What's Up? The Space Place

Hey Space Placers! UPDATE: I am off to the Alaska Bush again and will be off the 'net for awhile. C U when I get back. To follow up on 'Send Your Name to Mars" yesterday, check out the trailer for "The Martian". This is gonna' be a GREAT space flick. I can HARDLY WAIT for this movie! Sky Guy in VA

Hey Space Placers!           I'm a Frequent Flyer with NASA as I have flown my name on a lot of NASA missions and I have a crater on Mars with my name on it as well as our beloved and deceased dog. Now is your chance to sign up to send your name to Mars with NASA's InSight Mars Lander that is due to launch in 2016. It's easy and fun to do. And let's face it, you and I will probably never get to Mars in person. BUT our names will be there ON MARS! Sky Guy in VA P.S. THANK YOU to the 2.5 MILLION WUTSP viewers! Quite a milestone for a DIY blog - I am grateful & humble for your readership.......

Hey Space Placers! Quite the view from space aboard the International Space Station (ISS): Scott Kelly & NASA Read All About It . Sky Guy in VA

Hey Space Placers! Want to help name worlds beyond our solar system ? Well, here's your chance. Credit: IAU Between now and October 31, 2015 you can enter a world wide contest sponsored by the International Astronomical Union (IAU) as explained by the IAU News Release:. The NameExoWorlds contest, organised by the IAU, is now entering its historic final stage. The public voting on the shortlist of names for the ExoWorlds — 20 planetary systems comprising 15 stars and 32 exoplanets — starts today (8/12/15). The vote will decide the names for the selected stars and exoplanets. It's easy and fun to vote....take a few minutes to be part of history. Sky Guy in VA

Hey Space Placers! Shenandoah National Park (SNP) had very large crowds at Big Meadows on Wed & Thurs to see the Perseid Meteor Shower. I had to give 3 presentations as there were over 500 people at the Visitor's Center to see it. People of all ages came to the Park and gathered in and around Big Meadows to see this annual spectacle. The Perseids did not disappoint as the sky remained pretty clear for most of the night and did not cloud up until the hour or so before dawn.  The clear mountain air resonated with "ohs and ahs" from the crowd as bright meteors were seen in the sky. Here are some of my pics from the shower. Brightest Perseid Caught on Camera Milky Way Over Big Meadows SNP Persied & A Satellite & Milky Way The Great Rift Awesome Color Two Galaxies - The Milky Way & Andromeda Galaxy Quite the night for all. Sky Guy in VA

Hey Space Placers! UPDATED: NASA to host Perseid Meteor Shower Segment. Here is the latest on the Shower. The year’s best meteor shower, the Perseids, is happening now with the peak predicted to occur on the night of August 12-13, Wednesday into Thursday. With the Moon out of the sky and the peak expected to be centered on 4 a.m Thursday morning an observer with a good (read dark and unobscured) location could see 60-100 meteors - falling stars - an hour. Learn more about the Perseids as  I discuss the shower with Fox 5’s  Annie Yu and Mike Thomas . Annie Yu, Mike Thomas & I on the Fox 5 Set  Credit: Dianne Murphy APR Public Relations Consultant Dinamic Communications Each year at this time our planet encounters a debris stream of cometary dust made by Comet Swift-Tuttle. As Earth moves in its orbit around the Sun it collides with this debris stream and the cometary debris particles hit our atmosphere to become “shooting or falling s...

Hey Space Placers! NASA NASA has added Tumblr   to its other Social Media outreach. Every NASA mission, Center and Facility has a website, Twitter, Facebook, and possibly other Social Media accounts. Public outreach and education are part of each NASA mission's budget as NASA is dedicated to sharing with the world what it does. The recent and ongoing missions of New Horizons at Pluto, Dawn at Ceres and the International Space Station are prime examples of this outreach. Make sure you tune in to all of your favorite NASA missions - some of the data is received in almost real time! I'll be blogging about the Perseid Meteor Shower tomorrow! Watch the skies! Sky Guy in VA

Hey Space Placers! Check out this new video of Ceres   - it is a tour de force! Ceres "Pyramid Mountain" Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/UCLA/MPS/DLR/IDA/LPI The view will get even BETTER as the Dawn spacecraft edges lower and lower to its altitude of 900 miles which will happen in mid-August. Wow, what a year we have had so far in the solar system - Pluto flyby, Dawn, Rosetta. And the best is yet to come in all of these missions. New Horizons is sending data back, Ceres will get down low and Rosetta flying in formation with Comet 67P reaches closest approach to the Sun next week. Sky Guy in VA

Hey Space Placers! Watch this video a few times CREDIT: NASA GODDARD What we are seeing is our "double planet" system of the Earth and the Moon. I am not aware of another video like this showing the transit of the Moon across the Earth in such detail. A similar video was taken by NASA's Seep Impact spacecraft but it was 31 million miles away. The video was taken a million miles away from a NASA weather satellite that monitors space weather and can observe the Earth as well. This really puts our precious planet in perspective in a way we have not seen before. Enjoy the view. Sky Guy in VA

Hey Space Placers! Last night at Skyland Resort in Shenandoah National Park, myself and 40+ attendees for my "Let's Talk About Space At Shenandoah National Park"   watched the International Space Station (ISS) pass silently but brightly overhead. Many had never seen ISS before and they were thrilled to finally have done so. We waved as Scott Kelly and crew travelled 17,500 miles per hour for 6 1/2 minutes in our sky. Waving at ISS Above the Treetop on the Left by Greg Redfern  You can register at SpotTheStation to receive notices of when ISS will be visible from your location. It is truly a sight to see..... Sky Guy in VA

Hey Space Placers! How about a rocky exoplanet located ONLY 21 light years away? What is even better is that you can see the star it orbits with your unaided eye - which I think is a first. This is a gold mine for studying exoplanets because it is so close and it transits its star from our point of view which allows us to study it in great detail. I am going to try to photograph Cassiopeia and get a view of the star   HD 219134. Sky Guy in VA