Monday, December 31, 2012
The first meteor shower of 2013 begins Tuesday.
The Quadrantid meteor shower is named for an extinct constellation, but the shooting stars that seem to sprout from it still arrive yearly, and the opening of the 2013 show will begin overnight Jan. 1, into Jan. 2. The Quadrantids is one of the lesser-known meteor showers of the year, but that doesn't mean it's anything less than spectacular. Take a look at this Quadrantids meteor shower video or these pictures of the Quadrantids. While the shower begins overnight on the first day of the new year, NASA tells us Quadrantid meteor shower peaks in the wee morning hours of Jan. 4: "[T]he Quadrantids have a maximum rate of about 100 per hour, varying between 60-200. The waxing gibbous moon will set around 3 a.m. local time, leaving about two …
Sunday, July 1, 2012
A new report says it is likely that a huge ocean of liquid water might exist on the planet's largest moon. A California astrologer weighs in on the planet and its mysteries.
Is it possible that NASA's Cassini spacecraft has found evidence of an ocean of water and perhaps even life beneath the frozen crust of Saturn's largest moon called Titan? A team of researchers' findings were reported and released online by the journal Science on Thursday that they: "saw a large amount of squeezing and stretching as the moon orbited Saturn." What's it mean? These discoveries may reveal that if Titan were made up of just mounds of stiff rock, the gravitational attraction of Saturn would cause bulges, or solid "tides," on the moon only 3 feet high. "Cassini's detection of large tides on Titan leads to the almost inescapable conclusion that there is a hidden ocean at depth," said Luciano Iess, the lead author of the report …
Monday, June 4, 2012
You'll probably be dead the next time this happens, so watch it on Tuesday evening.
Just after 6 p.m. on Tuesday, residents of our area will have an opportunity to witness one of the rarest predictable celestial events: a transit of Venus. Often referred to as the "Evening Star" or "Morning Star," Venus is the brightest natural object in our sky after the Sun and the Moon. As the second planet from the Sun, it's closer to the Sun than the Earth is. A "transit" of Venus occurs when Venus passes between us and the Sun in such a way that we can see Venus's silhouette backlit by the Sun's brilliant light. It last happened in 2004, but it won't happen again until 2117. Unless you plan to shatter some human longevity records, this is probably your last chance. Were Venus either large enough or close enough to block out the Sun…
Sunday, May 6, 2012
Saturday night's moon was larger and brighter than usual.
- THE NEIGHBORHOOD FILES
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Sunday, May 6, 2012
Saturday night's moon appeared about 15 percent larger and 30 percent brighter than other full moons this year, according to the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA). The Super Moon (a phrase coined by astrologer Richard Nolle in 1979) seemed large because the moment of perigee — when the moon is closest to the Earth in its monthly rotation—coincided with the appearance of a perfectly full moon, according to the Smithsonian. On Saturday at 11:34 p.m. ET, the moon reached full moon status—when the earth, moon and sun are all in alignment. One minute later, at 11:35 p.m., “perigee” occurred. The moon was 221,802 miles away from Earth Saturday night; (the average distance is 238,855 according to NASA.) That’s 17,053 miles …
stephen
9:15 pm on Wednesday, January 2, 2013
I love living close to the big city except when there are beautiful occasions like this. more ›