What is Copyright Protection? The Solar System: The Sun, Planets, Dwarf Planets, Moons, Asteroids, Comets, Meteors, and Solar System Formation Our solar system is filled with a wide assortment of celestial bodies - the Sun itself, our eight planets, dwarf planets, and asteroids - and on Earth, life itself! The inner solar system is occasionally visited by comets that loop in from the outer reaches of the solar system on highly elliptical orbits. In the outer reaches of the solar system, we find the Kuiper Belt and the Oort cloud. Still farther out, we eventually reach the limits of the heliosphere, where the outer reaches of the solar system interact with interstellar space. Solar system formation began billions of years ago, when gases and dust began to come together to form the Sun, planets, and other bodies of the solar system.
How to Forecast Weather | Ever wondered how to forecast the weather without actually using instruments? Check the Clouds: Clouds can tell us a lot about the weather. For example, they can tell us if it’s going to be warmer on a particular night by simply being there. Check the Humidity: If you’re one of those people whose hair gets all curly when it gets really humid out, you know exactly what this is about. Check the Animals: Birds only fly in the sky when they expect fair weather ahead. Look at the Rainbow (but only in the west) and look for a Red Sky: If you see one in the west, it means a major storm front is coming. Check the Air: If it smells like a compost heap, expect some rain soon. Check the Moon: Seen any red moons lately? Check the Wind: If you can tell which way the wind is blowing, you can tell if there is a storm approaching. A Few More Ideas: Make a campfire – If the smoke goes straight up, clear skies ahead. Check the grass – if it’s wet and dewy, that means it probably won’t rain.
Tonight Tonight’s chart shows Polaris and the Big and Little Dippers for a September evening. You can use the Big Dipper to find Polaris, which is also known as the North Star. Notice that a line from the two outermost stars in the bowl of the Big Dipper points to Polaris. And notice that Polaris marks the tip of the handle of the Little Dipper. The northern sky is a large clock, with Polaris at its center. The hour hand is a line drawn through Dubhe and Merak, the two pointer stars of the Big Dipper. The Big and Little Dippers: All you need to know EarthSky astronomy kits are perfect for beginners. View larger. | Keith Breazeal’s photo of a meteor streaking past the Big Dipper during the 2015 Perseid meteor shower. The Big Dipper swings full circle – 360 degrees – around Polaris in about 23 hours and 56 minutes. If you’re in the northern U.S., Canada or at a similar latitude, the Big Dipper is circumpolar for you – always above the horizon.
Pew Research Center | Nonpartisan, non-advocacy public opinion polling and demographic research Moon Phases Software Dear Friend, f you are interested in ... (Check any that apply to you.) ... and you want to predict, research, or track the moon, you will love this software! Thousands of people from around the world -- people with the same interests, hobbies or careers you selected -- have taken advantage of the benefits QuickPhase Pro provides. In the past, finding the phases of the moon or position of the moon was either inconvenient, or time-consuming, or hard to understand ... or all three. You can view all kinds of past or future moon data without complicated, expensive programs, technical jargon, or slow, tedious Internet research. I'll tell you all about the features of QuickPhase Pro in a minute, but first... Here's What I Discovered When I started looking for moon phase data, I immediately jumped on the Internet looking for free info. ... none of what I found was a real solution for viewing moon phases. What is the "Ideal Moon Phase Program"? If you are like me, you want a solution that: Nope! P.S.
