... Bad Astronomy . ... Bitesize Astronomy . ... Last week's Snack talked about how black holes can affect the environment around them in such a way as to be very bright . ... It's a common misconception that black holes always have matter swirling into them. ... As this matter gets closer and closer to the black hole it piles up and a large, fairly flat disk forms. This is called the accretion disk , because matter from this disk accretes (that is, falls in) on the black hole. ... 2008 Phil Plait. ...

... 2008 December 30 . Home from Above . Credit: Expedition 18 Crew , NASA . Explanation: There's no place like home . Peering out of the window of the International Space Station (ISS), astronaut Greg Chamitoff takes in the planet on which we were all born. About 350 kilometers up, the ISS is high enough so that the Earth's horizon appears clearly curved . ... The space station orbits the Earth about once every 90 minutes. ... Note : APOD Editor to Speak in New York on Jan. ...

... Chain of Impact Craters Suggested by Spaceborne Radar Images . ... From space, astronauts often get the impression that the Earth is small with a thin, fragile layer of atmosphere. ... Galileo Earth Encounter . ... The Earth and Moon were imaged by Mariner 10 from 2.6 million kilometers while completing the first ever Earth-Moon encounter by a spacecraft capable of returning high resolution digital color image data. ... During its flight, the Galileo spacecraft returned images of the Earth and Moon....

Astronomy Picture of the Day . ... M83: A Barred Spiral Galaxy . ... M83 is a member of the Centaurus group of galaxies, a nearby group dominated by the massive galaxy Centaurus A. It takes light about 15 million years to reach us from M83. ... Bright Comet SOHO . ... Discovery Image: Comet SOHO (1998 J1) . ... Staring at the Sun from a vantage point in space (Kids, don't try this at home!), the Solar and Heliospheric Observatory (SOHO) has enabled the discovery of much about our closest star. ...

... Armagh Observatory, College Hill, Armagh BT61 9DG, +44 (0)28 3752 2928 . ... Although the comet itself never comes dangerously close to the Earth, the particles of dust that it has shed during its many past passages through perihelion found their way into the Earth's atmosphere, appearing as meteors in the cold December sky. ... Animation 1 . ... An Ursid meteor captured by the Armagh Observatory's NE-facing meteor camera in the early morning of 23rd December. ... Meteor Showers Online . ...

... Gift Center . ... Why do aurorae appear strongest within rings centered on Earth's poles instead of filled-in circles? ... RELATED TOPICS: AURORAE . The visible aurorae result from electrons that move along magnetic field lines from space into the upper atmosphere. ... Just make sure you're registered with the website. Get instant access to subscriber content on Astronomy.com! ... If you are already registered on Astronomy.com, please log in below. ...

... The IB_TAIL magnetic conjugations with the others Spacecraft . ... ASCII file description | Plot description | ... ASCII file | real time plot . ... The IB_TAIL magnetic conjugations with the groundbased magnetic observatories . ... The IB_TAIL magnetic mapping polar diagram, and ASCII files for each decade of month: . ... ASCII files description | DEC 1 (ASCII file, size more then 350Kb!) ... Back to the IB_TAIL Home page. Updated 24 November, 1999 . ... INTERBALL mission  ...

... December 8, 1996 . Degas Ray Crater on Mercury . ... Explanation : Like the Earth's Moon, Mercury is scarred with craters, testifying to an intense bombardment during the early history of the Solar System. ... In the above mosaic the bright rays emanating from the 27 mile wide Degas crater almost appear to be painted on . The rays consist of light colored material blasted out during the crater's formation. Numerous smaller, younger craters are seen superposed on the Degas crater itself. ...

Astronotes Armagh Planetarium's Stellar Blog! ... Space Flight . ... Earth Satellites . ... Leonid meteors seen from 13 km altitude aboard an aircraft during the 1999 Leonids Multi-Instrument Aircraft Campaign (Leonid-MAC). Comet Tempel-Tuttle provides the cometary debris for the Leonid meteor shower. ... Every 17-19 November Earth crosses Tempel-TuttleтАЩs orbit and the Leonids become visible. With clear, dark skies observers may see 10 to 15 Leonid meteors every hour on those mornings. ...

... The material contained in this Handbook is derived from ground tests and design information obtained by the IDT and the engineering team at JPL, and from on-orbit measurements. ... HST Phase II Proposal Instructions , (Version 8.0, 15 December 1995). ... Calibrating Hubble Space Telescope: Post Service Mission (1995).1 . ... The Imaging Performance of the Hubble Space Telescope , Burrows, C. J., et. al., ... The Performance and Calibration of WFPC2 on the Hubble Space Telescope, Holtzman, J., et al....

... Sun images . ... December : 2015 . ... Image of Sun's photosphere obtained 09.12.2015 at 23:40 UT with HMI instrument on board SDO spacecraft . ... Image of Sun's magnetic field obtained 09.12.2015 at 23:28 UT with HMI instrument on board SDO spacecraft . ... Image of Sun's transition region obtained 09.12.2015 at 23:39 UT with AIA instrument on board SDO spacecraft . Image of Sun's corona . Image of Sun's corona obtained 09.12.2015 at 23:39 UT with AIA instrument on board SDO spacecraft . ...

