What's Up? The Space Place

Hey Space Placers! Enjoy this great view of Comet Siding Spring as seen by Hubble Space Telescope (HST) and released by NASA on 3/27/14: NASA is VERY interested in this comet as on 10/109/14 it will pass only 84,000 miles from Mars! Man, that is CLOSE! NASA and the European Space Agency (ESA) have spacecraft orbiting Mars and there is concern that the dust and ice particles coming off of the comet could impact, literally, them. The pictures above show the comet as first seen on the left and then after processing on the right designed to try and see details in the coma or gaseous envelope that surrounds the nucleus or solid core of the comet. The processed image shows two jets coming off of the nucleus which will allow for tracking to determine a great deal about the nucleus. Stay tuned as Comet Siding Spring gets closer and closer to Mars! Sky Guy in Finally Sunny VA

Hey Space Placers! Tonight make sure you go outside at 9:30 p.m. local and face east. Grabbing your eye's attention will be the rust red-orange of bright Mars and the cool blue of the star Spica as they will be in a few degrees of one another. The two will provide a gorgeous color contrast and a bit of astronomical contrast as well - planet and star. Mars and Earth are moving closer to one another by the minute, literally, by about 200 miles. This will continue, along with Mars getting brighter in the sky until April 14th when Mars will make its closest approach to Earth for this orbital cycle. Mars will be 57,406,300 miles away at closest approach. When the outer planets - those beyond Earth - line up directly opposite the Sun and Earth they are said to be in opposition.  Opposition for Mars occurs on a roughly 26 month cycle and occurs on April 8th. On that dat the Red Planet will rise in the east at sunset and be visible in the sky all night. Tonight Mars will be a ...

Hey Space Placers! With it is looking like winter is FINALLY dead and gone I want you to circle April's calendar on the 14th and 15th. That is when Mars will be at its closest approach to Earth for this opposition season and the Moon will be totally eclipsed. Here are two great links for your reading pleasure: http://phys.org/news/2014-03-opposition-mars.html   http://science.nasa.gov/ science-news/science-at-nasa/ 2014/27mar_tetrad/ I will be at sea in the Atlantic for both of these events on board Oceania's ms Riviera and look forward to seeing them in the dark that only the sea can provide. Here is our itinerary - maybe you can join us ! I saw the December 2010 Total Lunar Eclipse and the Geminids aboard Holland America's Zuiderdam and it was wonderful. If you haven't been on a cruise you owe it to yourself to take one and the transatlantic crossings are great if you like being at sea. Enjoy Spring! Sky Guy in Finally Warming Up VA

Hey Space Placers! We got two solar system surprises yesterday with the announcement that an asteroid has a dual ring system and the discovery of a far flung dwarf planet . Pretty amazing that an asteroid could develop a dual ring system as we previously only knew of  the planets Saturn, Jupiter, Uranus  and Neptune having ring systems.  Chariklo is a 250 km wide asteroid that orbits between Saturn and Uranus and is part of a group of asteroids known as Centaurs. Ring system of Chariklo - ESA Centaurs are intriguing as there are an estimated 44,000 of them and they have been observed to behave  as comets as well as asteroids. The ring system around Chariklo was discovered when the asteroid passed in front of a star and astronomers observed multiple instances of the star being blocked (occulted) by not only the body of the asteroid but a ring system as well. This was the same way that the ring system of Uranus was discovered. The other big announceme...

