Category Archives: Space

Lunar Eclipse

We enjoyed watching the lunar eclipse tonight, apparently the last one for a couple of years.

A Stellar Open-Source Application

Last night my wife and I could see a bright planet shining above the trees, which is unusual for being in Boston. We didn’t know what it was, but I knew how to find out after just having read about Stellarium.

Powers of Ten

This short film is a lot of fun, or at least you might think so if you like space, science, physics, and math, or you’re bit nostalgic about those films they showed you in grade school science class. By the way, I instantly recognized the narrator as former MIT professor Philip Morrison, who hosted a […]

Challenger

It’s hard to believe it’s been twenty years already. We are farther removed in time from the Challenger explosion than that day was from the moon landing. Yet we’re still flying the same shuttles, which one astronaut recently called a “deathtrap.” Here’s an interesting article on what we’ve learned (or what we think we’ve learned) […]

Messenger from Earth

Launched little over a year ago, the Messenger spacecraft sped by the Earth last month on its way to Venus and Mercury, using Earth’s gravity like a slingshot to pick up speed. Scientists assembled into a short movie a series of photos from the spacecraft, in which a glistening Earth recedes in the distance.

Mars Pic

Check out this image taken from the Spirit Mars Rover. Having landed in January 2004, Spirit’s still trucking along, and it’s just beamed back this picture from atop “Husband Hill.” Both rovers have lasted about 17 months beyond their original mission. And Spirit is in especially fine form, operating at a power level of 950 […]