Tag Archives: astronomy

The Symphony Of Science

Eighth in one of my favorite YouTube series.

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Rachel Has Fun With New Zodiac Signs

Point for the sly SNL reference from 1975.

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Back In The 1970s You Were Totally Wearing The Wrong Gold Chain

Astronomers say that position of the Earth is totally different than when astrology was dreamed up 3000 years ago. Therefore, your sign isn’t really what you think it is. “This is not something that happened today. This has gone on for thousands of years,” said astronomer Parke Kunkle. The star doctors say Earth is currently in a different spot in …

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Photo Of The Day – Solar Eclipse

The Boston Globe’s Big Picture blog has a great series of photos of Tuesday’s solar eclipse. The above image was taken by a telescope on a low-orbit satellite. RELATED: The Big Picture has been named to Regator’s Top Ten Blogs Of 2010. And so has this here website thingy.

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Evening View – Lunar Eclipse

Somehow I managed to stay awake for last night’s lunar/solstice eclipse and crept up to the sundeck of the Island House for some photos. At first I was the only one up there, but I was shortly joined by patrons who’d set their alarms and the event turned into quite a charming and chatty collection of camera-toting gay men from …

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Today In Ominous Press Releases

OK, maybe not ominous…but definitely intriguing. NASA will hold a news conference at 12:30 p.m. EST on Monday, Nov. 15, to discuss the Chandra X-ray Observatory’s discovery of an exceptional object in our cosmic neighborhood. The news conference will originate from NASA Headquarters’ television studio, 300 E St. SW in Washington and carried live on NASA TV. Media representatives may …

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Galileo Was Wrong!

Enjoy the whackadoodleness.

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Tomorrow: Manhattanhenge

Tomorrow night at 8:17pm is Manhattanhenge, the twice a year event in which the setting sun lines up perfectly with Manhattan’s street grid. On Sunday, May 30, the entire solar sphere will be visible just above the horizon at 8:17 p.m. EDT. The second opportunity comes later in the summer, with another half-sphere sunset on Monday, July 12, at 8:25 …

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Meteor Lights Up Midwest

JMG reader Paul in Minnesota tips us to the below image of a meteor exploding into the atmosphere over the midwest last night. The fireball was visible from Minnesota, Wisconsin, Iowa, northern Missouri, Illinois, and Indiana. Its path was caught by Doppler radar at the National Weather Service in the Quad Cities region.

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Photo Of The Day – Analemma

Get your minds out of the gutter, you dirty birds. Analemma is the tracking of the positions of the sun in the sky. The above photograph was taken in Crimea at same time, every ten days, for twelve months. (A couple days were missed due to bad weather.)

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Tonight: Manhattanhenge

Tonight is Manhattanhenge, the twice-a-year alignment of the setting sun with the street grid of Manhattan. On Sunday, May 31, the entire solar sphere will be visible just above the horizon at 8:17 p.m. EDT. The second opportunity comes later in the summer, with another half-sphere sunset on Sunday, July 12, at 8:25 p.m. EDT and a whole-sphere viewing on …

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There’s A Moon In The Sky,
It’s Called The Moon

Via Wired Science: Prepare yourself for a sight tonight — not to mention some wild behavior, if the legends are true. The biggest full moon in 15 years is set to grace the Northern Hemisphere tonight. Because the moon orbits along an egg-shaped ellipse, not a circle, its distance from us changes. Today, the moon is approaching its nearest point …

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