Hey Space Placers!  Tomorrow morning there will be a beautiful waning crescent Moon at perigee so strong Earthshine will be present. Venus will be close by so this will be an excellent photo opportunity. Mount your camera on a tripod if you can and use a shutter release or timer to reduce vibration. Try ISO 400 to start. While you are out look for Mars in the SW and get a pic of the Red Planet. Here's to clear skies and good shots! Sky Guy in WINTER-LOCKED VA

Hey Space Placers! Tomorrow several institutions will be holding a press conference to announce a discovery involving the solar system. The solar system astronomers may be borrowing a page from the cosmologists who did a similar type announcement last week about gravitational waves. We'll see what they have to say and share it with you. If you have clear skies be sure to look at Mars in the SE at about 9:30 pm. Sky Guy in VA

Hey Space Placers! Read my story about Orion, NASA's newest manned spacecraft here   and tune in live at 3:50 p.m. today at WTOP     as we talk about it . Sky Guy in COLD VA

Hey Space Placers! Enjoy these pics of the Orion Ground Test Article and Langley. Story will be posted soon. Sky Guy in VA

Hey Space Placers! I had a GREAT day at NASA's Langley Research Center in Virginia. I got to see the Orion Ground Test Article (GTA) up close and personal and learned what Langley does - which is very, very impressive. The GTA is used to check design, manufacturing and TESTING of the Orion manned spacecraft. I took a lot of pics and got much information which will take a bit to put together. I will post a detailed blog tomorrow - I PROMISE. I got back late yesterday and had to watch my University of Virginia Cavaliers survive a March Madness scare from Coastal Carolina which meant a late night. Sky Guy in VA

Hey Space Placers! Today, March 20, 2014 at 12:57 p.m. EDT Spring (or astronomically speaking the Vernal Equinox) OFFICIALLY and FINALLY arrives for the Northern Hemisphere! Hip, Hip, HORRRRAAAAAYYYYY! For my readers down under it is the Autumnal Equinox or beginning of Fall. It has been a tough winter for Virginia not used to 4+ feet of snow AND the Polar Vortex plunging temps to being colder than parts of Alaska. We get our seasons due to the 23.5 degree tilt of the Earth's axis combined with our orbiting the Sun. See this APOD to get a great view of the four seasons from space. I am hoping for some clear and warmer weather so I can get my 'scope and camera out. Tomorrow I head to NASA to see Orion!!!! Sky Guy in VA

Hey Space Placers! You have to check out NASA's just released interactive  mosaic of the Moon's North Pole .    It took over four years to make from 10,000+ images from NASA's Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO) . You can really zoom in anywhere on the mosaic and see incredible detail within individual craters. I will be looking at this for quite awhile, especially when preparing to observe the northern area of the Moon with my telescope. It will help provide perspective on what I am seeing. Enjoy! Sky Guy in CLOUDY AGAIN VA

Hey Space Placers! If it is clear tonight make sure you go outside at about 11 p.m. local time and face the southeast. You will see the waning gibbous Moon keeping close company with a bright reddish-orange "star" just above it. That "star" dear Space Placers is really the planet Mars. Mars is getting closer day by day to our planet heading for closest approach next month. Mars will continue to get brighter as well so it is worth watching Mars for the next few weeks. Mars has been in the news lately on several fronts: Mars Meteorite Contain Evidence of Life? Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter Suffers Glitch Mars Rover Curiosity Approaches Mount Sharp And let's not forget this upcoming amazing Mars event: October 2014 Martian Meteor Shower Finally, here is a teaser that I will be blogging about soon - "Name a Crater on Mars". Enjoy the Moon and Mars tonight and if you have binoculars or a small telescope look at the Red Planet. It will enha...

Hey Space Placers! It is not often that one experiences a large St. Patrick's Day snowstorm of 8", my favorite college basketball team - the University of Virginia Cavaliers - win the ACC Championship and earn a 1 Seed in March Madness AND a monumental announcement about the creation of the Universe all occur in 24 hours! Hours ago I finished watching the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics (CfA) press conference online and I have to say that their announcement of the first direct evidence of Inflation and gravitational waves is monumental in our understanding of the creation of the Universe. It has taken me the whole day to digest their discovery and attempt, successfully I hope, to share it with you. Let’s do a little cosmological background first in order to work our way up to today’s announcement.  Astronomers believe that the Universe was created in an event called the http://www.nasa.gov/pdf/457651main_PI2_COBE_lauretta.pdf “Big Bang’ that took p...

