Without us puny humans, but we can watch ... those in USian Northeast and mid-Atlantic regions, anyway ( Read more... )

Speaker for the stars
waxes poetic over
latest conjunction.

-- Check out an astronomer's artsy Venus/Seven Sisters (Pleiades) image and "conjunction haiku," which are posted over at NASA's Astronomy photo of the day; thanks to apod for this and many other images. Additional images of the Venus-Pleiades conjunction can be found at SpaceWeather.com.

( Read more... )

"Provide ship or sails adapted to the heavenly breezes, and there will be some who will not fear even that void."
-- celestial physicist Johannes Kepler (1571-1630)

From the space-related quotations collection hosted by colonization advocate Al Globus on his link-filled site (scroll waaaay down the page).

Posted via m.livejournal.com.

... and were too small and non-shiny to be seen without optical enhancement*, so it really doesn't matter that I missed hearing about them until they'd gone by. Really ( Read more... )

That probe that aims to orbit and study the comet? Comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko? Now, there's an app for that.

iPhone and iPad users can take control of a virtual Rosetta and guide the probe's investigation of the virtual space rock -- even "piloting" the "lander" -- in the best space marketing venture [since freeze-dried ice cream] ever. No ( Read more... )

A so-far "moderate" geomagnetic storm began today at about 0930 UT, when the leading edge of a CME hit our magnetosphere. The onset was quite abrupt, allowing a Norwegian observer to get a "beautiful" recording of the resulting ground currentSo, what about them aurorae? High-latitude observers are likely to get a good show. Folks along, say, the ( Read more... )

So far, no aurorae anywhere around here; the Kp* from this X5-class solar flare and its coronal mass ejection (CME) has topped out at 5, which isn't unusual at this point in the sunspot cycle and isn't high enough to do much good for those of us at "moderate" latitudes ( Read more... )