24 posts tagged “nasa”

Lunarglow

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more images: from Ugur Ikizler of Mudanya, Bursa, Turkey; from Geir Øye of Ørsta, Norway; from Bob Johnson of Saskatoon, Saskatchewan; from Richard Meinig of Colorado Springs.

http://www.spaceweather.com/

http://cdbaby.com/cd/sunica2 

5 O Holy Night

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This Friday's full Moon is going to be the biggest and brightest of 2008. That means lunar coronas are going to be big and bright, too. Tonight in Northern Ireland, Martin Mc Kenna photographed this example: 

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http://www.atoptics.co.uk/droplets/cormoon.htm

http://sunicamarkovic.vox.com/library/post/christmas-songs.html

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4 Joy to the World

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CME BUBBLE 

On Dec. 8th, something exploded on the far side of the sun. The blast propelled a huge bubble of magnetized plasma over the sun's western limb where the Solar and Heliospheric Observatory (SOHO) photographed it expanding into space:

The bubble (a coronal mass ejection or "CME") is heading in the general direction of Saturn and will not hit Earth. Nevertheless, it does merit attention. After a long spell of eerie quiet, the sun is showing signs of life, raising hopes that solar minimum is coming to an end. The months ahead will likely bring more CMEs, and not all of them will miss. Stay tuned for space weather.

NORTHERN LIGHTS: The moon on the breast of the new-fallen snow gave the luster of midday to objects below.... The night before Christmas? No. Dec. 7th in Finland:

Sauli Koski of Kittila, Finland, took the picture two nights ago when "great moonlight" joined forces with green auroras to produce an Arctic luster of such beauty that Koski nearly forgot "it was -33 degrees outside!" Fortunately, his Nikon D700 did not freeze during the 8-second exposure.

The scene could repeat on Dec. 11th or 12th when a solar wind stream blows past Earth under the light of the biggest and brightest full Moon of 2008. High-latitude sky watchers, be alert for auroras.

http://www.spaceweather.com/

http://www.sunicamarkovic.com/links.html

Together

The International Space Station (ISS) and its famous sidekick the ISS Toolbag are making a series of evening passes over North America and Europe. Last night Janusz Krysiak of Koluszki, Poland, trained his backyard telescope on the bright star-like ISS and this is what he saw:

The backpack-sized toolbag is absent from the scene. Since astronaut Heidemarie Stefanyshyn-Piper dropped it on Nov. 18th, the bag has drifted far from the station and it now precedes the ISS across the sky by approximately 30 minutes. It can still be seen, however, though binoculars or a small telescope, if you know when to look. Check the Simple Satellite Tracker for flyby times.

more images: from Dirk Ewers of Hofgeismar, Germany; from Ralf Vandebergh of the Netherlands;  

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http://spaceweather.com/submissions/large_image_popup.php?image_name=becky-ramotowski-Frosty-pink-Moon_1226583917.jpg

http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/cassini/multimedia/pia11396.html

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http://sunicamarkovic.vox.com/library/post/comet-encounter.html

G. V. Williams (SAO) and Syuichi Nakano (Sumoto) have confirmed the suggestion by M. Meyer that the newly discovered comet P/2008 T3 is identical to the long-lost comet D/1892 T1 = 1892e = 1892 V (Barnard). Wiliams has extracted 41 positions of 1892 from literature and re-reduced these for analysis. The resulting orbit for comet P/2008 T3 = 1892 T1 (Barnard-Boattini) shows perihelion on Oct. 25, 2008, at about 1.1 AU. The period is 5.8 years. Nakano notes that the comet has made 20 revolutions since 1892 and passed 0.3 - 0.4 AU from Jupiter in 1922, 1934 and 2005. (IAUC 8995, subscription required)

http://www.comethunter.de/

Notes: LD means "Lunar Distance." 1 LD = 384,401 km, the distance between Earth and the Moon. 1 LD also equals 0.00256 AU. MAG is the visual magnitude of the asteroid on the date of closest approach.

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We Are Love, We Are Wisdom, We Are

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Major scale is composed of 2 tetrachords

Is anybody seeing this or is it just me?

Look at your fingers, we have Whole-Whole- Half......... just like tetrachord

Look at your legs, Whole-Whole- Half......... just like tetrachord

Look at your arms, Whole-Whole- Half......... just like tetrachord

Look at your skeleton, Whole-Whole- Half......... just like tetrachord

Whole-Whole- Half.........Whole-Whole- Half.........Whole-Whole- Half.........

Whole-Whole- Half.........

We are walking - talking tetrachords!

SUN BUZZ

SOLAR HOT SPOTS: NASA's Stereo-B spacecraft is monitoring a string of hot spots where magnetic fields are poking through the solar surface. All four are located at high latitude, a sign that they belong to new Solar Cycle 24:

http://www.spaceweather.com/

http://www.sunicamarkovic.com/links.html 

naperville il.

http://sunicamarkovic.vox.com/library/post/comet-encounter.html

NASA scientist Peter Chen has discovered a new recipe for making telescopes: Mix moondust with epoxy, add a dash of carbon nanotubes, and spin. The result is a parabolic mirror perfectly suited for a lunar observatory. To prove it could be done, Chen made the "moondust mirror" pictured above in his Maryland laboratory. The same technique, he argues, could be used to fashion giant 50-meter telescopes on the Moon--big enough to analyze the chemistry of individual planets around other stars and search them for signs of life.

naperville il.

http://sunicamarkovic.vox.com/library/post/comet-encounter.html

NASA scientist Peter Chen has discovered a new recipe for making telescopes: Mix moondust with epoxy, add a dash of carbon nanotubes, and spin. The result is a parabolic mirror perfectly suited for a lunar observatory. To prove it could be done, Chen made the "moondust mirror" pictured above in his Maryland laboratory. The same technique, he argues, could be used to fashion giant 50-meter telescopes on the Moon--big enough to analyze the chemistry of individual planets around other stars and search them for signs of life.

How bright is the International Space Station (ISS)? Consider the following: Yesterday, Joe Ricci of Rochester, New York, saw the massive spacecraft with his naked eye 20 minutes before sunset. Framed by blue sky, it was heading for the Moon:

naperville il._4