In December of 1972, Apollo 17 astronauts Eugene Cernan and Harrison Schmitt spent about 75 hours on the Moon in the Taurus-Littrow valley, while colleague Ronald Evans orbited overhead. This sharp image was taken by Cernan as he and Schmitt roamed the valley floor. The image shows Schmitt on the left with the lunar rover […]
Wernher von Braun was one of the most important rocket developers and advocates of space travel in the 20th century. An ex-Nazi scientist, he came to the U.S. after the war as part of the “Paperclip” program, and worked for us at the White Sands Proving Ground in New Mexico… It turns out he was […]
Grand spiral galaxies often seem to get all the glory, flaunting their young, bright, blue star clusters in beautiful, symmetric spiral arms. But small, irregular galaxies form stars too. In fact dwarf galaxy IC 2574 shows clear evidence of intense star forming activity in its telltale pinkish regions of glowing hydrogen gas. Just as in […]
The United Nations has instructions for what to do when contact is made with extraterrestrials. At least that is what Russian cosmonaut Gennady Padalka claimed during an interview on Chinese TV. Speaking from the International Space Station, Padalka stated, “The UN and representatives of China have developed detailed instructions in case of the first contact.” […]
[ZOOM] Salt Lake City photographer Royce Bair uses digital cameras and what he describes as a ‘copious collection of portable incandescent and flash lighting equipment’ to capture his unique views of the night sky over Utah’s spectacular canyons. His shots of Wall Street Canyon at Bryce Canyon National Park with the stars of our own […]
In 1716, English astronomer Edmond Halley noted, “This is but a little Patch, but it shews itself to the naked Eye, when the Sky is serene and the Moon absent.” Of course, M13 is now modestly recognized as the Great Globular Cluster in Hercules, one of the brightest globular star clusters in the northern sky. […]
Situated in rich star fields and glowing hydrogen gas, these opaque clouds of interstellar dust and gas are so large they might be able to form stars. Their home is known as IC 2944, a bright stellar nursery located about 5,900 light years away toward the constellation of Centaurus. The largest of these dark globules, […]
Rather than being a missing link between man and the apes, Bigfoot may possibly be an alien entity. This intriguing possibility is derived from evidence in several solid UFO cases. The earliest clues date back to 1888, when a cattleman described an encounter with friendly Indians in Humboldt County, California. They led him to a […]
As its June 6 2012 transit begins Earth’s sister planet crosses the edge of the Sun in this stunning view from the Hinode spacecraft. The timing of limb crossings during the rare transits was used historically to triangulate the distance to Venus and determine a value for the Earth-Sun distance called the astronomical unit. … […]
This dramatic telephoto view across the Black Sea on June 6 finds Venus rising with the Sun, the planet in silhouette against a ruddy and ragged solar disk. Of course, the reddened light is due to scattering in planet Earth’s atmosphere and the rare transit of Venus didn’t influence the strangely shaped and distorted Sun. […]
