There's not much going on this week in the skies above, but there are a lot of conjunctions to take a peek at! And of course, there's the comet Garradd that's still showing its tail to us down here on Earth, so make sure to catch it before it's gone. The rest that's going on this week:
I woke up at 4:00 am this morning in order to take some video of the last total lunar eclipse visible from North America till 2014. The eclipse was beautiful. It was amazing to watch the shadow of our planet creep slowly across our nearest neighbor. Once the shadow was blocking out most of the light from the sun, the moon was significantly dimmer and the color had changed to a reddish orange. This color is caused by the same effect that makes our sunrises and sunsets so colorful. The light fr...
Welcome to Pizza Perfect. I'm a novice pizza maker with one goal: to master the art of the homemade crust. The cheese (fresh mozzarella), the sauce (endless options or super basic), and the toppings (the sky is the limit) are all easy. But the crust I've found to be somewhat elusive.
Proof that miracles do happen!
Just because my kids can't eat white flour and sugar doesn't mean they never get treats. This cheesecake is a favorite in our family and is often used as birthday cake. You can decorate it with fruit such as sliced strawberries to give it a more festive look. The recipe is taken from the book Nourishing Traditions by Sally Fallon.
The art of eating leftover pizza. Some like it cold. Some even whip it up into a leftover pizza sandwich. Me, I like my pizza reheated.
Sourdough bread is a special type of dough with a chewy crust and tangy taste. This simple recipe will show you how to bring that great taste of sourdough to your own home. You will need raisins or dried currants, water, sugar, liquid from raisins, flour, whole-wheat flour. You will also need these utensils: a plastic container, sieve, bowl, spoon, small wooden basket, plastic bag, mixer with hook attachment, and a container with lid. Make wild sourdough starter.
Iceland Adventure Travel Are you an "adventure traveler?" That's right an adventurer traveler! Adventure tourism is becoming a popular travel niche all over the world for adventure seekers. These are people who don't necessarily want to sit on the beach with a cocktail with a tiny little umbrella in it, but rather experience the great outdoors through participating in activities.
How about a laser? One that is strong enough to nudge debris out of earth orbit. That's what NASA contractor James Mason wants to do, and his lab simulations suggest that the idea is possible. Mason wants to use a 5kW ground-based laser and a ground-based 1.5 meter telescope to spot potentially hazardous space waste and shove it off, by about 200 meters per day of lasering. It's kind-of like air traffic control for near earth orbit.
Believe it or not, making it a pizza isn't that hard, so don't resort to ordering out tonight. Try out this quick and easy pizza recipe. Once you have your dough ready to go, and your pizza sauce already made, you just need to start stretching and forming the dough. Punch it out and keep it circular, but it doesn't need to stay perfect. Just try to get the air out, otherwise burnt bubbles will result.
Let's say today is your birthday. You've just put those boisterous, vicenarian times behind you, reaching the first big step to your upcoming midlife crisis—30 years old. Maybe this is your midlife crisis. After all, if you're not where you want to be in life when you join the tricenarian ranks, the future starts looking bleak.
Again, there are tons of events this week, and as usual, most of them are caused by Jupiter's moons. But there is some happenings with Venus, too, so don't miss out.
This week, there's a lot going on in the skies above, with at least one event per day! There's also an equinox, which only occurs about twice a year!
AON is moving to Wednesdays! There are lots of things going on this week in the skies above, so be sure to observe. As usual, there's a lot to see around Jupiter, with its moons eclipsing and transiting. Also, a star from the Virgo constellation will be in conjunction with our Moon.
The Garradd comet has just about reached its absolute peak! By the way, I took those pictures below of the moon through my iPhone using an adapter. Pretty cool, right?
The comet Garradd is almost at its peak now, plus there's plenty more events going on this week, so be sure to observe!
This week's AON might be a little short, but finally, the Garradd comet's peak has come! I picked the Garradd comet to follow because it's a bright and easy-to-follow comet. Be sure to observe it! If you need help finding it, you can find more information here.
There isn't much going on this week, unless you like to observe the moons of Jupiter! January 27: Io transit
Remember—winter is the perfect time to observe! There are a lot of events going on this week, so pull out that observing chair. Here they are:
This week's AON has lots of conjunctions—be sure to observe them! Here it is: The Garradd comet is still in the sky! Here's how to observe it!
This week's AON may be a little short, but the ones to come will be packed full with information. I am really hoping for the skies to clear so I can observe soon!
This week's AON is pretty short, but there are also lots of clouds because it is winter. However, that just makes the few days of open sky way more valuable!
