Where's Saturn? Is that a UFO--or the ISS? What's the name of that star? Get the answers from mySKY--a fun new astronomy helper from Meade. | | | DON'T FORGET COMET HOLMES: Since its startling explosion in Oct. 2007, Comet 17P/Holmes has slowly faded from view--out of sight and out of the headlines. But the giant comet is still putting on a show. Consider this Feb. 24th photo taken by Michael Jäger of Stixendorf, Austria. The great red cloud next to Comet Holmes is the California Nebula. "What a great photo-op," says Jack Newton who caught the pair three nights later. Comet Holmes is easy to find in the constellation Perseus almost directly overhead after sunset. If you have a backyard telescope, take a look. [sky map] [ephemeris] [gallery] AURORA WATCH: The auroras are dancing over Scandinavia. Hanneke Luijting of Tromso, Norway, sends this report: "Last night, we had to drive slowly behind a family of moose (who preferred to jog right in the middle of the road instead of going left or right) to get these images. It was an incredible show!" Here is the view recorded by his Canon 350D: The source of the display is a solar wind stream, which has just arrived to buffet Earth's magnetic field. NOAA forecasters estimate a 30% chance of more geomagnetic activity during the next 24 hours. People in Scandinavia, Canada and Alaska should remain alert for moose--and auroras. February 2008 Aurora Gallery [Aurora Alerts] [Night Sky Cameras] LUNAR ANTARCTIC: New high-resolution radar maps of the Moon's south pole reveal a fantastic land with peaks as high as Mt. McKinley and crater floors four times deeper than the Grand Canyon. NASA scientists, who scanned the region in 2006 using the Goldstone Solar System Radar, spent almost two years analyzing the echoes and released the data just yesterday. Click on the image to view a movie of the craggy landscape with shadows twirling over the course of a complete lunar day: Click to view a movie of the lunar south pole NASA is eying the Moon's south polar region as a possible site for future outposts. The location has many advantages. For one thing, there is evidence of water frozen in deep dark south polar craters. Water can be split into oxygen to breath and hydrogen to burn as rocket fuel--or astronauts could simply drink it. Planners are also looking for "peaks of eternal light." Tall polar mountains where the sun never sets would be a good place for a solar power station. Watch the movie again. Do you see any eternal peaks? "These data will be an invaluable tool for advance planning of lunar missions," says Doug Cooke, deputy associate administrator for the Exploration Systems Mission Directorate at NASA Headquarters. "The south pole of the Moon [is going to be] a beautiful place to explore." [more] Lunar Eclipse Photo Gallery [Interactive World Map of Eclipse Photos] |