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Extraordinary Images from Rosetta - Cities at Night 2007-11-16 07:04:16 Rosetta has taken spectacular images of Earth. It was close to Earth in Tuesday while travelling towards comet Churyumov-Gerasimenko. Rosetta captured these beautiful images while passing the Earth. In those pictures you can see the tremendous amounts of light of big cities. See Hong Kong, for example. Compare it to Singapore and you see the difference in size. Rosetta was very close to Earth, only 5301 kilometers away from our planet. It had velocity of 45 000 kilometers per hour. Rosetta will reach comet Churyumov-Gerasimenko in 2014. This is a good example of the huge scale of the universe. The distance to the comet is not much compared to other distances in the universe, but it takes about seven years for Rosetta to travel to the comet, even though it has a very high velocity from human being point of view. For more great images taken lately, see the Earth-Rise HDTV Image Taken by JAXA. Read more about this news and see the rest of the images in ESA’s website. ...

Kids Astronomy - How to Teach Astronomy to Children 2007-11-15 15:45:47 Have you been thinking to teach astronomy for your children? Why not? Astronomy can be a very good hobby for the whole family. It can be a great way to spend time together and share interesting knowledge. Astronomy can also teach children the basics of how to think and analyze abstract issues. Now the question is how to teach astronomy to children? When the children are young, they easily get unmotivated if the information is too difficult. Teenagers can keep themselves motivated longer, but again, it should not be too difficult or boring. So, how to teach them? How to motivate and inspire your children to learn astronomy? This article provides some basic tips for teaching astronomy to children. Children are fascinated of space and can easily get interested in astronomy. For example, if children see a BBC space document in television, they easily get hooked because the BBC documents are usually so well done and the “space stuff is cool”. Now, most probably you cannot provid ... Astronomy  Children

Earth-Rise HDTV Image Taken by JAXA 2007-11-14 15:57:49 Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) has released very sharp HDTV video material from Kaguya lunar explorer. This is the first time we see such high quality video of the Moon. Kaguyan camera uses 1920×1080 resolutions. Best still pictures are available to see in JAXA website, as well as lower scaled videos. It is really interesting to see such sharp videos from the Moon. See our earlier news release related to JAXA. Kaguya lunar explorer was launched on September 14th and is now orbiting the Moon 100 kilometers above the Moon surface. The image on left side is taken by the Kaguya explorer. It is a screen capture of the original high resolution movie in which South Pole is located on top of the Earth. Read more about this news in Jaxa website. ... Hdtv

Astronomy Tips&Tricks - How To Find Orion Nebula (M42) 2007-11-13 07:50:59 Orion Nebula, also called as Messier 42 and M42, is one of the most photographed object in the nightsky. This brightest nebula is possible to spot on naked eye, although you might not see the differences to other objects around M42. Orion Nebula was found in the early 1600’s by few astronomers, but it has been said that the “original finders” have been Christiaan Huygens and Charles Messier in the middle of 1600’s. M42 is part of bigger constellations, such as M78 and M43, as well as Horsehead Nebula. M42 is located close to Orion constellation, so you should start your M42 hunt from Orion. The Orion constellation is bright and therefore quite easy to find and recognize, especially on winter. It is probably the second easiest constellation to spot. Which one is the first one? I believe it is Big Dipper. Unfortunatelly I have not written yet any post describing how to find constellations such as Orion and Big Dipper. If you don’t know how to find those co ... Amp  Astronomy

Sunday Video - Building A Dobsonian Telescope at Home 2007-11-11 02:45:53 I have been talking about telescope in my previous posts. Now it is time to build one. No, I am not going to tell how to do it because I just don’t know. Instead I provide you a video from Youtube in which “trevics” shows how to build it. This is a pretty interesting video which shows you the different phases of building a telescope. Check it out, you might get interested in building one by yourself. It has good animations and operatic music elements ...

Tips & Tricks for Finding Andromeda (M31) Galaxy without a Star Chart or a Planisphere 2007-11-10 01:00:42 Many objects can be seen with naked eyes, and Andromeda (M31) is one of those. It is the most distant object that can be seen without equipment such as a telescope. It is located 2.3 million light years away from the Earth. It looks like any star, but with binoculars you it is possible to see the elliptical shape. I took a look at my stats and found out that pretty many people are searching for information on how to locate Andromeda. This short article aims at providing you the needed information in order to find Andromeda in the nightsky. Andromeda is close to the North Pole and it can be seen in autumn. It is best viewed in northern hemisphere, but also few people in the southern hemisphere can see it in spring. Although Andromeda is rather big galaxy, it is not easy to find. Andromeda lies near to the Milky Way, next to Cassiopeia, Cepheus and Cygnus. These constellations are not difficult to find, which helps much in finding Andromeda. Now, there are various ways to find Andromeda ... Amp

China Is Building Its Own Space Station 2007-11-09 15:30:15 One international space station is not enough. China wants to have its on station and is already planning one that will have weight of 20 tons. So far it all has been just rumours, but now China has confirmed the deadlines. Well, at least China’s leading researcher Long Lehao has said it loud, but soon after Lehao’s comments the leaders of China deny having any plans to build the station. Lehao is in high position which indicates that he might actully know much about this project. The pictures China has released out idicate that the station will probably be occupied 365 days a year.  Read more abut this news in UniverseToday. ...

