Category archives for Breaking Orbit
The Story in the Details: Space Shuttle Gigapan
Posted by Jon Brack on April 16, 2012 
The interior areas of a space shuttle orbiter are remarkably small. A quick tour is all it takes to experience every inch of the living space a group of astronauts would inhabit for up to 17 days in orbit. When prepared for launch and full of scientific equipment and living supplies, sharing that area with…
Great Time to Spot the Space Station
Posted by Andrew Fazekas on April 16, 2012 
Skywatchers across most of North America and Europe are getting a chance to see the manned International Space Station (ISS) make a series of very bright flybys in the evening sky over the next couple of weeks. As long as you have some clear skies through the 26th, the orbiting laboratory will appear as a…
Posted by Premiered last year for the 50th anniversary of human spaceflight, First Orbit offers a full-color HD version of what Gagarin saw in 1961.
Sky Gazers from Babak Tafreshi on Vimeo.
A new time-lapse video of the starry night is a “tribute to to all skygazers around the world” released for Global Astronomy Month.
Night Sky News: Earth Hour Stargazing Experiment
Posted by Andrew Fazekas on March 30, 2012 
As the lights go down during Earth Hour on Saturday , March 31 around the world, take advantage of the darkness and look up at the stars. Light pollution not only wastes energy, disrupts circadian rhythms of wildlife but also diminishes the beauty of the night sky. To see how much light pollution affects stargazing…
NASA Rockets Paint Glowing Trails in the Sky
Posted by Andrew Fazekas on March 27, 2012 
It was down to the wire, but after numerous weather delays NASA managed to launch five sub-orbital sounding rockets Tuesday morning just before 5 am ET from their Wallops Flight Facility in Virginia. The Anomalous Transport Rocket Experiment (ATREX) mission will help unravel some of the mysteries surrounding the inner clockwork of the jet stream…
Night Sky News: Moon and Planets in Sunset Show
Posted by Andrew Fazekas on March 23, 2012 
All month long the brightest planets in the heavens, Venus and Jupiter, have been putting on a great planetary play high in the west just after sunset. A couple of weeks ago they came stunningly close to each other – appearing side by side in the sky, and now as they slowly drift apart they…
Rocks from South Africa hint that our planet once had periods of thick organic haze akin to what exists today on Saturn’s biggest moon.
Night Sky News: Venus and Jupiter Main Event
Posted by Andrew Fazekas on March 9, 2012 
If you have been watching the early evening skies at all in the last few weeks you probably noticed the two superbright ‘stars’ in the west are drawing closer together by the day. Two of the most brilliant planets in our solar system, Venus and Jupiter, are about to get a lot more cozy in…
Green pigs beware: Astronaut Ron Garan has given us a sneak peek at some astronomical facts we’ll need to conquer Angry Birds Space.
Night Sky News: Mars Madness in March
Posted by Andrew Fazekas on March 4, 2012 
Once every two years Mars’ orbit brings it close to Earth allowing it to shine its biggest and brightest to the naked eye and telescope – and on the evening of March 5 the Red Planet will reach its closest approach to Earth for 2012. Only 62.6 million miles will separate our two worlds as…
Posted by 
Currently, Mercury, Venus, Jupiter, and the Moon are in the western sky at and after sunset. This is a picture I took at 5:45pm on February 27, 2012. The Moon is obvious in the picture. Venus and Jupiter are small specks of light that are marked in the photograph. Mercury is not…
Astronomer's Paradise from Christoph Malin on Vimeo.
It’s cold, it’s dry, the air is thin. The nearest city is miles away across a barren landscape of boulder-strewn hills. At night, the only lights to guide you are the stars in the sky. Astronomers, welcome to paradise.
Night Sky News: Gaze Up at a Planetary Showcase
Posted by Andrew Fazekas on February 17, 2012 
While winter is not usually thought of as a great time to gaze at the starry heavens, some of the brightest planets are putting on a show not to be missed. Starting off with Venus, you can find the goddess of love dominating the early evenings in the southwest starting right after sunset. Look to…
Experience The Night Sky Like Never Before
Posted by Jason Major on February 15, 2012 …with this stunning time-lapse video by photographer Randy Halverson, set to a dramatic score by Bear McCreary. Amazing!
Night Sky News: Chance to Spot a Green Giant
Posted by Andrew Fazekas on February 8, 2012 
Thanks to a close encounter with Venus , skywatchers the next few nights get a chance to easily glimpse the 7th planet from the Sun – the green giant Uranus. While the pair of planets will be visible together within the field of view of any standard 7×50 binocular until Feb.15th, Venus and Uranus will…
Help Put Pluto On Postage!
Posted by Jason Major on February 4, 2012 
As New Horizons speeds toward its date with Pluto the mission team petitions to celebrate the spacecraft with a USPS Forever Stamp… and YOU can help!
Night Sky News: Monster Star Factory on Showcase
Posted by Andrew Fazekas on February 3, 2012 
You may not consider winter prime stargazing season, but in fact some of the brightest stars are found shining in Northern Hemisphere skies this time of the year. Probably the most recognizable pattern of stars in all the heavens, after the Big Dipper, is the constellation Orion, the Hunter. Because of its placement in the…
Missing Martian Atmosphere: Clues In Earth’s Cold Plasma?
Posted by Dave Mosher on January 26, 2012 
“Invisible” veils of cold plasma discovered around Earth might tell us something about how Mars lost its atmosphere, experts say.
Pluto: a Dwarf Planet With Rings?
Posted by Jason Major on January 26, 2012 
NASA’s New Horizons spacecraft is currently speeding through the outer solar system toward its July 2015 date with Pluto, when it will take a good close look at the dwarf planet’s mysterious surface, atmosphere, moons, and… rings? Less than three-quarters the size of our moon, Pluto nevertheless has no shortage of fascinating features. It…
Solar Storm Hits Earth
Posted by Andrew Fazekas on January 23, 2012 
After a weekend filled with great auroral activity in Northern Canada and Scandinavia (Norway video) thanks to a strong gust of solar wind coming off the Sun Jan.19th, the Earth is about to get hit again -by the biggest blast of solar radiation in 7 years. Talk about a one-two punch on the cosmic scale!…
My God, It’s Full of Stars…
Posted by Jason Major on January 20, 2012 Here’s a wonderful time-lapse video made of photos taken from orbit as the International Space Station passed over Switzerland, western Europe and eventually Saudi Arabia on the night of December 22, 2011. A portion of the Station can be seen along the right side, reflecting the lights of the major cities passing 240 miles below.…
GLOBE at Night – Helping to Save the Night Sky
Posted by Andrew Fazekas on January 20, 2012 
A dark sky filled with stars is becoming an ever rarer sight. Since most of the human population lives in or around big cities we have become detached from our night sky heritage as artificial lights filter out natural star light. Ask a young person about the Milky Way and you’re more often than not…
New NASA footage shows a long-lasting flare followed by an eruption of charged particles from the sun’s atmosphere aimed right at Earth.
Martian “Bomb Sag” a Clue to Wetter Times
Posted by Jason Major on January 13, 2012 
Spirit may be settled in for its eternal sleep, but the data it’s returned is still helping researchers piece together clues to Mars’ watery past! The image above, a false-color view from the “Home Plate” region where Spirit now sits, points to a feature geologists call a “bomb sag”. Bombs are a term for rocks ejected…
