Wonderful

Nearly a millennium ago sky-watchers recorded a new star so bright it was visible in daylight for weeks, and Hubble has now traced how far its remnant, the Crab Nebula, has expanded since — a thousand-year-old explosion still visibly unfolding

In July 1054, court astronomers in China recorded a new "guest star" near Tianguan, the star we now call Zeta Tauri.

Hubble Space Telescope mosaic image of the Crab Nebula. Credit: NASA, ESA, J. Hester and A. Loll (Arizona State University).

 

Then there's this one, too

You can see both Earth and Moon.  Yay! (PS, the only alteration on the screenshots was that I mucked with a couple of the icons in the folders for the finances folder. You don't really need to know who I bank with, etc.)

I like to coordinate things

Especially purses and clothes,  but also desktops.  So both my laptop and my desktop at home,  as well as my desktop at work,  have the Milky Way theme for Windows,  and my phone has the Earth &  Moon Pro live wallpaper as well,  as seen on the screenshot here.  Funny,  I tried the 'I'm feeling lucky'  button on Google today and it took me to photos from the Hubble telescope.  I am in a starry mood this week.  I do love astronomy.  :)

The sky is so clear tonight

I'm tempted to take my telescope out for viewing. For one thing, I can actually see the North Star from my apartment, which is not so common, and which the telescope uses to go to all other positions in its database. For another, Mars is extremely clear just to the naked eye. But, alas, it is late. I'm very tempted to join a local astronomy club (Bluegrass Amateur Astronomy Club) that meets monthly out at the Raven Run Nature Sanctuary to view the sky through telescopes. I think I would learn a lot, and it's just $10 a year. The next viewing date is Saturday. :)

Have you been watching the sky?

Planets Align Tonight: Venus, Jupiter, Mercury, Mars & Moon To Appear

The waxing crescent moon, Jupiter, and Venus have been very close together the last few days and tonight lined up around sunset. Meanwhile, Mars was rising across the sky in the west. I've been keeping an eye on the sky, enjoying the show, and tonight was no exception.

The sad thing is there are many people who never bother to look up at the wonderful world above them.

The Hubble of the next generation may not become reality, at least yet

What We Could Lose if the James Webb Telescope Is Killed

NASA's James Webb telescope, the successor to the Hubble, is on the chopping block. With the U.S. Congress arguing over fiscal matters, one of the things that may get cut is NASA's budget, with the expensive James Webb telescope potentially getting the ax. If that happens, a generation of scientific discoveries about the nature of the universe may need to be put on hold.

Right now the future of the Webb telescope, scheduled to launch in 2018, is uncertain. Congress is looking to cut costs, and NASA's budget could be cut by as much as $1.6 billion (or about nine percent of its overall budget). Such a big cut would certainly be the death knell for the Webb telescope, which has so far cost $3 billion but whose final price is expected to hit the $6.8-billion mark.

How long has it been since you've seen the Milky Way?

I haven't in over 20 years, living inside a moderate-sized city full of light. And that's sad. Will our children even be able to see it in their lifetimes?

Earth Hour: Protecting the Night Sky from Light Pollution

It's a question that many people who popularize astronomy get asked time and again: "How many stars are there?" And while the sky is packed with a myriad of stars, the number visible to skywatchers depends greatly on the local night sky and the impact of city lights.

With Earth Hour 2011 set for 8:30 p.m. local time on Saturday (March 26), now is an opportune time to take a look at the impact of light pollution on the night sky. Earth Hour is a movement that encourages the public to switch off their lights for one hour to conserve power and take a stand against climate change.

(NASA image of light use around the world.)

What will you be doing on April 13, 2029?

Well, assuming I'm alive (I'll just have turned 62, my mother's current age), I'll probably be monitoring the shave that the asteroid Apophis is due to make near our planet. Once thought to be fairly likely to hit the planet, it is now thought to have a 1 in 250,000 chance, much less, but still not (pardon the pun) astronomical. It is thought that it will pass as close as 18,300 miles above the Earth's surface, and this Wired.com story includes a video from NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (Tracy's people) that animates what they think will happen:

It should be a wild ride in terms of world news updates that day.

Apophis is named for the monster of chaos and darkness in Aegyptian mythology that attacked Ra, the Sun, in His trip through the Underworld at night. It was seen as a snake or crocodile, and was sometimes known as the Serpent of the Nile. Apophis is the Greek term for the creature; the Aegyptian name has been reconstructed as Apep. Apophis was everything that opposed Ma'at, that which was orderly and good. In Aegyptian religion, like Judaism, chaos was seen as the ultimate evil and the bringing of order part of the very act of creation. How fitting that an asteroid of this name would be seen as Earth's opposer.

Nifty

Spacewalking Astronauts Seen With a Backyard Telescope

They're not the clearest of images, but they do capture spacewalking astronauts with a home 10-inch aperture telescope. Pretty amazing, seeing humans in space from the earth from your backyard, hmmm?

Really nice video

about sharing experiences in observing the moon and the Geminid meteor shower by tweeting about them.



Excellent (non-banal) use of Twitter. :)

MOONWATCH: October 26th and 27th, 2009
METEORWATCH: December 12th, 2009

Use #MoonWatch and #MeteorWatch hash tags (or some version of them, alphabetisation doesn't really matter) when talking about your experiences. :) Gee, I wish I had a telescope and could drive far enough out of town to really see lots of meteors. I remember watching one shower back in the Mojave desert that was breathtaking. We stretched out on the hood of a car for hours.

