A Flight Above Mars [video]

Most-Distant Object Gets Visit By NASA on 1/1/19

According to Popular Science –

Get ready to meet 2014 MU69 (unofficially known as Ultima Thule), an object a billion miles beyond Pluto and 4.1 billion from Earth itself. On January 1, at around 12:33 a.m. Eastern Time, New Horizons will make get to within 2,200 miles away fromMU69—which sounds like quite a distance, but is actually three times closer than how far the spacecraft was from Pluto during its 2015 flyby (when it managed to capture many stunning images).

Continue reading HERE.

China Plans to Launch an ‘Artificial Moon’ to Light Up the Night

According to Time.

Scientists are hoping to hang the man-made moon above the city of Chengdu, the capital of China’s southwestern Sichuan province, according to a report in Chinese state media. The imitation celestial body — essentially an illuminated satellite — will bear a reflective coating to cast sunlight back to Earth, where it will supplement streetlights at night.

Continue reading HERE.

Also, this video pokes holes in the idea.

12 New Moons Found Orbiting Jupiter

According to ExtremeTech –

Famed astronomer Galileo Galilei discovered the first four moons of Jupiter way back in the early 1600s. More than 400 years later, astronomers are still finding moons orbiting the solar system’s largest planet. We’re not just talking about one or two stragglers, either. Astronomers from the Carnegie Institution for Science have spotted 12 new moons orbiting Jupiter, bringing the total to 79.

Continue reading HERE.

Moon Setting Behind Teide Volcano [video]

New Record – Photo Taken Most Distant From Earth

According to TheVerge –

The previous record holder for the farthest picture was NASA’s Voyager 1. The probe, which flew by Jupiter and Saturn before heading out to interstellar space, captured a distant picture of Earth on February 14th, 1990, when Voyager 1 was 3.75 billion miles away. Known as the “Pale Blue Dot,” it was the last picture Voyager 1 took before its cameras were turned off shortly afterward.

Voyager 1’s record remained unbroken for 27 years until December 5th, 2017, when New Horizons snapped its photo of the cluster at a distance of 3.79 billion miles from Earth. Then, the spacecraft broke its own record again two hours later, when it took photos of two objects in the Kuiper Belt, the large cloud of icy objects at the edge of the Solar System that New Horizons is currently traversing.

Continue reading HERE.

 

 

Image by NASA , via Wikimedia Commons

Mercury Fly-Over [video]

Solar Eclipse 101 [video]

Eclipses On Other Planets [video]

What The August Eclipse Will Look Like Where You Live

Vox published this page, where you can enter your zip code and see an animation of the eclipse at that location and the time that it will occur.

On Monday August 21, a solar eclipse will cut across the entire United States. And wherever you are, you will be able to see it. Even though the “totality” — the area where the sun is completely blocked out by the moon — is only 70 miles wide, the whole country (even Alaska and Hawaii) will experience a partial eclipse.

Go to Vox.

These Are The 1st. Detailed Photos Of Saturn’s Tiny Moon Pan

From TheVerge –

This little moonlet is thought to be about 20 miles wide, and it’s located in a 200-mile-wide gap in Saturn’s rings known as the Encke Gap. In fact, Pan is known as a shepherd moon, meaning it moves ring particles around during its orbit and actually keeps the Encke Gap “open.” That bulge around the moon is thought to be material from Saturn’s rings that Pan has collected during its trip around the planet.

Continue Reading HERE.

LunarClock.org Gives The Time And Date On The Moon

LunarClock.org have devised a clock and calendar for the moon. Apparently, this was necessary because of the moon’s rotation and length of day is different than the Earth’s (or something like that). Anyway, the site’s FAQ gives some explanation.

1. What is the Lunar Calendar and why do I need one?

The Lunar Calendar is designed to be used by colonists of the Moon, and it differs from the one we use here on Earth. Unless you live on the Moon, you don’t really need one, but you can support the idea anyway. Who, knows? Perhaps you will live on the Moon in the future, or your children might. You can read the details on how this calendar works.

Visit LunarClock.org and check current lunar time.