Archives for January 2008
Alien Headlights?
Published on 31 Jan 2008 at 5:10 pm.
2 Comments.
Filed under skywatching.
If you get up early Friday morning and look to the East in the dawn twilight, you’ll see two bright lights close together in the southeastern sky. It may look something like this view that I produced using Stellarium planetarium software:
Given the rash of UFO sightings lately, I am expecting that there will be […]
Carnival of Space (#39)
Published on 31 Jan 2008 at 11:20 am.
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Filed under blogging.
The latest Carnival of Space is up. This time, Sean Welton is hosting it at his Visual Astronomy blog.
For those who don’t know, a blog carnival is a collection of blog posts over the last week or so gathered from submissions from the various bloggers. Each week someone graciously hosts the blog carnival, giving a […]
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Explorer 1
Published on 30 Jan 2008 at 5:15 pm.
2 Comments.
Filed under history, space exploration.
Tomorrow, January 31, marks 50 years in space for the United States.
50 years ago, on the evening of January 31, 1958, a Juno rocket (also known as a Jupiter-C rocket), which was basically a modified Redstone ballistic missile, roared to life on a launch pad at Cape Canaveral, in Florida. Seconds later, at […]
So, why don’t we make more money?
Published on 29 Jan 2008 at 12:13 am.
4 Comments.
Filed under blogging, politics.
A recent poll by Harris Interactive to see who Americans think have prestigious jobs listed both scientist and teacher as being prestigious. Hmm.  Since I am a college professor and an astronomer, does that make me doubly prestigious? Also on the list of the most prestigious professions was firefighter, military officer, nurse, and doctor. Interestingly, […]
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Old rings?
Published on 28 Jan 2008 at 5:16 pm.
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Filed under planets.
Saturn’s rings are always fascinating to look at. Whenever I do a public star party when Saturn is visible, people are always so amazed by looking at Saturn through a telescope. The planet is great, but it’s the rings that they are looking at. They are simply fascinating.
But, the rings have also […]
2007 WD5
Published on 27 Jan 2008 at 4:37 pm.
8 Comments.
Filed under asteroids.
Yesterday, I wrote about the asteroid 2007 TU24 that is about to pass close to Earth. Interestingly, there is another planetary near miss going on. Another asteroid, also discovered by the Catalina Sky Survey late last year, is about to pass very near a planet. But, this time, the planet getting the […]
2007 TU24
Published on 26 Jan 2008 at 10:46 pm.
9 Comments.
Filed under asteroids.
There has been considerable written about asteroid 2007 TU24 around the internet. I am not going to repeat all of that here. This asteroid was discovered by the Catalina Sky Survey on October 11, 2007. What made this particular asteroid the subject of a lot of internet chatter is that it is passing […]
