Earthrise Institute President Alan Hale will be speaking at the worldwide premiere of the new IMAX film "Hubble" that will be held at the New Mexico Museum of Space History in Alamogordo, New Mexico on Friday evening, March 19.
We have posted a new update to our comet update page in our "Countdown to 500 Comets" program. This update reflects the fact that Comet Christensen C/2006 W3 is now visible from the northern hemisphere, that Comet 65P/Gunn has now emerged into the morning sky, and that Comet Catalina C/2009 O2 appears to be disintegrating as it approaches perihelion.
March 6, 2010
Earthrise Institute President Alan Hale will be attending the Grand Opening of the New Mexico Challenger Learning Center (hosted by the Unser Racing Museum in Albuquerque) on Saturday evening, March 6. We look forward to future collaborative programs and activities with this new center.
We have posted a new update to our comet update page in our "Countdown to 500 Comets" program. This update reflects the fact that Comet Christensen C/2006 W3 has now emerged into the morning sky, although for the time being it is primarily accessible only from the southern hemisphere.
February 22, 2010
We have posted a new update to our comet update page in our "Countdown to 500 Comets" program.
One of our current "Countdown" comets, Comet Siding Spring C/2007 Q3, is featured among the initial set of images taken by the Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer (WISE) spacecraft that was released earlier this month.
February 14, 2010
Comet 469 has now been added to the "Countdown to 500 Comets" program, and our comet update page has been updated accordingly. This update also reflects the fact that Comet 169P/NEAT is again (and surprisingly) visible, albeit probably only briefly.
February 6, 2010
We have posted a new update to our comet update page in our "Countdown to 500 Comets" program. This update reflects the fact that Comet 29P/Schwassmann-Wachmann 1 has undergone yet another new outburst.
Italian amateur astronomer Danilo Pivato has recently released a striking gallery of reprocessed photographs taken of Comet Hale-Bopp during its period of maximum brightness in early 1997.
January 29, 2010
Comet 468 has now been added to the "Countdown to 500 Comets" program, and our comet update page has been updated accordingly. This update also reflects the fact that Comet 29P/Schwassmann-Wachmann 1 has recently undergone a new outburst.
January 13, 2010
An annular solar eclipse takes place on Friday, January 15. The path of annularity crosses some of the nations in central Africa (including northern D.R. Congo and central Kenya), the northwestern Indian Ocean (including the Maldive Islands), the southern tip of India and northern Sri Lanka, then across Myanmar and southeastern China. The partial phases of the eclipse will be visible from most of southern and eastern Africa, southern Asia, the Middle East, southeastern Europe, and the western islands of Indonesia. The maximum duration of annularity (11 minutes, 8 seconds) will be seen at a location in the Indian Ocean 1200 km southwest of the tip of India; this happens to be the longest annular eclipse of the entire 3rd Millennium, and won't be exceeded until the year 3043.
Earthrise Institute President Alan Hale will be a featured guest on the morning show of KLAQ-FM (95.5 MHz, in El Paso, Texas) on Thursday morning, January 14. His interview should start sometime between 7:30 and 8:00 A.M. MST (14:30 to 15:00 UT).
We have posted a new update to our comet update page in our "Countdown to 500 Comets" program.
January 9, 2010
We have posted a new update to our comet update page in our "Countdown to 500 Comets" program.
December 30, 2009
We wish our friends, colleagues, participating astronomers and students, and everyone all over the planet, a happy New Year's celebration and a happy and prosperous year in 2010.
The "In Our Skies" e-book available through our Earthrise Store now has columns up through the end of the fourth quarter of 2009. Among the columns from the past three months are: "Lord of the Planets" (October 23), "Which Way Forward?" (November 6), "Water on the Moon!" (November 20), and "Lava World" (December 18).
We have posted a new update to our comet update page in our "Countdown to 500 Comets" program. Comet 169P/NEAT will be passing only 0.19 AU from Earth on January 12, although we don't know if the comet will still be bright enough to observe; the event is visible only from the southern hemisphere.
We congratulate Earthrise Team member and "Countdown to 500 Comets" mentor Mike Begbie for his recent relocation back to Harare, Zimbabwe.
A small partial lunar eclipse occurs tomorrow, New Year's Eve and will be visible from Asia, Europe, Africa and Australia. Mid-eclipse occurs at 19:23 UT (12:23 P.M. MST).
December 17, 2009
We have posted a new update to our comet update page in our "Countdown to 500 Comets" program. This update reflects the fact that Comet Siding Spring C/2007 Q3 seems to have undergone a small nuclear outburst within the recent past, and also that Comet 217P/LINEAR P/2009 F3 appears to have brightened some as well.
We congratulate the team of the Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer (WISE) mission for their successful launch this past December 14. We expect many exciting new results from WISE during its expected ten months (or so) of operations, and it is possible that WISE could contribute one or more comet discoveries to our "Countdown to 500 Comets" program.
December 12, 2009
Comet 467 has now been added to the "Countdown to 500 Comets" program, and our comet update page has been updated accordingly.
The annual Geminid meteor shower reaches its peak tomorrow night (December 13-14); peak display is predicted for 5:00 UT on December 14 (10:00 P.M. MST December 13). Up to 60 to 100 or more meteors per hour should be visible. Since the moon is near its new phase the conditions for viewing the Geminids this year are quite favorable.