Time to get out the easy chair and look up at the night sky.
See the link for more information on best viewing.
- LRK -
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The Perseids are Coming
http://science.nasa.gov/
July 31, 2009: Earth is entering a stream of dusty debris from Comet Swift-Tuttle, the source of the annual Perseid meteor shower. Although the shower won't peak until August 11th and 12th, the show is already getting underway.
Brian Emfinger of Ozark, Arkansas, photographed this early Perseid just after midnight on Sunday, July 26th:
http://science.nasa.gov/
"I used an off-the-shelf digital camera to capture this fireball and its smoky trail," says Emfinger. "It was a bright one!"
Don't get too excited, cautions Bill Cooke of NASA's Meteoroid Environment Office. "We're just in the outskirts of the debris stream now. If you go out at night and stare at the sky, you'll probably only see a few Perseids per hour."
This will change, however, as August unfolds.
"Earth passes through the densest part of the debris stream sometime on August 12th. Then, you could see dozens of meteors per hour.
snip
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John sent a link that might indicate that Venus can be hit by comets as Jupiter may have experienced of late.
- LRK -
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http://www.livescience.com/
Bright Spot on Venus Stumps Scientists
By Andrea Thompson, Senior Writer
posted: 30 July 2009 05:14 pm ET
A sudden bright spot that appeared in the clouds of Venus just days after a comet left a bruise on Jupiter has scientists stumped as to its cause.
Venus' bright spot, first noticed by amateur astronomer Frank Melillo of Holtsville, NY on July 19, is not the first such brightening noticed on our cloudy neighbor, said planetary scientist Sanjay Limaye of the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
"We have seen such events before," he told SPACE.com.
snip
http://www.space.com/
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And while you are looking up from the comfort of your easy chair you might contemplate the constellation of Orion and the bright, bright star Betelgeuse.
What if it exploded while you were looking at it?
Would you catch it on your digital camera?
- LRK -
Link thanks to SpaceWarper.
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http://www.eso.org/public/
ESO 27/09 - Science Release
29 July 2009
For immediate release
Sharpest views of Betelgeuse reveal how supergiant stars lose mass
Unveiling the true face of a behemoth
Using different state-of-the-art techniques on ESO's Very Large Telescope, two independent teams of astronomers have obtained the sharpest ever views of the supergiant star Betelgeuse. They show that the star has a vast plume of gas almost as large as our Solar System and a gigantic bubble boiling on its surface. These discoveries provide important clues to help explain how these mammoths shed material at such a tremendous rate.
Betelgeuse — the second brightest star in the constellation of Orion (the Hunter) — is a red supergiant, one of the biggest stars known, and almost 1000 times larger than our Sun [1]. It is also one of the most luminous stars known, emitting more light than 100 000 Suns. Such extreme properties foretell the demise of a short-lived stellar king. With an age of only a few million years, Betelgeuse is already nearing the end of its life and is soon doomed to explode as a supernova. When it does, the supernova should be seen easily from Earth, even in broad daylight.
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And if there are any life forms on planets in that area, will we receive a data dump of their life history in one last expression of their existence?
Will SETI pick up the death cry?
http://www.seti.org/Page.aspx?
And if you were at Moon Base Alpha, would your radio telescope record the happening?
http://www.space1999.net/
http://www.space1999.net/
And if you would just like to go see the Moon using the new Google Earth information that NASA and JAXA have added information to, well check this out.
- LRK -
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http://www.nasa.gov/centers/
NASA and Google Launch Virtual Exploration of the Moon
07.20.09
Forty years ago on July 20, 1969, the world watched as the crew of Apollo 11 took the first steps on the surface of the moon.
To celebrate this historic occasion, NASA and Google announced the launch of the Moon in Google Earth, an interactive, 3D atlas of the moon, viewable with Google Earth 5.0.
The announcement was made during a press conference at the Newseum in Washington, featuring remarks by Apollo 11 astronaut Buzz Aldrin; Alan Eustace, a Google senior vice president; Andrew Chaikin, author and space historian; and Anousheh Ansari, the first female space tourist.
With the Moon in Google Earth, users can explore a virtual moonscape, follow guided tours from astronauts Buzz Aldrin and Jack Schmidt, view high-resolution "street view" style panoramic images and see previously unreleased footage captured from the lunar surface.
Whether rediscovering iconic moments from the history of lunar exploration, or learning about them for the first time, the Moon in Google Earth enables users to better understand the moon and mankind's relationship to it using an immersive, 3D experience.
snip
http://earth.google.com/moon/
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Thanks for looking up with me.
Larry Kellogg
Web Site: http://lkellogg.vttoth.com/
BlogSpot: http://kelloggserialreports.
RSS link: http://kelloggserialreports.
Newsletter: https://news.altair.com/
Twitter: http://twitter.com/lrkellogg
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