What's Up? The Space Place

Hey Space Placers! Isn't this a beautiful picture?  It was taken on 3-29 using the 11 filter Wide Angle Camera, designed to help identify the composition of the surface of Mercury. More pictures and information:  http://messenger.jhuapl.edu/ Sky Guy in VA

Hey Space Placers! Here is the 1st ever picture from a spacecraft orbiting Mercury. It so looks like our own Moon. MESSENGER took another 363 photographs today and these are being reviewed and processed before they are made public. Read More About It: http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/messenger/multimedia/mercury_orbit_image.html Sky Guy in VA

Hey Space Placers! NASA will be releasing the 1st MESSENGER photos from orbit around Mercury tomorrow, March 29th. There will be more photos released during a news conference on the 30th. The photos will include areas never seen before. I am looking forward to seeing these "up close and personal" photos as they will be the best ever of Mercury. Read More About It: http://www.nasa.gov/messenger Sky Guy in VA

Hey Space Placers! The groundbreaking STARDUST-NEXT spacecraft has finished its operational life. On March 24th at about 7 p.m. EDT, the spacecraft fired its engines until all fuel was expended. This last act will allow spacecraft engineers to know exactly how much fuel was expended during the entire lifetime of the mission and use this information to design future spacecraft and missions. This will also send the spacecraft into an uncontrolled status which means that it will not be able to keep its antenna aligned with Earth or its solar arrays aligned with the Sun. Without this two way link the spacecraft is no longer able to transmit and receive with ground controllers and it will lose power - it will be non-operational destined to roam the solar system. This spacecraft was revolutionary in its accomplishments - capturing cometary material that was returned to Earth for study as well as detailed photographs of two cometary nucleii. It has helped shape our knowledge of comets,...

Hey Space Placers! Today, March 26th, at 8:30 pm, marks "Earth Hour" - a period of 60 minutes dedicated to the planet. Look at the website http://www.worldwildlife.org/sites/earthhour/index.html  to learn more about this annual event AND what youcan do. Just so you know, I do not leave lights on outside like my entire neighborhood does; I use CFC bulbs and I unplug each electrical appliance I do not use....this saves a lot of electricity over the year. I also recycle everything I can and I have insulated my home to save more electricity. I hope you will do these things at the very least. Sky Guy in VA

Hey Space Placers! Want to make a real contribution to science and fight light pollution? From an American Astronomical Society News Release: Join the worldwide GLOBE at Night 2011 campaign: March 22 - April 6 Short overview:What: The GLOBE at Night 2011 Campaign: Less of Our Light for More Star Light When: 8pm to 10pm local time, March 22 - April 4 northern hemisphere; March 24 - April 6 southern hemisphere Where: Everywhere Who: Everyone How: See http://www.globeatnight.org/ GLOBE at Night encourages citizen-scientists worldwide to record the brightness of the night sky. During 2 weeks of moonless evenings, children and adults match the appearance of a constellation (Leo in the northern hemisphere and Crux or Leo in the southern hemisphere) with 7 star charts of progressively fainter stars found at www.globeatnight.org. They then submit their choice of star chart on-line with their date, time and location to help create a light pollution map worldwide. The GL...

Hey Space Placers! This Wednesday, 23 March at 8:30 pm, weather permittng, the Observatory at George Mason University will be open to the public. We will have telescopes and astronomers and yours truly there for enjoying the sky and looking through telescopes at a variety of objects. Check out this link for more information: http://physics.gmu.edu/~hgeller/observing.html Hope to see you there! Sky Guy in VA