For those with small children, there's a nifty little online tool which may help you out this Christmas. The spaceweather site now allows you to check for satellites (including the international space station) which will be visible from your location, and tells you both when and where they will be together with how bright it should be. For example ( Read more... )

Almost exactly a year ago, the Chinese tested (or demonstrated) an anti-satellite weapon by destroying an old weather satellite. This was a bad thing. The debris cloud it produced is a huge hazard to spacecraft (both manned and unmanned) to say nothing of the political implications. With the energies and velocities involved in space, hitting an ( Read more... )