Sunday, February 29th, 2004

Greenwood Creek Sun Halo

Our star wearing a beautiful sun halo atop Greenwood Creek in Elk, California.

Monday, February 23rd, 2004

Laguna Trench Dig Continues

NASA's Spirit Rover continued its work on "Laguna Trench"... an area it has recently dug. Making use of sophisticated tools, Spirit used its microscopic imager to study the walls and floor of the trench. Read the full story... then visit the Spirit Rover Website for the latest news..

Saturday, February 21st, 2004

A New Planetoid?

Astronomers announced the discovery of our solar systems newest planet-like object. Located in the far off Kuiper Belt some 4.4 billion miles away, this object is the largest solar system object discovered since the discovery of Pluto back in 1930. Checkout CNN.com/SPACE for more details.

Friday, February 20th, 2004

A Blanket of Stars

This breathtaking image of Delicate Arch at night is one of the most beautiful I've ever seen. Taken by Dan Duriscoe of The National Park Service, it shows the incredible beauty of the night sky. Beauty that can only be seen from a truly dark sky location... like Arches National Park, Utah.. Dan and colleague Chad Moore are working on The National Park Services Night Sky Team which is studying the effects of light pollution on the night sky... particularly its impact on the skies over our national parks. If you're interested in finding out more, drop Chad a line. If the skies over your house don't look like this... they're suffering the effects of Light Pollution. 

Friday, February 13th, 2004

Aurora Watch
High latitude sky watchers should remain alert for auroras tonight. This is because Earth's magnetic field is being buffeted by a high-speed solar wind streaming from a large coronal hole on the sun. This could (hopefully) cause some mild geomagnetic storms. Keep a watch of Spaceweather.com for the latest info.

Thursday, February 12th, 2004

A Dazzling Display

Temperatures were so cold on Wednesday morning that any remaining moisture was simply frozen out of the sky. When lit by the light of the sun, this shimmering display is known as Diamond Dust.

Friday, February 6th, 2004

Microscopic Mars

This is a microscopic view of the soil from Opportunity's landing site. The images is about 1" across. Of greatest interest in this photo is the circular grain at the lower left. There are two known processes here on Earth that could explain its shape. One involved volcanic activity... the other... water. The adventure continues. For more details, checkout the Opportunity Press Release from JPL.

Tuesday, February 3rd, 2004

The Moon and Saturn

The Moon and Saturn posed together Monday evening. This event, known as a conjunction happens fairly often. Checkout our Conjunction Page to see some previous alignments.

Monday, February 2nd, 2004

Spirit Healthy Again

NASA's Mars Exploration Rover Spirit has been given a clean bill of health. Mission specialists will be doing some final "preventitive maintenance" before it resumes it's scientific work. For more information, checkout the Spirit Press Release.