If you're like me, you were disappointed when NASA cut their human space flight program. No longer could children and adults in dead-end jobs dream of someday walking on the surface of the Moon or drinking floating globules of water through a straw. Homo sapiens as a species are still making it up there, but I will never be one of the chosen ones.
After his fall from Asgard into space, the Asgardian Loki meets the Other, the leader of a warmongering alien race known as the Chitauri. In exchange for retrieving the Tesseract,2 a powerful energy source of unknown potential, the Other promises Loki a Chitauri army with which he can subjugate the Earth. Nick Fury, director of the espionage agency S.H.I.E.L.D., arrives at a remote research facility during an evacuation. Physicist Dr. Erik Selvig is leading a research team experimenting on th...
This year is a leap year, which means today is leap day! I will be explaining why this happens and some special conditions below in the AON. Plus, there is a new feature this week—elongation! Be sure to check it out below.
You, Whoever You AreYou, whoever you are!... All you continentals of Asia, Africa, Europe, Australia, indifferent of place!
More than 100 missions targeted at Earth's moon have been launched by space explorers since the late-1950s. NASA landed a total of 12 men on the lunar surface, collecting more than 800 pounds of moon rocks and lunar soil samples. But still, the moon remains a mystery, especially its formation. NASA's new mission aims to find out exactly how the moon came to be with the Gravity Recovery and Interior Laboratory, or GRAIL, part of NASA's Discovery Program.
Never buy pasta sauce from the supermarket again. Or salad dressing. Or pie crusts, chicken stock, hummus, bread crumbs and other common cooking staples that can be easily replicated within the comfort of your own kitchen.
Those persistent alien beings from Space Invaders have finally abandoned the confines of their video game quarters, setting their crab-like eyes on the destruction of Earth. And it's up to one man to save the fate of human kind as we know it—Jeremiah Warren. Equipped with his trusty Atari CX-40 joystick, the lonesome savior battles the descending alien invaders, destroying them one by one with his laser cannon, right from his own bedroom window. See the battle below. The filming took about th...
As a show of support for the global effort in saving the earth RI Chemical Corporation encourages it's employees to join the upcoming event this saturday March 26.
Aurora borealis (or the northern lights) is a naturally occurring, beautiful light display caused by "the collision of charged particles directed by the Earth's magnetic field." Below, an electrifying display of time-lapse footage taken in Tromsø, Norway, by Tor Even Mathisen. Shot with the Canon EOS 5D Mark II.
Who other than Mother Earth? Below, a selection of 10 images from the USGS' Earth as Art, a collection of stunning photographs from the Landsat 5 and Landsat 7 satellites. The bright color is a false effect produced by satellite sensors, but the texture, shapes, patterns, scale- that's all real.
We've featured lots of fun lollipop recipes (Pop Tarts, pie, and more), but ahhhhh!!! This is the best yet! Sorry, I really love pizza (c'mon, don't we all?). And bite-sized pizza lollipops sound perfect. Especially when you can sample lots of different toppings.
Alexander Augusteijn captures one of the world's most deadly projectiles slicing through the Earth's delicate water droplet.
Artist Jim Denevan works on a massive scale. He's "painted" the northern beaches of California, and etched away at the Nevada desert.
LA's Green Compassionate Music Festival World Fest is a solar powered celebration of music, the environment, animals and humanity. The event promotes things we can do to help the earth and its inhabitants.
The 2010 Oscars are coming around the corner, and for those who throw an annual Oscar bash, now's the time to plan the menu. Cakespy posts a HowTo for the "Avatart", the perfect Avatar-viewing snack.
While medical exam gloves are commonly associated with hospitals and not the kitchen, they actually are unexpectedly useful for a number of cooking and cleaning uses that require handling extremely messy things.
In their cooked form, rice is great for making spam musubi, sushi, and other amazing meals. In their uncooked form, dry rice grains are unexpectedly useful for preventing your salt from clumping in your salt shaker, cleaning out the insides of weirdly-shaped, hard-to-wash containers, weighing down your unbaked pie crust, cleaning out your coffee grinder, and—if you act quickly enough—saving your wet cell phone from cell phone death.
Move over NASA— SpaceX is taking over. Well, not really. But today, the privately funded spacecraft company broke all expectations when their Dragon capsule fell to a soft landing in the Pacific Ocean, completing an undoubtedly successful demo flight of nearly two full trips around Earth. It was the first re-entry of a commercial spacecraft ever, bringing commercial space transportation closer to reality.