Hey Space Placers! We now know what the announcement will be about due to this updated press release: "The Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics (CfA) will host a press conference at 12:00 noon EDT (16:00 UTC) today to present the first results from the BICEP2 experiment, which measures B-mode polarization of the cosmic microwave background. This finding has major implications for our understanding of the first moments of the universe". I'll be watching the conference and update you as soon as possible. I do think this is going to be a MAJOR announcement. Sky Guy in Shut Down Due to MAJOR SNOW VA  Check this out: CFA HOSTS MARCH 17 PRESS CONFERENCE The Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics (CfA) will host a press conference at 12:00 noon EDT (16:00 UTC) on Monday, March 17th, to announce a major discovery. Video of the press conference will be streamed live beginning at 11:55 a.m. EDT from the link at  http://www.cfa.harvard.edu/ news/news_confere...

Hey Space Placers! I truly enjoyed "Live From Space" last night - I hope you saw it. 1st class hobby NASA, the astronauts on ISS, Mission Control in Houston and CNN. It was interesting to hear the often repeated phrase of "What we learn on ISS will help us to get to Mars". This is true of course as ISS is the only means we have to learn about the effects of space and microgravity on the human body AND spacecraft for long periods of time. But to get to Mars we need a spacecraft and rocket that can get us there. That is what NASA is developing in the Orion spacecraft and the Space Launch System (SLS). I have blogged extensively about Orion, SLS and the Exploration Flight Test-1 (EFT-1) mission that will test Orion. NASA announced yesterday , March 14th, that it is moving EFT-1 from the original launch timeframe of September-October back to early December. This is being done according to NASA "   t o support allowing more opportunities for launches this ye...

Hey Space Placers! Tune in tonight, 3-14-14 at 8 p.m. EDT to the National Geographic Channel (NGC) for a two-hour history making segment - "Live From ISS". NGC and NASA have teamed up to broadcast LIVE from the International Space Station (ISS) and Mission Control in Houston, Texas. We will get to see the ISS go through one full orbit around Earth LIVE and from their unique perspectives which has never been done for a live TV audience before. I am truly looking forward to seeing this and you can to. Get all the background here . Remember, you can see the ISS with your own eyes by going to this website and finding your city/location. You can photograph ISS by mounting your camera on a tripod and taking a time exposure as the ISS passes. Enjoy the show!

Hey Space Placers! Move that body outside before dawn to enjoy a planetary parade and the SUMMER, yes, SUMMER constellations. With Daylight Saving Time making dawn later it is pretty easy to get up in the predawn hours and step outside to see the sky treasures awaiting you. Face south and you will see brilliant and beautiful Venus on the left in the East and reddish-orange (and  getting brighter!) Mars on the right in the West. Right in the middle of the two is yellowish-white Saturn. UPDATE:   I decided to add in Mercury for your viewing pleasure although it will be a bit of a challenge as it always is. Go out about 30 minutes before sunrise and look about two fist-widths to the lower left of Venus you should be able to see Mercury hugging the eastern horizon looking yellowish-white and fairly bright. If you have binoculars it will help. A clear view of the horizon is required as Mercury is low in the sky. If you have dark skies you will see the summer Milky Way in ...

Hey Space Placers! Let's take a giant galactic leap from my blog yesterday. Let's travel far beyond our Local Group of galaxies by flying through all of the the known galaxies of the Universe just like the Starship Enterprise would do! This incredible 3D video shows the actual positions and images of all the known (to date) galaxies in the Universe and was compiled from the 'Galaxy and Mass Assembly' (GAMA) Catalogue. To get the full effect view the video in a darkened room on the biggest screen you have. Additional research has shown that some areas of the "Cosmic Web" (see my blog from yesterday) that were thought to be void or empty, are in fact populated by small galaxies aligned in 'tendrils' - structure that has never been observed before. With this discovery astronomers will probably revisit the voids of the Cosmic Web and see what else, if anything they find. It is amazing to me that the structure of the Universe in all of its vastnes...

