Too much munching at the trough for the NASA/gubbmint coterie, I'm afraid. Hardened arteries, softened resolve. That bunch is done like dinner and the American electorate is no longer on side for another great space race funded largely by the public purse.
Google racing against China... I like it.... it's just odd enough to be plausible.
The highest-resolution-yet temperature map and images of Saturn's icy moon Mimas obtained by NASA's Cassini spacecraft reveal surprising patterns on the surface of the small moon, including unexpected hot regions that resemble 'Pac-Man' eating a dot, and striking bands of light and dark in crater walls.
"Other moons usually grab the spotlight, but it turns out Mimas is more bizarre than we thought it was," said Linda Spilker, Cassini project scientist at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif. "It has certainly given us some new puzzles."
Cassini collected the data on Feb. 13, during its closest flyby of the moon, which is marked by an enormous scar called Herschel Crater and resembles the Death Star from "Star Wars."
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The overall winner this year was Tom Lowe from the US, with this awe-striking image of our Milky Way. "I have to say, this pictures perfectly captures the spirit of the Astronomy Photographer of the Year competition," said Kukula at the awards ceremony, "with not only the beautiful composition where the tree follows the arch of the Milky Way, but also the connection between things in space and things on Earth. The Bristlecone pines that you see in the foreground are some of the oldest living things on Earth, but yet they are dwarfed by the light shining behind them that has been traveling for almost 30,000 years. It is just a beautiful concept."
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This runner-up winner in the young astronomer category was taken by Laurent V. Joli-Coeur from Canada, who is 13 years old. He was in attendance at the ROG for the awards ceremony, and commented that he was in the family car with his mother when he saw a beautiful solar halo through the roof. "I used my mother’s camera, a simple DLSR camera,"
Great shots, CM. Sadly, light pollution is a major problem here in North America.
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"The man who does not read good books has no advantage over the man who can't read these books." Mark Twain
Things you definitely can't see with the naked eye...
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Beyond Neptune's orbit, roughly five billion miles from the sun, the solar system can seem like a dark, desolate place.
But like the murky depths of the ocean, the darkness hides millions of mysterious bodies—or at least, so we think.
Known collectively as trans-Neptunian objects, or TNOs, the first of this population to be discovered was Pluto in 1930. Since then we've found a thousand or so objects in Pluto's domain. Some have even been given exotic names, such as Chaos, Ixion, Quaoar, and Rhadamanthus.
Planetary behemoth Jupiter will shine bigger and brighter September 21 than it has in almost 50 years. That's when it lies at opposition, putting it directly opposite the Sun in Earth's sky. On the 21st, the jovian giant will rise at sunset, set at sunrise, and remain visible all night.
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"The man who does not read good books has no advantage over the man who can't read these books." Mark Twain
Planetary behemoth Jupiter will shine bigger and brighter September 21 than it has in almost 50 years. That's when it lies at opposition, putting it directly opposite the Sun in Earth's sky. On the 21st, the jovian giant will rise at sunset, set at sunrise, and remain visible all night.
Now to hope for a clear sky and that I remember it, so that I can show the kids.
Thanks for telling us.
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International Observe the Moon Night (InOMN) was inspired by you. You, and people just like you, who are curious about the Moon and would like to find out more about Earth's nearest neighbor. On August 1, 2009, the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO) Education and Public Outreach (EPO) team celebrated LRO's successful journey to and orbital insertion around the Moon by hosting a public outreach event called "We're at the Moon!" at Goddard Space Flight Center (GSFC) in Greenbelt, MD. That same night, the Lunar CRater Observation and Sensing Satellite (LCROSS) and NASA Lunar Science Institute (NLSI) EPO teams hosted a similar event at Ames Research Center (ARC) in Moffett Field, CA called "National Observe the Moon Night" as part of the International Year of Astronomy (IYA). The goal of both of these events was similar: engage the local public and amateur astronomer communities in an event to raise awareness of NASA's involvement in lunar research and exploration.
Now to hope for a clear sky and that I remember it, so that I can show the kids.
Thanks for telling us.
It's a great sight, bgw. Bonne chance, mon ami.
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Dr.G.
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"The man who does not read good books has no advantage over the man who can't read these books." Mark Twain
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