Curiosity opens its eyes on Mars

Curiosity opens its eyes on Mars

[FOR HIGH RESOLUTION, CLICK ON IMAGE BELOW] You’ve just landed on Mars and opened your eyes — what do you see? If you’re the Curiosity rover, you see a strange gravelly place with a large mountain in the distance. You’ve landed on target near the edge of 150-km wide Gale Crater, with Mount Sharp on […]

A view, from space, of the Perseid meteor shower

A view, from space, of the Perseid meteor shower

[FOR HIGH RESOLUTION, CLICK ON IMAGE.] Denizens of planet Earth watched last year’s Perseid meteor shower by looking up into the bright moonlit night sky. But this remarkable view captured on August 13, 2011 by astronaut Ron Garan looks down on a Perseid meteor. From Garan’s perspective onboard the International Space Station orbiting at an […]

Weather on Mars for ‘Curiosity’s landing: Dry and cold with a slight chance of dust

Weather on Mars for ‘Curiosity’s landing: Dry and cold with a slight chance of dust

PASADENA, Calif. — About 34 hours from the Mars rover Curiosity’s landing (scheduled for 01:31 am Eastern time on Monday), NASA brought us the latest weather forecast from the surface — dry and cold, with a slight chance of dust. Slight is good. Earlier this week, the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter spotted a dust storm south […]

Milky Way over Monument Valley, USA

Milky Way over Monument Valley, USA

[CLICK ON IMAGE FOR HIGH RESOLUTION] You don’t have to be at Monument Valley to see the Milky Way arch across the sky like this — but it helps. Only at Monument Valley USA would you see a picturesque foreground that includes these iconic rock peaks called buttes. Buttes are composed of hard rock left […]

Back in the day, the Washington Post reported UFO flaps

Back in the day, the Washington Post reported UFO flaps

This much is undisputed: Late on the evening of July 19, 1952, air traffic controllers at Washington National Airport spotted a curious cluster of seven blips on their radar screens. Similar blips were sighted by radar operators at Andrews and Bolling Air Force bases. National’s control tower contacted commercial aircraft in the vicinity and asked […]

Our moon and Jupiter’s on July 15

Our moon and Jupiter’s on July 15

[CLICK ON IMAGE for high resolution. Credit: Cristian Fattinnanzi] Skygazers around planet Earth enjoyed the close encounter of planets and Moon in July 15’s predawn skies. And while many saw bright Jupiter next to the slender, waning crescent, Europeans also had the opportunity to watch the ruling gas giant pass behind the lunar disk, occulted […]

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