Look to the stars

Cory Gross at Voyages Extraordinaires has an excellent post on the 400th anniversary of Galileo's demonstration of the telescope, just past. Check it out (it has several links to follow), along with this video 'Ginga' ('Galaxy') by Misia, the official theme song for the Japanese International Year of Astronomy committee, for the magic we have when looking at the stars. Thanks, Cory.

Mystery stones

I know of a lot of mysterious places in the US and the world, but this one slipped under my radar, perhaps because it is recent.

American Stonehenge: Monumental Instructions for the Post-Apocalypse

For more on the Georgia Guidestones, check out the Wikipedia article.

Some news of interest (to me, anyway)

Octopus sets off flood at aquarium (ah, the wily octopus!)

1.5 million-year-old human footprints found

Fungus threatens famed Lascaux cave drawings

Philip José Farmer, Science Fiction Writer, Dies at 91

Poll: 1 in 4 delaying medical care due to cost

13,000-year-old tools dug up in Colorado yard

Best Reason To Get A Kindle 2

Bizarre fish poisoning sparks alarm

Injured good Samaritan ticketed for jaywalking

Iraq to reopen museum looted in US invasion chaos

First Solar Eclipse Recorded From Moon (story has a link to a video which showes a glowing ring around the earth much like the ones seen when the moon passes between us and the sun)

Cache of Ice Age fossils found in Los Angeles

Venus + Jupiter + the Moon = a wonderful conjunction (that smiles or frowns depending on where you are)

This is from Thailand (I love the singing--it was fun--so I used this one). In Asia and Australia the image was of a smiley face. Here in America it was an upside down face that seemed to frown. Try AstroEngine for more information from this continent and an overview of the conjunction itself. In Western Europe one planet was occulted briefly, too (I think it was Venus being occulted by the Moon, but don't quote me.) I didn't see it last night, but I saw the moon pretty close to the planets tonight, and it was still wonderful.

File under ingenious ancient inventions

2,100-year-old gadget tracked Olympics

Researchers have found that in addition to calculating astronomical data, the Antikythera Mechanism--which looks much like a clock with gears inside, also kept track of the timing of the Olympics, which is significant in that there is no real need to do complex calculations for a simple four-year cycle; it was a societal, not heavenly, event, but incorporated into the device. It also tracked eclipses and the Metonic calendar. Also, the month names used on the device are similar to those used by Corinthian colonies in Sicily, giving some idea as to its origin.

PS Speaking of eclipses, I didn't mention the total solar eclipse that happened on the 1st because it didn't affect us here in Kentucky (damn the bad luck; I've only seen partial eclipses of the sun and would love to see a total one). It would really have been remarkable in the Arctic, where it was centred, since they've got the midnight sun thing going on right now. Here's a video of the totality, by http://www.astroscopio.com, an astronomy website:

Good news from the heavens

Smaller Version of the Solar System Is Discovered

Okay, so it's 5,000 light years away. But it has two gaseous planets with room for warm rocky planets in the intervening gap between the gas giants and their sun.

Beautiful, I'm sure; I'm looking forward to it

Red Planet Outshines Red Nose: Mars Shines Its Brightest Around Midnight

Well of course we're still evolving

but scientists are realising we're evolving much quicker than pre-agrarian humans--partly in response to diseases that hit large groups of people who are living in close quarters. But pale skin and blue eyes are relatively recent mutations, for example.

Study finds humans still evolving, and quickly

Culture Speeds Up Human Evolution

Also on the scientific front, Voyager 2 has discovered a dent in our solar system due to magnetic forces.

Voyager 2 finds solar system's shape is 'dented'

I was 10 years old when the Voyager probes were launched, along with their Golden Records. An excerpt from the Voyager 1 greeting by Jimmy Carter (given in the Wikipedia article) goes like this:

We cast this message into the cosmos… Of the 200 billion stars in the Milky Way galaxy, some — perhaps many — may have inhabited planets and space faring civilizations. If one such civilization intercepts Voyager and can understand these recorded contents, here is our message: We are trying to survive our time so we may live into yours. We hope some day, having solved the problems we face, to join a community of Galactic Civilizations. This record represents our hope and our determination and our goodwill in a vast and awesome universe.

The 70s were in some ways a very hopeful time, weren't they?

Nifty

Record Fifth Planet Discovered Around Distant Star

I'm glad that I don't live upstairs

Cerys is having trouble negotiating over a doorway in the back of the building that is raised a bit. She tends to get her foot caught on it. I hate to think how she would fare with stairs.

I have been gifted with enough frozen Margaret bread (Amish Friendship Bread to most people) to keep me well supplied through many weeks. I couldn't wait for one to thaw and warmed a piece in the microwave. Yummy.

It's a nice night for stargazing. There's no moon shining overhead. I'm still enough in the city limits that it makes it harder, but I could see more than normal tonight. It's turned cooler during the day and almost a tad chilly (although I'm sure it's in the 60s) at night. Autumn will be here soon.

Today was, of course, September 11th. I didn't really do anything special to commemorate the anniversary of the attacks, but they stayed in my thoughts.

The night of the 12th marks Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish New Year and the beginning of the High Holy Days, and then the 13th or so the beginning of Ramadan. I wish during this holy time for both religions there can be peace, for a little while at least.