GeekwithEnvy

Earth

Catch The Lyrid Meteor Shower This Weekend

by Leave a Comment

lyridsFromSpace
The Lyrid Meteor Shower as seen from the International Space Station (Source:NASA)

Every year the Earth passes through an area of debris in space that is left behind from Comet Thatcher. When we pass through this area of dust, we on the Earth’s surface get to see quite a show.

This meteor shower is known as the Lyrid meteor shower and the radiant of the shower (where the shower appears to originate) is near the brightest star in the constellation Lyra, Vega. The shower will be at it’s peek this weekend on April 21 and 22 (Sunday night and early Monday morning).

Unfortunately, many of us will have difficulty observing this event as the Moon will be very bright, almost full. No need to get discouraged though as you should still be able to see many of them anyway, especially farther away from sources of light pollution like bigger cities. As you watch space debris streak across the sky, think about how they are moving at over 100,000 mph or 160,934 km/h, it’s pretty cool stuff.

A Quick Guide to Understanding the Equinox

by Leave a Comment

NorthHemiSeasons

The Earth is tilted in relation to the sun. Earth’s axial tilt to orbit is 23.44°. On March 20th 2013, this marked the Spring Equinox for the northern hemisphere. The Fall Equinox is in September and vice versa for the southern hemisphere. The Equinox is the point at which the Earth is neither leaning towards or away from the sun. The sunlight that hits the Earth is evenly distributed across the northern hemisphere and the southern hemisphere. From space, the terminator (where night meets day on the Earth’s surface) appears to be perfectly straight from north to south.

After the equinox, the sunlight begins to either become more direct or less direct depending on which hemisphere you live in. The Solstice is the point at which the sun appears at either it’s highest or lowest point in the sky or when the Earth is tilted all the way towards or away from the sun. These are known as the summer and winter solstices.

Interestingly, the orientation of the Earth’s axis actually changes very slowly before making a complete circle every 25,800 years.

The illustration above shows how the tilt of the Earth and it’s location in orbit around the sun, change how light falls on the Earth’s surface. For a really cool view of the Earth undergoing seasonal changes in sunlight, you can view this NASA animation made from images from a geosynchronous satellite above Earth.

Earth Gets A View of a Comet

by Leave a Comment

 

Comet Dates
Source: Science @ NASA

The comet Pan-STARRS, which was discovered in 2011, is making it’s way thorough our solar system and on March 5th, it made it’s closest approach to Earth at 100 million miles away.

Although the comet is no longer at it’s closest point to our planet, it’s getting closer to the Sun and we should all hopefully see a nice show as it continues to brighten in the sky. Pan-STARRS will be closest to the Sun on Sunday, March 10th and at that point is should be very bright.

Until recently, only people who live in the southern hemisphere were able to see the comet at all, but that will change at those of us in the northern hemisphere will begin to see the comet on March 7th. It will appear on the west-southwest horizon shortly after sunset.

This won’t be our only comet this year as comet ISON will be making an appearance in November and should be much, much brighter that Pan-STARRS.

Small Asteroid to Do a Close Flyby of Earth

by Leave a Comment

2012 DA14 is a small asteroid that is going to be flying past Earth on February 15th. The asteroid was discovered in February of 2012 by astronomers at the La Sagra Sky Survey. 2012 DA14 will be so close to Earth when it passes us that it will be within the Earth’s geosynchronous satellite ring, that’s pretty close. That distance is where some communications satellites reside, however it will be far above most other equipment and therefore will be a relatively low risk as it passes Earth at a blazing speed of 17,400 mph.

2012 DA14 Asteroid
2012 DA14 Asteroid Path (Source: NASA)

NASA will be taking advantage of this close approaching asteroid by studying it as it passes us.  2012 DA14 isn’t every large, it’s approximately 150ft across and won’t be visible by the naked eye when it passes us, but it should be visible through a telescope.

Update [NASA]

Amazing New Photo From Mars

by Leave a Comment

 
One of the latest images from NASA is a self portrait of Curiosity and by far it is my favorite. Below I have featured a smaller version of the image, you can view the image in it’s full resolution, which I highly recommend, here.

You can see everything in amazing detail, including the logo for the Mars Science Laboratory. It’s hard to wrap your head around this picture. At first glance it’s just an awesome photo from Mars, but once you start to realize that this image is from a completely different planet, a planet which no human has ever set foot, you start to feel different about the martian image.

 

Curiosity Self Portrait
Curiosity Self Portrait (NASA)

 

When we seen landscapes like this we tend to look at it as if it were some random, desolate, place on Earth instead of a planet that at it’s closest known approach was 34.8 million miles (56 million km) miles away from us. Most of the time Mars is much further,  somewhere near 150 million miles (240 million km) away.

There are no cities beyond the mountains and no trees or animals to be found (unless NASA is keeping something from us). It’s not a picture of a volcanic land somewhere along the Pacific Ring of Fire, but rather the view we see photographed is a picture of alien world with human technology as it’s centerpiece. As desolate as it seems, it is still beautiful and inspiring as it stirs up our imagination.

As I look at the full resolution image, I can’t help but look at the ground below Curiosity and ponder the presence of life. It seems that one would only need to dig a hole or flip over a rock to find some type of martian worm or centipede. That red soil must contain some type of bacteria, right? How could it not?

This place looks familiar and in many ways it is. Mars has iron and sulfur core surrounded by molten rock, it also has an outer shell with a heavy coating of iron oxide and volcanic basalt. These are all properties and elements that that can be found on Earth. However, the differenses start to add up rather quickly and then were are reminded again that this is an alien planet, not one of science fiction but one that actually exists. Hopefully one day we will be able to explore this world in person but for now we can all continue to appreciate the efforts of NASA and the Curiosity mission.