The Sky is Waiting.
Mars Odyssey as seen from Mars Global Surveyor in 2005.
Credit: NASA
An often overlooked but crucial mission celebrates its 13th full year in space today. On April 7th, 2001, a Delta II rocket lifted off into the late Florida morning from Cape Canaveral carrying the Mars Odyssey spacecraft. Mars Odyssey was designed to study Mars from orbit and reached the Red Planet on October 24th of the same year. [Read more...]
A time exposure of lunar totality shot on ye ole film.
(Photo by Author).
Eclipse season is neigh for 2014 this coming week, with the first of two total lunar eclipses for 2014. Lunar eclipses are always the big ticket astronomical events for any year, and the total lunar eclipse occurring on the night of April 14/15th 2014 is sure not to disappoint. [Read more...]
Out on April 8th!
If there’s one thing we love, it’s a non-stop space opera action adventure. Military science fiction has really come of its own over the past decades, as first popularized by Robert Heinlein and his classic Starship Troopers.
But what of the soldiers themselves? And what of a world where soldiers are custom tailored to fight and die? This week, we’re excited to bring you our review of the latest Cassandra Kresnov novel out from author Joel Shepherd and Pyr Books entitled Operation Shield. [Read more...]
On your marks, get set, Messier Marathon!
‘Tis the season when it’s possible to hunt down all the 110 of the deep sky objects in Messier’s famous deep sky catalog in one night. We recently wrote about the potential for carrying out this feat of astronomical observation for 2014. [Read more...]
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So, you think you know maps? Author and historian Jerry Brotton will show you otherwise. This week’s review takes us through a fascinating trip back through history from an unusual perspective. A History of the World in 12 Maps looks at how we’ve perceived the surface of this planet we inhabit throughout the ages, and how we’ve grappled with depicting it over the millenia. [Read more...]
The crew of Soyuz TMA-12M (Credit: NASA).
The population of humans in space is about to increase by three tomorrow night, when Soyuz TMA-12M takes to skies over the Baikonur cosmodrome in a brilliant night launch. The launch is set to occur at 21:17 Universal Time (UT) or 5:17 PM EDT on Tuesday, March 25th for a four orbit, six hour “fast-track” docking on Wednesday at 3:04 UT/11:04 PM EDT. [Read more...]
Out this coming April.
Ready for political intrigue?
This week, we break tradition a bit from our usual review of science and science fiction books to journey back into the tie-dyed era of the early 1960s and a murder mystery that takes the reader into the darkened recesses of Washington politics. [Read more...]
Look! There it is!
Credit-The Virtual Star Party.
Now the story can be told.
You just never know when the universe is going to dangle a discovery right in front of your eyes. We amateur astronomers often pride ourselves on being “visual athletes,” patient steely-eyed observers who let little slip by us.
But we too can fall into the trap of routine. Just such a discovery was ours to lose a few weeks ago during the weekly Virtual Star Party held every Sunday night hosted by CosmoQuest and Universe Today on Google+. [Read more...]
The Moon approaches Lambda Geminorum (arrowed).
The morning was damp with dew and the hour was late. I silently hoped for batteries and gear to hang on, and dared not jitter the scope or camera, for fear of bumping off kilter the perfect alignment of optics and settings that was now producing an exquisite image of a waxing gibbous Moon with a flicker of a star just off of the approaching dark limb. WWV radio clicked away the moments in the background night. [Read more...]
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America’s premier space pioneer has a vision for space exploration.
Astronaut Buzz Aldrin has been there. A veteran of Gemini 12 and Apollo 11, Aldrin was the second man to walk on the Moon after Neil Armstrong and has since been a vocal proponent of manned space exploration.
And it shows, in his breathtaking new proposal for man in space entitled Mission to Mars: My Vision for Space Exploration. [Read more...]
Staring into the heart of Sol… Credit: Fox TV.
And so it begins….
Last night, the series premiere of Cosmos: A Spacetime Odyssey aired on Fox TV. The reboot of the popular documentary series had been years in the making, and has been one of the most anticipated events of 2014.
Like many space enthusiasts, we simply want Cosmos to be good. Sure, there’ll be plenty of Monday morning pundits dissecting the show after each of the 13 episodes air, but we feel it’s just great — and timely — to see the show coming back. [Read more...]
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This week, we return to “Lessons from Science Fiction 101,” with a look at a master of scifi.
We’re talking, of course, about American science fiction author Robert A. Heinlein. One of the “Big 3” next to Clarke and Asimov when it comes to golden age science fiction, no one was better a weaving in sociological issues into their future mythology. [Read more...]
Time for sundown on DST? (Photo by author)
This coming weekend, most of North America will perform that yearly Spring ritual of setting their clocks one hour ahead to Daylight Saving Time, or DST. Now reckoned as the second Sunday of March, the DST shift for 2014 on March 9th falls nearly as early as early as it can this year, missing that mark by just one day. And three Sundays later, the European Union follows suit, shifting forward to Summer Time on March 30th. [Read more...]
