorded. But the discovery came not from the telescopes main...
View Article22.04.10-The Exotic World of Prometheus.
The tiny shepherd world of Prometheus. The moons of Saturn continue to astound. The count now stands at 61, and one by one, NASAs Cassini orbiter is giving us a close up look at these unique...
View Article09.05.10: First Re-Visit of a Comet in the Works.
An artists’ impression of Stardust NExT at comet Temple 1. NASA engineers directed the Stardust spacecraft to fire its rockets briefly on the of 17th of February, putting it on course for a new...
View ArticleAstroEvent: A Bright Dawn Comet.
The dawn skies of October hold a special treat; a possible bright morning comet. 103/P Hartley 2 approaches perihelion on October 28, 2010. Earlier in the month sees it beginning its long dive...
View ArticleNear Earth Objects: Mitigating the Threat.
(Editors Note: What follows is a scenario/article along with an original lesson plan re-written for a blog format). Arizona Meteor Crater… x100=a bad day for the Earth? (Photo by Author). Eventually,...
View ArticleAstroEvent:The Ursa Minorids; a Meteor Shower in the Making?
A new radiant? (Created by the author in Starry Night). The general impression that most folks have of annual meteor showers is that they are largely static in nature. Long term trends, however, would...
View Article19.01.11: A Valentines Day Flyby.
The view of Comet Tempel-1 as seen from Deep impact in July 2005; this year’s visit plans to be friendlier… (Credit:NASA-JPL-Caltech-UMD). One down, and one to go next month, NASA intends to perform...
View Article15.02.11: New Views of Comet Tempel 1 Courtesy of StardustNExT.
A waxing gibbous cometary nucleus…(Credit: NASA/JPL/CalTech). The re-designated StardustNExT spacecraft performed another first this Valentines Day, completing the first ever follow-up encounter of...
View Article12.03.11: Attack (on the) Cyanobacteria?
Our x1023 Grandparents? (Credit: Richard B. Hoover, MSFC, Journal of Cosmology). This sunny weekend, wed like to give some thought to the news story that erupted last weekend. Unless youve been off...
View Article24.03.11: Comet Elenin: A Great Show, But No Need for Bruce Willis.
The path of Comet Elenin through the inner solar system. (Created using the NASA/JPL Ephemeris Generator). Theres a scene in the otherwise fairly decent 1990s disaster flick Deep Impact where the...
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