... Armagh Observatory, College Hill, Armagh BT61 9DG, +44 (0)28 3752 2928 . ... Risks Comparable to NEOs . ... The Increasing Rate of Discovery of Asteroids . ... Comet and Asteroid Collision Probabilities . ... Extreme albedo comets and the impact hazard (PDF Format) . ... Asteroid Impact Animations . ... Workshop on Scientific Requirements for Mitigation of Hazardous Comets and Asteroids - 2002 . ... The Spaceguard Survey Report, 1992 (PDF) . Tsunami from Asteroid/Comet Impacts . ...

... The one year crew. (image credit: NASA/Bill Stafford) . The тАЬOne Year CrewтАЭ has specific objectives to their mission all in a bid to find out if the human body and mind is capable of long missions to an asteroid, back to the Moon or even to Mars in the future. ... On-board the Russian space station Mir four cosmonauts clocked up more than a year in space in the 1980s and 1990s.€а (1942-) has the record for the longest single space flight of 437 days or 14 months in space in 1995. ...

Astronomy Picture of the Day . ... Advised by Alexandrian astronomer Sosigenes , Roman dictator Julius Caesar , pictured above in a self-decreed minted coin, created a calender system in 46 BC that contained one leap day every four years. ... This "Julian" calender system was used until the year 1582 when Pope Gregory XIII added that leap days should not occur in years ending in "00" except if divisible by 400, providing a further fine tuning. ... Publications with words: Julius Caesar - Leap Days . ...

... Each day a different image or photograph of our fascinating universe is featured, along with a brief explanation written by a professional astronomer. 2000 February 29 . Julius Caesar and Leap Days . ... In 46 BC, Julius Caesar , pictured above in a self-decreed minted coin, created a calendar system that added one leap day every four years. ... That makes today the first leap day for a centurial year since year 1600 and the second such leap day of the Gregorian Calendar. ... About APOD | ...

... Transits do not happen every time Mercury passes between the Earth and Sun because their orbits are not in exactly the same plane, as we will see in this activity. ... Transits of Mercury occur at only two times during the year (but not every year). ... Can you tell which two months the orbits of Earth and Mercury are in line with the Sun? _____________________ and ________________________ [pic] ----------------------- ( Transits of Mercury occur at only two times during the year (but not every year...

... Bad Astronomy . Misconceptions . ... Bad Astronomy : "We're light years more advanced than our competition!" ... Even the closest astronomical object, the Moon, is 400,000 kilometers away! ... A beam of light will travel 9,500,000,000,000 kilometers in one year. This distance is defined as a light year ; the distance light travels in a year. ... This is another example of Bad Astronomy; like a light year, a parsec is a unit of distance, not time (to be specific, it equals 3.26 light years) . ...

... NASA Asteroid Orbiter . ... Launched on February 17, 1996, the Near Earth Asteroid Rendezvous (NEAR) mission is to be the first of NASA's Discovery missions, a series of small-scale spacecraft designed to proceed from development to flight in under three years for a cost of less than $150 million. ... The ultimate goal of the mission is to rendezvous with and achieve orbit around the near Earth asteroid 433 Eros in February, 1999, and study the asteroid for approximately one year. ...

... It is much further away from the Sun than the Earth, so its journey around the Sun is much longer. Since a year is the time that it takes a planet to travel once around the Sun, Saturn s years are much longer than a year on Earth. In the time that it takes Saturn to complete one journey around the Sun, 30 years have passed on Earth! Astronomers know that about once each Saturn year that means once every 30 Earth years a massive storm occurs in the planet s normally calm atmosphere. ...

... Asteroid . ... In case you didn't hear about it, which you probably didn't: On Jan. 7, an asteroid 1,000 feet across -- nearly three times the current diameter of Marlon Brando -- barely missed the Earth, which is most likely your planet of residence. ... What if this asteroid had hit the Earth? ... As it happens, the American Astronomical Society was holding a conference in Washington AT THE VERY SAME TIME as the asteroid nearly hit the Earth. ...

... On the equator (point C) the sun would always rise until it was overhead, while at the poles (A and B) it would always be on the horizon, going around the horizon once a day. ... Because everything is symmetric with respect to the line AB, the dark and light portions are always equal, and so are day and night, anywhere on Earth. ... Twice a year, the angle is as big as it can get, at the summer and winter solstices , when it reaches 23.5 degrees. ... That part of Earth enjoys summer . ...