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By now, you’ve seen the video.
Last year, astronaut Chris Hadfield’s cover of David Bowie’s Space Oddity went viral on YouTube. This capped a hugely successful stint for Hadfield aboard the International Space Station for the Canadian Space Agency astronaut, and a great ad hoc publicity campaign via social media. [Read more...]
Boy, how about that recent polar vortex, huh? It’s a good thing that February is the shortest month of the year, at least from the climatic perspective of residents in the northern hemisphere. Of course, we’re writing this from our sunny refuge in Florida, where a “cold snap” means that one must dig through the backs of closets through the strata of clothing to don a light jacket before heading out. Oh, the inconvenience of it all, I know. Hey, we’ve paid our dues living many a decade in Alaska and Maine, and have since arrived at the same conclusion as many semi-retirees that movement to Florida isn’t just a good idea, it’s the law. [Read more...]
The path of the 2017 eclipse over the U.S.
(Credit: NASA/GSFC/A.T. Sinclair).
Where will you be on August 21st, 2017? That date isn’t as far away as you think. Just over three and half years from now, a total solar eclipse will span contiguous United States from the Pacific Northwest to the southeastern Atlantic seaboard. This will be the first solar eclipse to grace the lower 48 states since 1979, and the first time totality has crossed any of the 50 states since 1991. [Read more...]
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Pictured is a Delta IV rocket launch from Cape Canaveral on November 21st, 2010. The image is a 20 second exposure taken at dusk, shot from about 100 miles west of the launch site. The launch placed a classified payload in orbit for the United States Air Force.
Difficult but not impossible to catch against the dawn or dusk sky, spotting an extreme crescent moon can be a challenge. The slender crescent pictured was shot 30 minutes before sunrise when the Moon was less than 20 hours away from New. A true feat of visual athletics to catch, a good pair of binoculars or a well aimed wide field telescopic view can help with the hunt.
The Sun is our nearest star, and goes through an 11-year cycle of activity. This image was taken via a properly filtered telescope, and shows the Sun as it appeared during its last maximum peak in 2003. This was during solar cycle #23, a period during which the Sun hurled several large flares Earthward. The next solar cycle is due to peak around 2013-14.
Located in the belt of the constellation Orion, Messier 42, also known as the Orion Nebula is one of the finest deep sky objects in the northern hemisphere sky. Just visible as a faint smudge to the naked eye on a clear dark night, the Orion Nebula is a sure star party favorite, as it shows tendrils of gas contrasted with bright stars. M42 is a large stellar nursery, a star forming region about 1,000 light years distant.
Orbiting the planet in Low Earth Orbit (LEO) every 90 minutes, many people fail to realize that you can see the International Space Station (ISS) from most of the planet on a near-weekly basis. In fact, the ISS has been known to make up to four visible passes over the same location in one night. The image pictured is from the Fourth of July, 2011 and is a 20 second exposure of a bright ISS pass.
Next to the Sun, the two brightest objects in the sky are the Moon and the planet Venus. In fact, when Venus is favorably placed next to the Moon, it might just be possible to spot the two in the daytime. Another intriguing effect known as earthshine or ashen light is also seen in the image on the night side of the Moon; this is caused by sunlight reflected back off of the Earth towards our only satellite.
A mosaic of three images taken during the total lunar eclipse of December 21st, 2010. The eclipse occurred the same day as the winter solstice. The curve and size of the Earth’s shadow is apparent in the image.
The Algonquin Indians had names for each of the seasonal Full Moons, many of which survive today. The Full Snow Moon pictured occurs in the month of December, when the first large winter storms coat the ground with snow. This Full Moon also tends to fall near the Winter Solstice, and thus rides high in the nightly sky opposite to the Sun on long winter nights.
Every rocket launch is unique, but twilight shuttle launches where by far the most impressive. The image pictured was of the April 5th, 2010 launch of Space Shuttle Discovery from the Kennedy Space Center at dawn. The exhaust plume caught the rising Sun overhead just right, and numerous noctilucent clouds persisted right up until sunrise. Unfortunately, space shuttle launches are now relegated to the pages of history.
Review: Five Billion Years of Solitude by Lee Billings
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Where did we come from as a species, and where is the party headed? What’s the expiration date for life on Earth, and just how common — or rare — are we? Those are the big questions in modern day science. This week’s review tackles the latest thinking concerning all of these weighty subjects and more. Five Billion Years of Solitude: The Search for Life Among the Stars by science journalist Lee Billings is a fascinating look at the state of the field. We’re talking astrobiology and the search for extraterrestrial life and intelligence, a truly interdisciplinary endeavor that encompasses all of modern science from physics and astronomy to biology and psychology. [Read more...]