Astronomy and Art

Astronomy has appeared in art pieces for a long time, from stars in cave drawings to art-quality images coming out of telescopes today. Here is an interesting article on telescopes in the paintings of J. Brueghel the Elder, whose works is actually very useful in tracing the development of telescopes. Enjoy!

Longest Solar Eclipse of the 21st Century Longest Solar Eclipse of the 21st Century

The longest solar eclipse of the century is tomorrow. For more information on this event, go here. The New York Times will actually be blogging this event, which you can follow here. Hope you get a chance to see it. I remember seeing a solar eclipse my freshman year of high school, it was pretty amazing.

Poor Jupiter....

... first it was hit by Comet Shoemaker-Levy 9, and now this. This impact was actually first discovered by an amateur astronomer, and is observable from small ground-based telescopes. I'd love to link to any pictures you might take of this event, please leave them below. Enjoy!

40th Anniversary of the First Apollo Moon Landing and You

As I'm sure many of you already know, today is the 40th anniversary of the first Moon landing by Apollo 11. To commemorate this truly historic occasion, many publications have entire series of articles discussing the important of the Lunar Landings, what the future of human space flight should be, etc. etc. A small sampling of these are :

• Nature magazine
• New York Times
• Science magazine
• NASA (of course), which includes some amazing articles like this and pictures like this.

(feel free to post your own links below in the comments section). This got me the thinking: What does the Moon landings mean to you? Personally, I feel some ambivalence because I was born after the Apollo program ended, so I (obviously) have no personal memories of the Lunar landings. My first memory of human spaceflight was watching the Challenger launch in elementary school, once it was in the air my teacher let the class go outside for recess, and then when we returned we learned it had exploded. Not exactly the high point of human spaceflight. My interest in Astronomy was sparked more by seeing the night sky for the first time during a family trip to Yellowstone and the amazing picture returned by the Hubble Space Telescope than by dreams of going into space - though I would absolutely do so if offered. My officemate, on the other hand, remembers watching some of the latter Moon landings as a child in Communist China - and these memories are a significant reason why he is an Astronomer.

I wondering if this is lack of personal memories is why I'm not particularly enthusiastic about NASA's current plans to return to the Moon and eventually send people to Mars - which it would be exciting, I worry much more about how the considerable cost will likely end NASA's astronomy satellite program which I use in my research quite a bit. I'd be curious to hear what you think: do you think the worldwide excitement that might be generated by a permanent Moon base is worth the potentially trillion dollar cost? Did the Apollo missions play an important role in science? Do you think the future of humanity really is in spaceflight, and therefore we should start now? Please email me your thoughts or post them below - I'd be very curious to read them.

Happy Apollo 11 anniversary!

Space Puzzle!

Courtesy of the New York Times, here is a space puzzle for the entire family to enjoy. Good luck!

BLAST!: The Movie

No, it's not about space flight or rockets, but a documentary of the BLAST balloon experiment which made some of the most sensitive images of the sky at sub-millimeter wavelengths ever. Some friends of mine watched it (one because he went to graduate school with some of the people in the movie) when it was playing in New York City, and absolutely loved it. Go here for more information on showtimes, DVD release, etc. Enjoy!

NASA Releases Restored Apollo 11 Moonwalk Video

As part of its celebration of the 40th anniversary of the first lunar landings, NASA has released a restored version of the Apollo Moonwalk video, available here. Not that it is going to make these people happy. Enjoy!

Radio Show tomorrow (Monday, July 20th)

For those of you who listen to this show live on WVKR, my show tomorrow (Monday July 20th) is most likely going to be 9 - 10 AM USET (United States Eastern Time), instead of 10 - 11 AM USET , since I have a meeting I need to go to tomorrow afternoon in NYC. Sorry for the inconvenience, and hope you are having a good weekend!

Apollo 11 Mission Audio

Continuing its celebration of the 40th anniversary of the first Lunar Landings, probably NASA's greatest achievement, NASA has made available a full audio recording of the Apollo 11 mission. To listen, go here. Enjoy!

40th Anniversary of the First Moon Landings

The New York Times today has a very nice series of articles, available here, to commemorate the 40th anniversary of the beginning of the countdown for the launch of Apollo 11, the first manned mission to the moon. Hope you enjoy!

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!