Venus Over The Sun

Photo of Venus courtesy 123rf.com

Today Venus will come between Earth and the Sun.  The last time this happened was 2004; the next time it will happen will be 2117.  This occurs in pairs eight years apart, and the pair-occurances are over 100 years apart.  For more information click here and click here.  What did you learn today?

The First Photograph of the Moon

The earliest extant photograph of the moon:  Draper, John W., “First Astronomical Photograph - Draper's Moon Daguerreotype,” Greenwich Village History, accessed January 6, 2012, http://aphdigital.org/GVH/items/show/119.

On this day in 1839, French photographer Louis Jacques Mandé Daguerre (1789–1851) took the first photograph of the moon.  This photograph was burned in the March 8, 1839 fire that destroyed Daguerre's laboratory.  The photograph was actually a daguerreotype, an early method of photography named after Louis Daguerre.  During this photographic process a silver-coated copper plate is treated with iodine vapor.  Prior to this invention, pictures of the moon for texts and articles had to be drawn by hand.

My favorite moon photos are those with astronauts walking around, because they make me imagine what that might feel like.  What are your favorite moon photos?

18 New Planets!

Photo courtesy FreeImages

Astronomers recently found 18 new planets orbiting stars, which is a 50% increase in the number of known planets.  For more information click here.

Moon-Venus Conjunction

Photo of Venus & Moon courtesy FreeImagesLive.co.uk

November 26 and 27 are great nights for sky-watching in the northern hemisphere.  There is a conjunction between the moon and Venus.  For more information click here.

If you're in the southern hemisphere, did you get a look at the last solar eclipse for 2011 on November 25?

Shortest Day of 2011

Photo courtesy FreeImages.co.uk

The shortest day of 2011 in the northern hemisphere will be December 22, which is the winter solstice.  The winter solstice will begin at 5:30 A.M. UTC. 

For more details go to my favorite new-to-me website, TimeandDate.com.  It's chock full of information and interactive pages.

Life on Europa

Photo of Jupiter and it's moons courtesy 123rf.com

New evidence suggests that there may be life in an underground ocean on Europa, Jupiter's ice-covered moon.

For more information, see the article on the website of UniverseToday.com.

Asteroid Passes Close to Earth

Photo courtesy FreeImageFinder.com

Yesterday and today people in both the northern and southern hemispheres are able to easily see the asteroid 2005 YU55 as it passes close to Earth.  An event of this type--when we will know in advance about an object this large that will pass this close to Earth--will not happen again until 2028.

For more information, see the websites of UniverseToday.com and SpaceDaily.com, which has an animation of the trajectory.

Where is the Driest Desert on Earth?

Photo courtesy of FreeImageFinder.com

The Atacama Desert is a 600-mile (1,000 km) strip of land on the South American Pacific Coast, running through Chile and Peru.  Outlying less-dry areas of the desert run through Bolivia and Argentina.  The Atacama Desert is the driest desert in the world with no rainfall having been recorded since rainfall records began being kept.  It is also the highest desert on earth, and one of the coldest deserts on earth.  Since certain bacteria and sea-life fossils have been found in gypsum boulders (similar to rocks on the planet Mars), it is believed that the Atacama Desert was once underwater.

For more information in addition to the above links, see the websites of the Gypsum Association and the ALMA telescope, which is the Atacama Large Millimeter Array telescope erected in the Atacama Desert by the National Radio Astronomy Observatory.