... Р?С?С?С?Р?Р?Р?Р?РеС?Р?С?Р?РеР? ... Launched on February 17, 1996, the Near Earth Asteroid Rendezvous (NEAR) mission is to be the first of NASA's Discovery missions, a series of small-scale spacecraft designed to proceed from development to flight in under three years for a cost of less than $150 million. ... The ultimate goal of the mission is to rendezvous with and achieve orbit around the near Earth asteroid 433 Eros in February, 1999, and study the asteroid for approximately one year. ...

JSC Celebrates 40 Years of Human Space Flight . ... JSC Turns 40 Home | ... The Lunar Samples Office, a Planetary and Earth Sciences Division and a separate Earth Observations Aircraft Program Office sprung up across the center. ... From the first moon rocks of the late 1960s to today's Martian meteorites, JSC scientists have led the way in the study of fascinating rocks to better understand how our solar system, and perhaps life itself, came into being. ... Curator: JSC Web Team | ...

... Just one: a very stringent requirement on the relative positions of Earth and Mars at the time of launch. ... Suppose the spacecraft which has landed on Mars is a robot , which collects a sample and immediately takes off again for its return trip. ... Since Earth and Mars constantly change their relative position, it stands to reason that if we sufficiently delay the return trip, Earth will move from position (2) relative to Mars to position (3), at which time the return trip can begin. ...

... Posts tagged ?Earth? ... Posted by vlk . There is a new report from Bernabei et al. ( arXiv:0804.2741 ) of the direct detection of the effects of Dark Matter that is causing a lot of buzz. ... Category: arXiv , News | 2 Comments . ... Tags: astrostatistics , curve fitting , Earth , ellipses , epicycles , Galileo , history , inference , iTunesU , Kepler , Mars , Owen Gingerich , planetary motion , Ptolemy , Quotes . ... Entries RSS . Comments RSS . ... Entries (RSS) and Comments (RSS) . ...

... Transits of Venus . ... Unless medical science invents some way to extend human life well beyond 100 years, the June 5-6, 2012 transit of Venus will likely be the last one anyone alive today will ever see. The next Venus transit won’t take place until December 2117, ¬ 105 years from now. ... ATMoB member Robert Naeye is Editor in Chief of Sky Telescope. ... Copyright (c) Amateur Telescope Makers of Boston, Inc. ...

ASTEROID 2005 YU55 . Asteroid 2005 YU55 was listed on NASA's "Sentry Risk Page" as having as small (about one in 10 million) chance of hitting the Earth in the next century. We observed this asteroid with the Arecibo Planetary Radar system on April 19-23 2010. ... A very close pass by Earth will take place November 8, 2011. ... Astronomers used the planetary radar system at the Arecibo Observatory radio telescope to spot the asteroid, called 2005 YU55, over four days starting on April 19 . ...

Maurice Newman ­ You have a taker: Brian Schmidt 15 Jan 2014 In his editorial piece in the Australian on Wednesday, Maurice Newman outlined his reasons why he doubts that anthropogenic emissions of greenhouse gases are contributing to an overall warming of the Earth. He also challenged the readers through a quote from eminent climate scientist Richard Lindzen, "'to take bets that the global average temperatures in 20 years will in fact be lower than they are now', any takers?" ...

... 50 Weirdest Objects . ... Get to Know the Night Sky . ... Picture of the Day . ... Observing springtime deep-sky objects with a large telescope . ... How can the Hubble Space Telescope (HST) take pictures of objects light-years away but not get a good picture of Pluto? ... At its distance, it subtends a smaller angle on the sky than does a galaxy at a distance of billions of light-years. Get instant access to subscriber content on Astronomy.com! ... Get full access to StarDome PLUS . ...

... Today this year's largest group of sunspots will cross the Sun's central meridian. ... The next day, the number of spots in the group reached five, and the day after, on June 2nd, it was possible to count thirteen sunspots on solar disk, which had been clear prior to this. ... This year's two most powerful active areas, which passed across the solar disk at the beginning of May, 2009, are set to appear in the Sun's eastern sector in two days, on June 6th. ...