Metallic photos of the sun by renowned photographer Greg Piepol bring together the best of art and science. Buy one or a whole set. They make a stellar gift. | | |
NEW SATELLITE TRACKING TOOL: Have you ever wondered, what's orbiting over your head right now? A new satellite-tracking tool called WhatSat can answer that question for you. It's an app for Android phones that tells you what's overhead, helps you find satellites in the night sky, and "tags" satellites you've seen. Many satellite-tracking tools are available, but none is quite like this; view the demo video to learn what makes WhatSat unique.
FOGGY COUNTDOWN: The countown is underway for the launch of space shuttle Endeavour on Monday, May 16th. Yesterday, however, you couldn't even see the clock. The Kennedy Space Center was shrouded in fog:
"On Saturday afternoon, thunderstorms passed over KSC, causing remarkably reduced visibility," reports photographer Jacob Kuiper from the Kennedy Space Center's press site."Fortunately, the forecast for 'launch day' is looking quite good." NASA estimates a 70% chance of weather acceptable for launch on Monday morning at 8:56 a.m. EDT.
Endeavour is poised to begin a two week mission to the International Space Station. There it will deliver the Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer--a $1.5 billion cosmic ray detector that could reveal the nature of dark matter and find whole galaxies made of antimatter. The shuttle crew will also test a new automated rendevous system named STORMM that will help future spacecraft dock to the ISS after the shuttle program is over.
Get ready for Endeavour's last flight: Turn your cell phone into a field-tested shuttle tracker.
MAMMATUS OVER MINNESOTA: On May 10th, a severe storm captured national attention when it dumped golf-ball-sized hail on a Minnesota Twins baseball game. "I missed the hail," reports John Rogers of New Hope, Minnesota, "but I got a nice view of the clouds that formed after the storm passed." He snapped this picture in waning twilight at 8:30 pm local time:
These are mammatus clouds. Named for their resemblance to a cow's underbelly, they sometimes appear at the end of severe thunderstorms when the thundercloud is breaking up. Researchers have called them an "intriguing enigma," because no one knows exactly how and why they form. The clouds are fairly common but often go unnoticed because potential observers have been chased indoors by the rain. If you are one of them, dash outside when the downpour stops; you could witness a beautiful mystery in the sky.
more images: from John A. Ey III of Tucson, Arizona; from Karla Dorman of Burleson, Texas,
April 2011 Aurora Gallery
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