UPDATE 10.29.09: Although my intentions were pure, I’ve taken down the link because of security concerns. The KML overlay of world-wide observatories on Google Earth is no longer publicly available. If you wish your observatory to be listed in the IAU Minor Planet Center database, or if you wish to correct or obscure the exact [...]

Conjunction: (n) \k?n-j??(k)-sh?n\ – an apparent meeting or passing of two or more celestial bodies in the same degree of the zodiac. In astronomy conjunctions happen all the time, from our point of view here on Earth. Of course the Moon really isn’t much closer to Jupiter than it was last night, or even last [...]

SPACEWEATHER.COM: GROWING SUNSPOT: The sun is showing signs of life. Sunspot 1029 emerged this weekend, and it is crackling with?B- and C-class solar flares. This movie from the Solar and Heliospheric Observatory (SOHO) chronicles the sunspot’s rapid development from Oct. 23rd through 25th. The sunspot’s magnetic polarity identifies it as a member of new Solar [...]

UPDATE: 6/17/10 – Paper published in Nature magazine gets worldwide scientific attention. UPDATE: 10/23/09 – Sky & Telescope Magazine picked up this story and featured it in their online magazine!! Check it out – http://www.skyandtelescope.com/news/65538577.html Last week I traveled to Mexico, specifically to Mexico’s Observatorio Astronomica Nacional’s San Pedro Mountain Observatory in North Baja California [...]

INTRODUCTION The scientific interest in asteroids is due largely to their status as the remnant debris from the inner solar system formation process. Because some of these objects can collide with the Earth, asteroids are also important for having significantly modified the Earth’s biosphere in the past. They will continue to do so in the [...]