- Big Bend National Park officials has been designated as an "International Dark Sky Park" and one of ten places in the world certified to have especially dark night skies favored for stargazing.
Two days before South Carolina's primary, Rick Perry announced that he's dropping his bid for the Republican presidential nomination and endorsing Newt Gingrich. Gingrich has the "heart of a conservative reformer," Perry said. A recent poll had Perry with just six percent support in the state.
For those still recovering from an active Christmas Day, there will be a celestial sight pretty enough to adorn your Christmas tree on the evening after Christmas.
On Monday (Dec. 26), known as Boxing Day in Commonwealth nations like Canada and the United Kingdom): The brilliant planet Venus will shine prominently in the vicinity of a lovely crescent moon. The Venus-moon sky show repeats on Tuesday night, too.
Comet Lovejoy plunged through the sun's corona at about 7 p.m. EST (midnight GMT on Dec. 16), coming within 87,000 miles (140,000 kilometers) of our star's surface. Temperatures in the corona can reach 2 million degrees Fahrenheit (1.1 million degrees Celsius), so most researchers expected the icy wanderer to be completely destroyed.
But Lovejoy proved to be made of tough stuff. A video taken by NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO) spacecraft showed the icy object emerging from behind the sun and zipping back off into space.
Scientists say a comet the size of two football fields is sailing toward the sun, where it is expected to be destroyed in a spectacular light show later this week.
The comet, which is about 200 meters wide, is expected to become as bright as Jupiter or Venus when it flames out on December 15 or 16. The comet will move to within 140,000 km from the surface of the sun, which will reflect a great bit of light that SOHO will be able to capture.
#35 -- deflection notwithstanding, it was the seals who did it after Obama bravely picked up the phone and ordered it.
Tell me, deth, what percentage credit do you think the seals deserve? 2%? 25%?
A restaurant patron does't get credit for his superb meal because he orders it. The chef gets all the credit.