The second-to-last Space Shuttle launch went off without a hitch this morning. Rep. Gabby Giffords was in attendance as her husband, Mark Kelly, commander of STS-134, and the rest of Endeavour‘s final crew rocketed into orbit. Spaceflight Now has complete coverage. The most amazing view of the launch comes from Stephanie Gordon, a.k.a. @Stafmara, who tweeted this photo and this… Read more »
The Space Shuttle Discovery is wrapping up its final mission, and this morning the crew was awakened by none other than William Shatner, putting a new twist on the “Star Trek” opening-theme voiceover: When I heard this on CNN, it gave me goose bumps. I kid you not. (NERD!!!)
I offer this not because of the political message, but simply because the late, great Carl Sagan — and wow, has it really been 14-plus years since he died? — rocks:
That’s a shot, from our backyard, of the lunar eclipse nearing mid-totality a few minutes ago — prompting DU Bally to ask, “Where’d the Moon go, and what’s that reddish-orange thing in the sky? Is it a basketball?” But seriously, folks. There’s a good show happening in the sky. Two more pics below.
There’s a total lunar eclipse tonight, visible in its entirety throughout the U.S. Here’s a complete timetable of eclipse events. Below are the key times, in Mountain Standard Time. (Add 2 hours for Eastern Time, add 1 for Central, or subtract 1 for Pacific.) 11:33 PM: Partial eclipse starts (first “bite” of the dark umbral shadow appears) 12:41 AM: Totality… Read more »
Hmm… A NASA press release announcing “an astrobiology finding” — something that will impact the search for extraterrestrial life — has sent shockwaves through the blogosphere. The press release simply announces an event, set for Thursday at 2 p.m. EST, to discuss an astrobiology discovery “that will impact the search for evidence of extraterrestrial life.” Astrobiology is the study of… Read more »
The next 24 hours are going to be a real treat for sky-watchers. First, this evening, the Moon and three planets — Venus, Mars and Saturn — will line up for a quadruple conjunction in the western sky. NASA writes: The show begins at sundown when Venus, Saturn, Mars and the crescent Moon pop out of the western twilight in… Read more »
It seems like, every time I go running, I see something beautiful in the sky. Last night, it was the rising Full Buck Moon, sitting right smack in the middle of the Earth’s shadow — or as I like to (inaccurately) call it, the “anti-horizon” — low in the eastern sky. The view in the western sky wasn’t bad, either.
Sunday’s total solar eclipse was, for the most part, not visible from major land areas: you had to go to Easter Island, or offshore of Tahiti, or somewhere else in the South Pacific, to get into the path of totality. But there was one exception: in far southern Argentina, totality occurred just a few minutes before sunset. And that gave… Read more »
I wasn’t looking for them, but I just happened to catch a glimpse of Venus and the crescent Moon from our newly built patio this evening. Beautiful. A closer view: Clearly, even the Heavens are celebrating Becky’s birthday. 🙂