Happy Independence Day!

American Independence Day, that is. Enjoy!

Congratulations...

... to the winners in NASA's Second Annual Lunar Art Contest. Go here to see the winning entries, and stay tuned for information for next year's contests.

A July 4th present from the International Space Station

This July 4th, coincidentally, the International Space Station will be passing overhead much of the US at night. For more information, read this article and to find out when it will be appearing over your town, go here. It's a pretty impressive sight, so hope you get a chance to see it!

New Topographic Map of the Earth

NASA and the Japan Space Agency have teamed up to produce the most complete, detailed topographic map of the Earth to date use the Japanese instrumrent Advanced Spaceborne Thermal Emission and Reflection Radiometer, or ASTER, aboard the NASA spacecraft Terra. Go here to see the gorgeous pictures and here to download the data. Enjoy!

40th Anniversary of the Moon Landing Events

To commemorate the 40th anniversary of its greatest success, NASA has scheduled a whole slew of events in honor of the first moon landing. For a listing events, go here. Enjoy!

Are you an amateur radio astronomer?

Yesterday, a group of HAM radio operators communicated with each other by bouncing radio signals off the moon (go here for more information). I'd be very interested in either posting more information about this here or devoting a whole show to amateur radio operators / astronomy - so if you were involved in this please let me know. Thank you.

von Braun and NASA

As controversial as this relationship might be, von Braun did a lot of (important) work for NASA, and NASA is currently wondering how best to present all of the paperwork he generated. Go here to present your opinion.

The oldest blobs in the universe

Yes, "blobs" is the scientific term they use. Given that this article is about diffuse clouds of gas in the early universe, it is a pretty appropriate term.

Congratulations NASA Scholarship winners

As part of its "Motivating Undergraduates in Science and Technology" program, NASA has selected 100 full-time undergraduate students to receive a one-year college scholarship. For more information on this program, and how you can hope to receive one of these scholarships next year, go here. Good luck!

Steven Colbert in space?

Well, it's not the node of the International Space Station he wanted, but it is something. Go here for more info. I personally really like the logo.