Very Nice Astronomy Background Image 2007-11-05 08:00:53 Tom has found a nice background image from Nasa. Check it out in Tom’s blog and download it to your desktop if you like it. I just did it too. ... Astronomy

Sunday Video: Mars, Jupiter & Saturn - A Space Voyage, PART 1 and 2 2007-11-04 01:00:10 Here’s a pretty interesting video for this Sunday morning. It is good basic information on the planets of our solar system, just like those made by BBC. Anyhow, there is one thing different from BBC movies. The narrator is eight years old, Michael O’Ban. Check it out! Michael provides you good information on planets together with impressive images of the solar system. Embedding the video is disabled, so follow this link: http://youtube.com/watch?v=8KxK4hwQzeY. Notice that this video is divided into two. Here’s the second part: http://youtube.com/watch?v=wW4jZhHtJDQ. ... Amp

STS-120 Crews Continue Spacewalk Preparations 2007-11-02 09:53:37 STS-120 has been up there in the International Space Station now for nine days. The crews continue preparing the next spacewalk. The walk is scheduled to happen on Saturday and the goal is to fix the torn solar array. Astronomers who are going to do the spacewalk are mission specialists Scott Parazynski and Doug Wheelock.  While the astronomers are out the in the space, other crew members will help from inside the station. Few days ago the crew noticed the damange in the solar array and the STS-120 flight was extended so that crew can fix the damage before returning home. Read more about the news and follow the STS-120 flight in Nasa’s mission website. Image source. ...

Heaviest Small Black Hole Found 2007-11-01 16:45:53 Very impressive news from Nasa! Scientists have discovered the heaviest small black hole in the universe, one with a mass 24-33 times the mass of the Sun. What makes this news impressive is that theoretically black holes with such a mass should not exist. Small black holes are born when stars die and their size is usually 10 times the mass of the Sun. The image on left side is artist’s portrayal of the IC 10 X-1 system. The black hole is on upper left corner. These type of black holes are known as “stellar-mass” black holes because they have masses typical of stars. Now, if this news sounds big, it is nothing compared to so called “supermassive” black holes that may exist in the centers of large galaxies. They may contain millions or even billions of times the mass of our Sun. This is one of the things that makes me thinking how little we know about the universe and how easily it all goes beyond our understanding. The size of the universe is just super huge a ...

Jet Streams Seen From Space 2007-10-31 09:50:20 Have you ever thought what a jet stream could look like? You might quickly think that it is just a stream of air, you cannot see it. I have always thought like this until I found the picture on left side. It is borrowed from Nasa’s Earth From Space website. Isn’t it beautiful? Awesome! For some people it is probably not impressive at all, but I find it very interesting. You see the contrast between blue ocean and white clouds. You see the Canadian soil down there, very far away. I find it stunning! I am interested not just in astronomy but also in meteorology. Observing the space and atmosphere is very interesting and I never get enough of it. Jet streams belong into the class of “large scale meteorological phenomena” and they are difficult for amateurs to observe. Images like this one provide a good change to actually see the jet stream. It makes this pretty much abstract phenomenon much more real in human mind. It helps you to understand this phenomenon. What ...

STS-120 Continues Mission For One More Day 2007-10-30 16:55:23 STS-120 flight to International Space Station continues mission for one more day in order to look at the damage to the P6 4B solar array. Astronaut Dan Tani found out that the solar array wing is damaged and there are metal pieces around it. The crew has photographed the damage and sent the images down to Earth for further examinations. Two astronauts have completed a space walk and are preparing for the third spacewalk which is scheduled to take place on Thursday. STS-120 is 23rd shuttle mission to the International Space Station. The creq is up there in the ISS right now for launching an Italian-built U.S. multi-port module for the station. The flight is commanded by is Pamela Ann Melroy. In case you did not know yet, you can follow the missions live in Nasa-TV. You can watch realtime what astronomers are doing in space and you can hear much of the radio conversation between the crew and ground control. Just launch the player in Nasa’s mission website. Just look for link &ldquo ...

Star Charts And A Planisphere - Part 2: Using The Charts 2007-10-29 16:00:34 Last time in this series I discussed about the basics of star charts and a planisphere. Now it is time to find out how to use them in order to find the stars. Before talking about the usage of star charts, it is important to notice a couple of things first. Start practicing the usage of star charts when there is a clear sky and the moon is not full or almost full. Clear sky helps locating stars while a full moon would cause difficulties to locate the stars because of the light it reflects. Now start by selecting the right map for your watching time or configure your planisphere for your watching time. Next find a open area where you have good visibility and where are not many artificial lights, at least no strong artificial lights. Because it is night out there, you need a flashlight. Put a red transparency plastic in front of the bulb to make the light less bright. This is a good trick. Otherwise you get “blind” rather quickly due to the bright light on a dark night. Now ...

Sunday Video: Astronomy Lecture - Planets 2007-10-28 02:00:11 As it has become a tradition, I watch a astronomy video on every single Sunday. Today, I have found an interesting video of planets. It is from “Doctordave” in YouTube and it is a pretty long video (84 minutes). Anyhow, if you are new with astronomy and you would like to understand the planets well, have a look on this video. Share This ... Astronomy