How to Spot Satellites

From: LiveScience.com, 19 June 2009

By Joe Rao, Space.com Skywatching Columnist"

“If you go out…near dusk or dawn, and you have relatively dark skies, …(within)15 minutes…you see one of the more than 35,000 satellites now in orbit around Earth.

“…most satellites -- especially the bits of debris -- are too faint to be seen with the unaided eye. But…several hundred can be spotted with the unaided eye. These are the satellites that are large enough (typically more than 20 feet in length) and low enough (100 to 400 miles above Earth) to be most readily seen as sunlight reflects off them.

“The International Space Station (ISS) is by far the biggest and brightest of all the man-made objects orbiting the Earth. On favorable passes, it can appear as bright as the planet Venus, at magnitude -4.5

“Along with the ISS, you can also look for a space shuttle on those missions when one is approaching or departing from the space station. Also visible to the naked eye is the newly refurbished Hubble Space Telescope.

“And with good binoculars, you might also try sighting the infamous "ISS Toolbag" which accidentally was allowed to drift into space…Nov. 18

“From now through the final days of July…nights are now the shortest and the time that a satellite in a low-Earth-orbit (like the ISS) can remain illuminated by the Sun can extend throughout the night, a situation that can never be attained during other times of the year. Because the ISS circles the Earth about every 90 minutes on average, this means that it's possible to see it not just on one singular pass, but for several consecutive passes.

“So what is the viewing schedule for your particular hometown? You can easily find out by visiting one of these four popular web sites:”

• Chris Peat's Heavens Above
• Science@NASA's J-Pass
• NASA's SkyWatch
• Spaceweather.com

“Each will ask for your zip code or city, and respond with a list of suggested spotting times.”

The Weirdest Object in the Solar System?

From: LiveScience.com, 22 June 2009 07:42 am ET

By Andrea Thompson, Senior Writer

“…the minor planet now known as the dwarf planet Haumea…shaped something "like a big squashed cigar…" said…Mike Brown of Caltech.

“…astronomers…noticed that it was getting brighter and fainter by about 25 percent every two hours…Astronomers determined…Haumea is elongated and rotating every four hours.

"We see this thing tumbling end over end getting brighter and fainter," Brown said.

“Haumea is the fastest spinning object in the solar system.”

 

Haumea and her children…

From: Space.com, September 2008

By Clara Moskowitz, Staff Writer

“Brown and his team initially spotted the dwarf planet in December 2004 just after Christmas, leading them to nickname it "Santa"…

“Haumea joins Ceres, Pluto, Eris and Makemake as the fifth dwarf planet in our solar system. Pluto was re-classified from planet to dwarf planet in 2006, following the discovery of Eris.

“The new dwarf planet has the same diameter as Pluto, but is much thinner, and contains about 32 percent of Pluto's mass.

“Haumea is currently about 50 times as far from the sun as Earth is, but its orbit can swing it in as close as 35 times the sun-Earth distance. It is part of the trans-Neptunian class of cold and rocky objects in the outer solar system.

“Two small companion objects, thought to have been knocked off Haumea's body by past impacts…were…designated…Hi'iaka and Namaka, after the two children born to the goddess Haumea in Hawaiian myth. In the story, Haumea's children were created out of parts of her own body, just as the dwarf planet's two moons were apparently born out of itself.”

Times Online - Science Central - WBLG: Is there a Life On Mars Conspiracy?

Michael Brooks, consultant for New Scientist and the author of 13 Things That Don’t Make Sense, sends us a new perspective on the riddle of the empty planet next door

Some pesky scientists have just pointed out an appalling design error in NASA’s latest attempts to find life on Mars. This is beginning to look like a conspiracy. Does someone not want us to find life on Mars?

The best argument for why no one has even found carbon brought in on asteroids and comets is that chemicals called perchlorates, also thought to be in the Martian soil, have destroyed it all. When perchlorates get hot, they burn up carbon-based molecules. That’s why NASA uses them in rocket fuel. The problem is, as NASA's Douglas Ming (the Merciless) has pointed out in a recent paper, the experiments to search for carbon involve heating soil samples to a few hundred degrees and sniffing the vapours. If the soil contains carbon molecules and perchlorates, the carbon molecules will simply burn up. No wonder they couldn’t find any.

Kennedy assassination linked to UFOs and CIA

On November 12, 1963, President John Kennedy issued two Presidential memoranda instructing NASA and the CIA to begin cooperating with the USSR on joint space missions including a lunar landing. On the same day, a conversation occurred between Kennedy and Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev on the importance of sharing information concerning UFOs as they moved forward with joint space missions. Leaked documents concerning the alleged conversation and the role of the CIA in controlling UFO information directly implicate the CIA in Kennedy’s assassination ten days later.

NASA reviewed amid tales of UFOs, secret space fleet

NASA’s plans for retiring the Space Shuttle program and moving forward with the next phase of spacecraft – at least spacecraft known to the public – are being scrutinized at the highest levels of the U.S. government. Ssome researchers have suggested that a more advanced space program may be going on behind the scenes and based on UFO technologies.

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Massive solar storm coming in 2012

The last time we had a solar storm this big (1958), northern lights were seen in Mexico! One expert says 2012, another says 2010 or 2011. It's a three-year old post, but I've found nothing to contradict it. Read on...

March 10, 2006: It's official: Solar minimum has arrived. Sunspots have all but vanished. Solar flares are nonexistent. The sun is utterly quiet.

Like the quiet before a storm.

This week researchers announced that a storm is coming--the most intense solar maximum in fifty years. The prediction comes from a team led by Mausumi Dikpati of the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR). "The next sunspot cycle will be 30% to 50% stronger than the previous one," she says. If correct, the years ahead could produce a burst of solar activity second only to the historic Solar Max of 1958.

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The Moon might be a space station after all

Just scroll down the page a bit and look for the section titled, "A Moon With a View..." This man can weave a story. If you go quickly through the sections, you can see some really cool photos, many of which are official.

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Apollo astronaut joins UFO conference at end of Obama’s firs

Apollo 14 astronaut Dr Edgar Mitchell will be among speakers at the 2009 X-Conference discussing why the Obama administration needs to declassify X-files on UFOs and extraterrestrial life held by various federal agencies and departments.

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Enceladus shoots supersonic jets of water

"Four supersonic jets of water vapour..."

That's right, he said "vapour".

"... have been detected within the enormous geyser of gas and dust that spurts from the south polar region of Saturn's icy moon Enceladus..."

If, as suspected, they come from a sub-surface lake of liquid water, it could be evidence for a primary precursor to life existing on another world.

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Voyager 2 unravels mysteries at solar system's edge

Voyager 2 has been in space for 30 years. It has sent back data that show exotic particles from outside the solar system dominate the outer edge of our solar system. That means it's much more complex out there than we thought.

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Whitehouse Stonewalls DSCOVR Information Request

If you're not interested in the issue of climate change, fine, but this story is as much about that as it is about a new ruling that further erodes your right to information from your government.

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