The two intensely bright “stars” in the night sky tonight are a pair of dazzling planets: Venus and Jupiter as bright lights outshining all stars right now. If you have clear skies overhead, you should be able to spot these eye-catching worlds with your naked
Comet Lovejoy (C/2011 W3) is on the path of selfdestruction. It is set to pass through the sun's intensely hot corona, within 87,000 miles (140,000 km) of the solar surface. This point of closest approach, called perihelion, is expected at 7 p.m. EST Dec. 15
Comet Lovejoy (C/2011 W3) could become as bright as Jupiter or Venus when it "flames out," the glare of the sun will hide the event from human eyes. Solar observatories in space, however, will have a grand view. Yesterday the brightening comet entered the
The last big meteor shower of the year — the annual Geminids shower — peaks tonight (Dec. 13), but bright moonlight could illuminate the night sky and spoil one of the most spectacular light show of the year. On a clear night, skywatchers have reported seeing up to
The last full Moon in 2011 will glide through the earth shadow producing a total lunar eclipse visible from the Pacific side of our planet. The last eclipse of 2011 is a total lunar eclipse that takes place at the Moon’s descending node in eastern Taurus, four days
Russian Mars probe Phobos-Grunt, stranded in Earth orbit since its main engines failed to fire after launch on Nov. 8th, is beginning to sink back into the atmosphere. Analysts expect re-entry to occur sometime in early to mid-January 2012. Until then, it is possible
With Geminid meteor shower, total lunar eclipse next week we are facing another event. Sungrazing comet C/2011 W3 heading toward Sun. Perihelion will come on December 16th at a point just 0.005652 astronomical unit from the Sun's center or about 186,200
The Geminids start appearing on Dec. 7 and should reach peak activity around the 13th and 14th. Up to 100 meteors per hour could be visible under good viewing conditions. But the presence of an 82% illuminated waning gibbous Moon from mid-evening until morning
For all our readers that use satellite images CIMSS Satellite blog announced today that at 15:46 UTC on 06 December 2011, GOES-15 replaced GOES-11 as the operational GOES-West satellite. GOES-11 (launched in 2000, and operational since 2006) was one of the older
When the sun goes down tonight, step outside and look east. Jupiter and the waxing full Moon are in conjunction less than 7o apart.Jupiter shines lower left of the Moon this evening. Although they look close together, Jupiter is 1,550 times farther away — and 40
