Can’t see the video below? Click here. The 15th and latest installment of the awesome Symphony of Science videos is out, and like all those before it it’s a fun, inspirational and educational trip through the cosmos with voiceovers by leading astronomers and physicists. These are great, and if you haven’t seen the others be…
Tag: astronomy
Super Moon’s Big Night
Did you get a chance to see last night’s “super Moon”? Weather permitting, it put on a nice show — especially as it rose above the horizon! The photo above was taken at about 9:00 p.m. central time from Dallas, TX. It was a bit hazy in the sky but the Moon had a yellow…
NASA: In Pursuit of Light
Can’t see the video below? Click here. Here’s a new video from the folks at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, MD that will make you fall in love with the Universe…for the first time, or all over again. It’s a good reminder that, even though the shuttles are retired, NASA still has its…
NASA Satellite Spots Creepy Face on the Moon
The Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter Camera (LROC) acquired an image of the interior of Schiller crater on the Moon and this grumpy-looking boulder was found within by a Moon Zoo member. Just what is it, and what could have created it? Read more here!
Daytime Moon, Hello Venus!
What a weekend for sky gazing! As promised in Friday’s article on Universe Today, Venus was visible during the daylight hours this Saturday, very close to the crescent Moon. If you had clear weather you too may have been able to catch a glimpse of the scene above, photographed from my location in north Texas at…
Giant Asteroid to Approach Earth Jan. 31
It’s huge – 21 miles across! It’s bright – magnitude 8.7, maybe more! And right now it’s coming close to Earth – the closest it’s come in 37 years! Why haven’t they told us about this?!? Well, actually they have. It’s asteroid 433 Eros, and on Tuesday it will come within 16.6 million miles of…
If You Like Pluto, Put a Ring on It
NASA’s New Horizons spacecraft is currently speeding through the outer solar system toward its July 2015 date with Pluto, when it will take a good close look at the dwarf planet’s mysterious surface, atmosphere, moons, and… rings? Less than three-quarters the size of our moon, Pluto nevertheless has no shortage of fascinating features. It has…
From the LITD Archives: Eclipsing Mimas
Originally published on May 16, 2009. LITD is almost 3 years old! This animation, made from a series of 8 raw images taken by Cassini on May 14, shows Saturn’s moon Mimas being eclipsed by another object…..a neighboring moon, perhaps? It’s not mentioned, but it definitely seems to be something of similar size, and round….
Spacecraft Discovers Mercury Truly Is a “Hollowed” Planet
…although not in the way some people mean by the term. 🙂 The latest featured image from NASA’s MESSENGER spacecraft shows the central peak of the 78-mile (138-km) – wide crater “Eminescu” surrounded by brightly-colored surface features called “hollows”. Actually tinted a light blue color, hollows may be signs of an erosion process unique to Mercury because of its…
The Tail of a Comet Amongst the Stars
Nearly a week after its last photo event, here’s a shot of Comet Lovejoy seen from the Space Station on December 27. On its way back out into the solar system after its close run-in with the Sun on December 15, Lovejoy has since sprouted a beautiful gauzy new tail which now precedes it along…
The Colors of Titan’s Sky
Made from one of the most recent Cassini images, this is a color-composite showing a backlit Titan with its dense, multi-layered atmosphere scattering sunlight in different colors. Titan’s atmosphere is made up of methane and complex hydrocarbons and is ten times as thick as Earth’s. It is the only moon in our solar system known to have…
Comet Lovejoy’s Dazzling Death Dive
The end is definitely near… for comet Lovejoy, at least. The bright sungrazing comet was discovered on December 2, 2011, by Australian amateur astronomer Terry Lovejoy using a ground-based telescope. It was quickly seen that the comet was on a doomsday dive toward the Sun and will not likely survive its close pass of our…
Lights in the Dark 