To me, Mars has not been a very interesting planet to observe in the night time sky. Ok, it’s red–really red. But even through a backyard telescope, Mars is just a small red ball. Well, this month (January, 2010) Mars is much more interesting.
Mars reaches opposition on January 29th. At that time, Mars will be on [...]
There are two full moons in December. By modern convention, the second full moon in a calendar month is called a blue moon. So, New Year’s Eve party goers can celebrate a blue moon followed by a New Year. However, this definition of a blue moon results from a mistake made in an article published [...]
Just five weeks after the Lunar Crater Observation and Sensing Satellite (LCROSS) impacted the moon in the search for water, NASA scientists have announced the discovery of water on the moon.
On Oct. 9, 2009, the LCROSS Centaur upper stage rocket impacted the moon in the permanently shadowed region of the Cabeus crater near the south [...]
This week’s Cosmic Quiz winner is Matt Raphael, who asked, “How many craters are on the moon?”
The quick and uninteresting answer is, “Too many to count.”
Here’s the longer and hopefully more interesting answer:
It might sound like the latest disaster movie, but it’s for real. No, the moon isn’t going to crack apart (like in the movie “The Time Machine.”). It’s a booster rocket and a space probe that will impact the lunar surface near its south pole on Friday morning, October 9 in search of a precious [...]
Have you heard? Mars is about to be Spectacular! It will appear as large as the Full Moon! (Rubbish!!!)
So goes our yearly battle with the Great Mars Hoax that started in 2003. Each year, several emails make their rounds, promising that Mars will amaze and delight, appearing as large as the Full Moon.
Joseph Amundsen’s recent Cosmic Quiz Question asks why the flags placed on the moon by the Apollo astronauts appear to be flapping in the wind.
Many of us at Clark Planetarium are excited for the launch of NASA’s LRO/LCROSS unmanned space craft on June 17. Not just because the prospect of returning to the moon to gather in depth data about the moon’s features is interesting, but because our production department has been working closely with NASA on developing a [...]
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