Category Archives: Astronomy

Falcon Heavy Test Flight: A Momentous Event

The world’s newest, most powerful rocket in decades has reached space. It took a few weather delays Tuesday, but the private space company SpaceX successfully launched its Falcon Heavy rocket from the Kennedy Space Center. Watch the video of the launch at the … Continue reading

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Illustrations from the Russian Brockhaus and Efron Encyclopedic Dictionary (1890-1907) |

From Runiverse, a sort of Russian Google Books: Dear users!  Again we present you the “Encyclopedic Dictionary of Brockhaus and Efron”. We carried out work to restore the integrity of the publication. The volumes XXVIIa and XXVIII, dedicated to Russia, and also … Continue reading

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Galactic Lens Shows Quad-Quasar View

Explanation: An odd thing about the group of lights near the center is that four of them are the same distant quasar. This is because the foreground galaxy — in the center of the quasar images and the featured image … Continue reading

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Aurora Australis in Red

Red Aurora Over Australia Image Credit & Copyright: Alex Cherney (Terrastro, TWAN) Explanation: Why would the sky glow red? It’s the Aurora Australis which like its Borealis sister in the Northern Hemisphere is normally green. But a solar storm in 2012, … Continue reading

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Tracing the Sun from Solstice to Solstice

 Today, December 21st, would have been my mother’s 99th birthday and of lesser import it is also the Solstice, the first day of winter in the north and summer in the south. To celebrate, watch this amazing timelapse video tracing the Sun’s apparent movement … Continue reading

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Aurora Borealis Live Webcam

Living in San Francisco one learns to not get too excited about our planet’s celestial shows. In the summer and winter it is often overcast so the Leonid and Perseid meteor showers are almost never visible. So watching the live … Continue reading

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The Cosmic Web of the Tarantula Nebula

Explanation: It is the largest and most complex star forming region in the entire galactic neighborhood. Located in the Large Magellanic Cloud, a small satellite galaxy orbiting our Milky Way galaxy, the region’s spidery appearance is responsible for its popular name, the Tarantula nebula. … Continue reading

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