Picture: The Full Blue Moon on August 20, 2013

The Full Blue Moon on August 21, 2013 with a satellite passing in front of it. (Larger view)  I've been playing with night photography a bit and took this picture of the full Blue Moon last night. In the left hand side of the bottom third of the moon you can see a small black […]

Video: The Amazing Aurora Borealis on Display in the Scandanavian Artic

It is always amazing to see different pictures and videos of the Aurora Borealis. And the video below is great.    The Aurora Borealis I can never remember what cause the light show. Here's a reminder of what it is from How Stuff Works: The auroras, both surrounding the north magnetic pole (aurora borealis) and south […]

Images of Comet Lovejoy in Orbit Around the Sun

Comet Lovejoy approaches and leaves the Sun's orbit (image from NASA) On December 15-16, 2011 Comet Lovejoy (whose officially name is C/2011 W3) came within 87,000 miles of the sun’s surface at speed of 400 miles per second. Nobody thought it would be able to survive its orbit around the sun because it would be exposed to temperatures […]

Pictures: A Huge Explosion When a Meteor Hits the Moon

The bright dot is the explosion when a meteor the size of a small boulder hit the moon. There has been a NASA program in place for the last 8 years that has been in place to monitor for any meteors that may hit the Moon. This is what NASA report after last night's event: They've […]

“Gravity Tractors” Could Save Us From Comets and Asteroids

There's all kind of talk out there right now about how there's little would could do if we found an asteroid or comet coming at Earth that was going to do alot of damage. But I came across this the idea of a "Gravity Tractor" fascinating. Here's the basic idea from Wikipedia: A gravity tractor (GT) […]

Nova’s “Earth From Space” Coming to PBS in February

Nova has an interesting looking documentary coming in February called "Earth From Space". Here's the description from the site: "Earth From Space" is a groundbreaking two-hour special that reveals a spectacular new space-based vision of our planet. Produced in extensive consultation with NASA scientists, NOVA takes data from earth-observing satellites and transforms it into dazzling […]

Great Views of Earth From the International Space Station

Some great views of the Earth from  the Image Science & Analysis Laboratory, NASA Johnson Space Center. The Internation Space Station has been continuously manned since November 2, 2000 by over 200 different people and has traveled over 1.5 billion statute miles.  Wikipedia outlines the purpose of the station: According to the original Memorandum of […]

The Earth is a pale blue dot

Carl Sagan's soothing, yet energized description of our place in the universe.