Hey Space Placers! New research has given us a good idea of what the galactic neighborhood looks like out to about 34 million light years: Credit: Marshall McCall/York University Our Milky Way Galaxy of 300 billion plus stars and at least that many planets plus the larger Andromeda Galaxy are the main spiral galaxies of the neighborhood called the Local Group which extends to about 3 million light years. You may recall that the Milky Way and Andromeda are moving towards one another at a million miles per hour with a merger/collision to occur in about 5 billion years. The 20 or so galaxies beyond our Local Group are in a narrow 1.5 million light year thick band extending out to 34 million light years across that forms our local cosmic filament structure - The Local Sheet. There are a dozen large galaxies called "Council of Giants" that may have constrained how our Local Group evolved. The farther out you go from our galaxy the more galaxies we see and the mor...

Hey SPace Placers! Tonight, 3-10-14, the Moon get close to a bright star in Gemini and if you are in the right location you will see the Moon cover or occult the star. Check here to see if you will see the occultation. This can be seen with the unaided eye to an extent but binoculars and a small telescope will give you a much better view. I was on the road all day so sorry this is late…. Sky Guy in VA

Hey Space Placers! Before and after watching Cosmos tonight at 9 p.m. EDT, Sunday, 3-9-14 (see yesterday's blog), make sure you take in the sky. Taking center stage tonight is the dance of the waxing gibbous Moon - one day past First Quarter - and bright Jupiter. The best time to see this lovely duo is at 8 p.m. as the two will be at their highest elevation about the horizon. A pair of 7x50 binoculars held steady will show the four main moons of Jupiter and a wealth of detail on the Moon. A small telescope is even better. When looking at the Moon imagine the Chinese lunar rover Yutu hibernating in the night and NASA's Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter flying low over the Moon. Jupiter will have company from Earth once again when NASA's Juno spacecraft arrives in July 2016. Sky Guy in Warming VA P.S. Space Placers……. If you have a BluRay DVD make sure you watch 'Gravity' in a darkened room….you'll be glad you did.

Hey Space Placers! Mark your calendar for Sunday 9 p.m. EDT - that's right, we will be on Daylight Saving Time in the U.S. - for the premier of the new Cosmos series. I wanted to get this out a day early so my international readers get a heads up to determine what channel will carry Cosmos in the myriad of countries that visit. The original Cosmos was seen by over 800 million people following its debut September 28, 1980 on Public Broadcasting and starred Dr. Carl Sagan. He became a cultural icon and the 1st, I believe, mainstream astronomer to connect with the public. National Geographic Channel is broadcasting the original Cosmos starting today, Saturday so check your local listings. The new Cosmos is 13 parts as was the original and has astrophysicist Neil DeGrasse Tyson as the host. He is easily the Carl Sagan of our time or this generation. I can attest that he has "rock star' status among the young - astronomers and non-astronomers alike. I thoroughly enjo...

Hey Space Placers! UPDATE: Ron Baalke of NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL), an expert in all things asteroids and comets, advised via Twitter that ASTEROID 2013 R3 was reclassified as a comet - P/2013 R3 on Sept. 27, 2013. Once again the line between what are comets and asteroids merges; they are probably one in the same in some instances only requiring a change in their environment to change over. --------------------------------------- Asteroids ruled my blog yesterday and they do today. Asteroid 2014 EC is flying by a bit closer at 36,000 miles at about 4:29 pm EST and newly designated 2014 EF flew by earlier today at about 104,000 miles. You can hear my interview about asteroids on WTOP here . Hubble Space Telescope (HST) has photographed for the first time an asteroid, P/2013 R3, in the process of disintegrating. Comet nuclei have been observed to break up approaching the Sun and Jupiter. But astronomers have never seen this happen to an asteroid in the asteroid be...