... EXPN DNO D A T E UT TIME FQ SOURCE CORR-Telescopes VT734 355-MO Dec 21 08:00-21:00 C TAU-A Pointing VT735 356-TU Dec 22 08:00-21:00 C TAU-A Pointing VT736 358-TH Dec 24 09:00-20:00 K ORIONKL Pointing VT737 359-FR Dec 25 09:00-20:00 K ORIONKL Pointing VT738 360-SA Dec 26 09:00-20:00 C 0528+134 Mitk-UD KA SH W018c 364-WE Dec 30 06:00-15:00 L 0552+398 Socr-VLBA W071n 6-WE Jan 06 10:00-17:00 L J0745+10 Mitk-AT HO MP UD SH KA W059e 7-TH ...

Last Updated: December 9, 1992 This README file can be found on the FTP site (cs.uwp.edu) in the directory /pub/music/lyrics/g/gibson.debbie or /pub/music/lists/btl/lyrics along with all of the below named files. The album files contain lyrics for the entire album, as they appear in the CD booklet. out.of.the.blue electric.youth anything.is.possible The lyric files for each individual song contains the 'sing along' version which should accurately represent what is actually sung on the album. ...

... In temperate latitudes, this is a good time to see halos formed by clouds of ice crystals high in the atmosphere where the temperature is always well down below -30 deg. ... The most prominent halos, however, appear quite close to the sun where it can be uncomfortably bright to look. ... In a sense, halos are like rainbows, glories and coronae in that they require the presence of a bright source of light, the Sun or the Moon, and water floating in the air. ...

... Articles | ... Forums . ... 230 deg . 49 deg . ... 130 deg . ... More Info . ... 210 deg . ... 168 deg . ... 249 deg . ... 195 deg . ... 271 deg . ... 110 deg . ... 338 deg . ... July 15 . 247 deg . ... 224 deg . ... 340 deg . ... July Phoenicids (PHE) . ... August 10 . 341 deg . ... 339 deg . ... 307 deg . ... 334 deg . ... 335 deg . ... 286 deg . ... 327 deg . ... 262 deg . ... 102 deg . ... 153 deg . ... 117 deg . ... December 2 . ... 123 deg . ... 100 deg . ... www.astronomy.net . ...

Browse the articles below for new ideas for your classroom. Mercury September/October 2005: Astronomy Education and Public Outreach: Steps and Missteps Toward an Emerging Profession (pdf) . Focus on Education articles as they appeared in Mercury: . ... March/April 2000: . ... Education Newswire articles as they appeared in Mercury, by issue. ... January/February 2000 . November/December 1999 . ... March/April 1999 . ... November/December 1998 . ... November/December 1997 . ...

THE RELATIVE MONTHLY MEAN SUNSPOT NUMBER ON DECEMBER 2013 HAS MADE Wdec.= 61.4, THAT GIVES FOR 42 MONTH (2012, JUNE) DEVELOPMENT CURRENT 24 CYCLES OF SOLAR ACTIVITY THE SMOOTHED MONTHLY MEAN SUNSPOT NUMBER W*june= 61.7 THE BEGINNING 24 CYCLES OF SOLAR ACTIVITY - I 2009 with W*=1.8 THE MOST PROBABLE TIME OF THE MAXIMUM OF THE CURRENT CYCLE- XI.2012 - III 2013 THE MOST PROBABLE HEIGHT OF THE MAXIMUM - Wmax = 66 - 75. ... NEXT WEEK THE LEVEL OF SUNSPOT ACTIVITY IS EXPECTED TO BE THE HIGH AND AVERAGE. ...

Accretion torques in windaccreting pulsars Nikolay Shakura Sternberg Astronomical Institute Moscow, Russia K.Postnov (SAI), D. Klochkov, V. Doroshenko, V. Suleimanov (IAAT), L. Hjalmarsdotter (SAI) December 2010 HEA-2010 1 Outline Introduction: disc and quasi-spherical accretion Settling accretion regime Spin-up/spin-down torques Specific pulsars Conclusions December 2010 HEA-2010 2 I. Disc and quasi-spherical accretion December 2010 HEA-2010 3 Disc accretion Shakura N.I. Astron. ... 2010 15 III. ...

... Laboratory for Spectroscopy of Molecular Structures . ... News . ... A new article entitled Description of optical properties of cholesteric photonic liquid crystals based on Maxwell equations and Kramers-Kronig relations has appeared in Physical Review E. Congratulations to Grigoriy Ksyonz on his first publication! . 25 th February 2013 . ... 22 nd November 2012 . ... 22 nd February 2012 . 4 th Workshop on Liquid Crystals for Photonics 2012 will take place in Hong Kong December 9-11, 2012. ...

PRESS-RELEASE . about the launch of Progress M-62 logistics spacecraft . ... S.P.Korolev RSC Energia is the prime manned space flight organization in the Russian rocket and space industry, responsible for the development of the ISS Russian Segment, its integration into the Space Station and its operation, including development and operation of principal Russian modules (Zvezda, Pirs, etc.), manufacturing, launch and operation of Soyuz TMA and Progress M spacecraft. ...