I know you have probably already seen dozens of these but I thought this one was pretty cool.
Tuesday, February 19, 2013
Few people have as much curiosity as Nicolaus Copernicus had. He was one of the founding fathers of modern astronomy, born on this day in 1473. He had no formal astronomical education when he began his observations. If not for his efforts, in part we would not know all that we know about space today.
What a late week we had! First I saw news that we would be receiving a fly by from a large asteroid within the Moon's distance and then mere hours before there is a meteor impact in Russia. How crazy! Now my lack of schooling tells me that this is bad astronomy but I have to think that one and the same are somehow related. I know that our planet has its own gravity and that some larger (though in relative terms very small) objects such as DA 14 also have some gravity), so I concluded that the Russian impact might be related to the larger asteroid. Now this has no basis in science, just a conclusion I drew myself, silly really. Anyway it does make one think. I find it funny that now suddenly there are so many "meteorite" videos suddenly flooding the news. It takes one event to make people wake up and realize that while we believe life revolves around ourselves and what we believe is important, there are things that occur overhead everyday. Look up people, you can see incredible things. We are after all one tiny little planets circling around space. An infinite number of stars, greater than grains of sand on this planet, exist. Among those stars are other planets, other moons and far, far too many asteroids, meteors and other space debris to comprehend Our planet is bombarded every day by not only radiation from space but other debris. You can see these things ALL the time. Hell even if you look up doesn't mean you will always see it. I have seen so many objects at night on a regular basis that I almost find it silly that I haul myself out in the cold of winter to make meteor shower observations. Looking up on any given night you can at least see one satellite. I will stop ranting now but the point is this, you are one little being and there is SO much out there, just look up.
Here is a fantastic video of DA14 from last week. This asteroid is about the size of an apartment building and again is still relatively small but big enough to do major damage had it hit Earth.
Thursday, February 14, 2013
Wednesday, February 13, 2013
My absolute favorite thing to stare at in the night sky is the moon. I am far enough north that the brilliant, clear, cold winter nights make for some really great moon gazing. Sadly I am too far south to see Aurora. Also I am Urban enough that stars can be harder to see but the moon is always begging for attention. I can recall many a winter night when I was younger, seeing the moon light shining off the snow. I am still enthralled to this day. When I find a gorgeous moon picture or take one that I am proud of, I just have to share. Here are a few I just love.