Hey Space Placers! Asteroids are getting more headlines today - 3-5-14 - as 2014 DX110 (don't you love these designations???!!!!!) will pass about 217,000 miles from Earth at about 4:06 p.m. EST. There was another asteroid that flew by at over 2.5 million miles from us today. Both of these asteroids are about the same size or a little larger than Chelyabinsk and have been discovered in the past few days. You can tune in to watch this flyby here   at 4:00 p.m. EST. What will really get people's attention is the official announcement that just came out as I am writing this blog about the newly discovered asteroid  2014 EC  that is due to flyby Earth tomorrow at 38,500 miles - that's very close - at 4:29 p.m. EST. Depending on its composition our atmosphere would likely break it up and possibly meteorites would be produced. It would be one heck of a bright fireball but it will safely pass. Another asteroid, VE1E9BE is due to flyby   later tonight at ...

Hey Space Placers! From NASA: March 3, 2014 MEDIA ADVISORY M14-039 NASA Fiscal Year 2015 Budget Briefing Now a Teleconference Because of inclement weather in the Washington area, NASA's Fiscal Year 2015 budget media briefing on Tuesday, March 4 now will be a teleconference. NASA Administrator Charles Bolden and NASA Chief Financial Officer Elizabeth Robinson will brief reporters starting at 2 p.m. EST. Media can participate by dialing into a phone bridge instead of having to be in person at a NASA center. Audio and visuals from the media teleconference will be carried live on NASA's Internet homepage and on Ustream. Media who want to participate in the teleconference should contact Sonja Alexander in the NASA Headquarters newsroom at 202-358-1761 or  sonja.r.alexander@nasa.gov  by 1 p.m. Tuesday. During the budget briefing, NASA also will take as many questions as possible submitted via Twitter using the hashtag #askNASA . To listen ...

Hey Space Placers! I was launched into the Twitterverse (@SkyGuyInVA) last night during the Oscars and saw1st hand the power of Social Media. The Oscar show last night was not the best for many reasons BUT Twitter was something to see. The two main threads were the star studded selfie taken at the Oscars that was reported to have beaten President Obama's all time Twitter Tweet and Tweets about 'Gravity'. ' Gravity ' nabbed 7 Oscars which is an all time high for a space themed (or any) scifi movie. 1969's ' 2001: A Space Odyssey' was the last true ground breaker in space related story telling and Gravity was a worthy heir. In a move of pure social media genius NASA shared with the Twitterverse "#RealGravity" Tweets that showed Low Earth Orbit (LEO) as it really is. The images were remarkable and beautiful beyond description - you felt them as you viewed them. Each time Gravity won an Oscar NASA would release another Tweet . Astronau...

Hey Space Placers! As I recuperate from screaming my vocal chords into hoarseness at John Paul Jones Area last night (3/1/14) watching my beloved University of Virginia Cavaliers' Men's Basketball Team clinch their 1st ACC Regular Season Championship in 33 years I am preparing to watch "Gravity". I know it will not win at the Academy Awards tonight as SciFi NEVER wins at the Oscars - 2001 anyone? As much as I loved the movie I want you to take a look at NASA Goddard's "Real Gravity" photos page to get a sense of the real deal in space…...http://www.flickr.com/photos/gsfc/sets/72157641720644305 Follow me on Twitter @SkyGuyinVA to get all my instant Tweets and info. Sky Guy in StormWarning Expecting 10-14" SNOW VA

Hey Space Placers! In between the unending line of winter storms (another one this Sunday-Monday) and bone chilling polar vortexes we in Virginia have had this hard winter, I had a chance to see Mars last night - 2/28/14 - with my unaided eye. Mars is fast approaching for its closest approach to Earth which will be in mid-April (I will have more details in a future blog). The Red Planet is easy to see in the south eastern sky after 11 p.m. as it is the brightest "star" in that region of the sky. What caught my attention last night however was that Mars, a reddish-orange orb in the sky has a similarly colored star, Arcturus , to its far left. Arcturus is known as the "star of spring" as when it becomes visible in the night sky it means spring is not far behind. Arcturus is the second brightest star in Northern Hemisphere skies, second only to brilliant Sirius which dominates the southern skyline in winter. Overall it is the 4th brightest star in the night sky...