'Dancing lights' draw thousands to frozen north (CNN) -- Winter travelers trek thousands of miles to the frozen north each year seeking the sky's "dancing lights," which provoke awe, excitement and, some say, sex. CNN iReporter Bruce Barrett shot this rare red aurora in Canada's Whitehorse, Yukon. Scientists call the natural phenomenon aurora borealis: cascading beams of greens, yellows, blues, purples or reds -- which paint a breathtaking backdrop across the wilderness and attract thousands of tourists annually. "Usually it starts slowly as kind of a hazy greenish color -- like a mist -- building up in frequency dancing across the sky ... and to me that's religion," said photographer Dave Brosha of Yellowknife, Northwest Territories, who's seen more than 100 Canadian auroras. "It's just one of the most incredible feelings a person can have -- sitting there watching that." To the west in Canada's Yukon province, tour operator Torsten Eder likes to tell a story about a marriage that was forged under the glowing curtains of light. Stay:
Time Zones Galaxy Zoo: Hubble Your Age on Other Worlds Want to melt those years away? Travel to an outer planet! <div class="js-required"><hr> This Page requires a Javascript capable browser <hr></div> Fill in your birthdate below in the space indicated. (Note you must enter the year as a 4-digit number!) The Days (And Years) Of Our Lives Looking at the numbers above, you'll immediately notice that you are different ages on the different planets. The earth is in motion. The top-like rotation of the earth on its axis is how we define the day. The revolution of the earth around the sun is how we define the year. We all learn in grade school that the planets move at differing rates around the sun. Why the huge differences in periods? Johannes Kepler Tycho Brahe Kepler briefly worked with the great Danish observational astronomer, Tycho Brahe. Here you see a planet in a very elliptical orbit. Kepler's third law is the one that interests us the most. Let's just solve for the period by taking the square root of both sides: Isaac Newton
Stephen Hawking: 'There is no heaven; it's a fairy story' | Science A belief that heaven or an afterlife awaits us is a "fairy story" for people afraid of death, Stephen Hawking has said. In a dismissal that underlines his firm rejection of religious comforts, Britain's most eminent scientist said there was nothing beyond the moment when the brain flickers for the final time. Hawking, who was diagnosed with motor neurone disease at the age of 21, shares his thoughts on death, human purpose and our chance existence in an exclusive interview with the Guardian today. The incurable illness was expected to kill Hawking within a few years of its symptoms arising, an outlook that turned the young scientist to Wagner, but ultimately led him to enjoy life more, he has said, despite the cloud hanging over his future. "I have lived with the prospect of an early death for the last 49 years. "I regard the brain as a computer which will stop working when its components fail. The book sold a reported 9 million copies and propelled the physicist to instant stardom.
Solar Eclipse Page The next Total Eclipse of the Sun Visible from the USAClick for special web page on the Total Solar Eclipse of 2017 Aug 21 Solar Eclipses: Past and Future The following links give information on all eclipses of the Sun and Moon from 2000 through the current year. Dates, maps and details for 5000 years of solar eclipses can be found in: Five Millennium Catalog of Solar Eclipses: -1999 to +3000 The Javascript Solar Eclipse Explorer lets you calculate the visibility of solar eclipses from any city for hundreds of years in the past and future: Javascript Solar Eclipse Explorer Search for solar eclipses by date interval, type, and magnitude, and plot the results on Google maps: Five Millennium Solar Eclipse Search Engine Other useful links to past and future solar eclipses are as follows. Solar Eclipses: 2011 - 2020 The table below lists every solar eclipse from 2011 through 2020. The Key to Solar Eclipse Table contains a detailed description of each item in the table. Decade Tables of Solar Eclipses
The Incredible Beauty of the Orion Nebula Learn about the beauty of the Orion Nebula. Photo: NASA Goddard Space Flight Center The Orion Nebula is one of the brightest in the night sky and lies south of Orion’s Belt. Photo: NASA, ESA, M. The area in the image above is a called the Trapezium and is an area of very young stars; six of the main stars that can often be seen from earth on a clear night. Photo: NASA, ESA, M. The Orion Nebula has been seen from earth for thousands of years. Photo: NASA/JPL-Caltech/STScI The Orion Nebula includes neutral clouds of gas and dust, ionized gas, associations of stars and reflection nebulae, which are clouds of dust reflecting the light of stars. Photo: Steve Black Orion is a stellar nursery where stars are born, and there are about 700 stars in various stages of birth within it. Photo: Opo Terser The Orion Nebula is an interstellar cloud like others found in the Milky Way. Photo: ESO/J. Source: 1
Evolution of the Universe - GigaPan Time Machine Jump to: From GigaPan Time Machine Direct Cosmological Simulations of the Growth of Black Holes and Galaxies This timelapse shows the distribution of matter in a simulated universe on large scales. The density of matter is shown on a false color scale, with the densest regions in yellow and the least dense in red and black. As the universe evolves from early times (it starts at an age of 10 million years after the Big Bang) the initially small fluctuations grow through the action of gravity until in the last frame (which represents the universe 14 billion years later, at redshift z=0, the present day) there are large clusters of galaxies present with vast, mostly empty spaces in between. To carry out the simulation the equations of gravity, hydrodynamics, radiative cooling, and models for star formation and black hole growth were solved in parallel on a system of 100 million particles. Galaxy cluster Watch a time warp of the formation of a cluster of galaxies. Void Supermassive blackhole