Here’s to a great transition for you at this end + beginning of old / new trips around the sun … “party fact” of note: TODAY, January 2, 2024 (as I write this), we’re actually at our CLOSEST to the sun for the whole year . . . in fact, more than 3 million! miles closer than • Read More »
What’s going on in the night sky? This week (Wed.,12/7 in U.S. time zones) the full moon “backslid” across bright Mars, so an “occultation” was visible in much of the country (where the sky was clear enough). As the earth rotates west-to-east on its axis, the sky appears to turn east-to-west — but the moon’s • Read More »
Halloween, the BOO! (Blue) Moon, the Sun & those Bright Dots in the Sky . . . Halloween is one of four “cross-quarter days” of the year: approximately mid-way between an equinox and a solstice. (Imagine the solstices as 12 and 6 — December and June — on a clock face. Then the equinoxes are • Read More »
Chris McKay, NASA Mars Researcher, and Friederike Otto, University of Oxford climate modeller Science is the focus of this week’s Planet Watch. Senior NASA scientist Chris McKay, in the Planetary Systems Branch of NASA Ames, is an expert on the evolution of the solar system and the origins of life. Chris is also involved in • Read More »
An interview with NASA scientist Carol Stoker, an expert on Mars, the Red Planet. Carol Stoker is a staff planetary scientist at NASA Ames Research Center. Her most recent work is focused on developing instruments and robotic systems for space exploration and testing them in terrestrial analog environments. She has led field experiments in the Antarctic, • Read More »
An interview with NASA scientist Carol Stoker, an expert on Mars, the Red Planet. Carol Stoker is a staff planetary scientist at NASA Ames Research Center. Her most recent work is focused on developing instruments and robotic systems for space exploration and testing them in terrestrial analog environments. She has led field experiments in the Antarctic, • Read More »