Tag - NASA

Astronomers Set to Study Huge Asteroid as it Passes Close to the Earth

We aren’t on the verge of Armageddon and no we won’t need Bruce Willis’ services, but brace yourselves, a large asteroid is on its way to Earth and will come within 201,000 miles of our planet.

The large asteroid, appropriately named 2005 YU55, is on its way to pass by the earth at 6:28 p.m. EST, Tuesday, November 8th. It will be visible in the northern hemisphere and won’t be seen by the naked eye. It will also be too fast for the Hubble Space Telescope to spot it.

Thousands of professional and amateur astronomers are poised and ready to watch the asteroid as it passes by. It will give scientists an opportunity to study the asteroid without having to launch a probe.

These celestial events where objects pass closely to the earth are only expected to occur a few times a century.

It’s the first time since 1976 that an object this large has come this close to Earth. During that time, no
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Earth’s Sunset is Spectacular but Not Rare from Space

This amazing photo of the sunset over the Indian Ocean comes from NASA and the Earth Observatory. The picture was taken by the Expedition 23 crew onboard the International Space Station. None of us on Earth will ever be able to witness a sunset like this.

In the picture, you can see the curve of the Earth along with several layers of the atmosphere.

ISS astronauts see 16 sunrises and sunsets a day due to their fast orbits around the Earth. Each sunrise or sunset only lasts a few seconds.

Check out NASA’s Earth Observatory for more on this photo and other Earth facts.

Folklore or Science… Is a Blue Moon Really Blue?

You might have overheard your local television meteorologist say something about a blue moon. Of course, my boys were hoping to see a real blue moon, but instead, they were treated to the second full moon of the month. According to popular definition, a blue moon is the second full moon in a month… and as you might expect, NASA has more to say about it…

According to modern folklore, a Blue Moon is the second full moon in a calendar month. Usually months have only one full moon, but occasionally a second one sneaks in. Full moons are separated by 29 days, while most months are 30 or 31 days long; so it is possible to fit two full moons in a single month. This happens every two and a half years, on average.

But you can imagine the disappointment in their voices as my three boys ran outside to see… a normal full moon. “Dad, it’s not blue… that stinks!”

A little more digging on the NASA site and we discovered that there was a time when people on Earth saw a real blue moon.

NASA Bombs the Moon – Collision Easy to See

We’re not sure what the big deal is… our students looked through a normal telescope at 5:30 a.m. MST and saw clear evidence of the NASA rocket that bombed the moon in search of ice crystals. Maybe Matt Lauer from the Today Show wasn’t looking at the same thing we saw.