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![]() Los Angeles (SPX) Dec 30, 2009 As twilight descends on New Year's Eve of 2009, a full Moon will rise in the eastern sky for the second time this month (the first time came on December 2nd). Many people use the expression "once in a blue Moon" to mean something that occurs rarely, and you might be tempted to call December 31st's full Moon a "Blue Moon" too. While the former meaning can be traced back centuries, the latter definition is much newer - and it's wrong! "In modern usage, the second full Moon in a month has come to be called a 'Blue Moon.' But it's not!" says Kelly Beatty, Senior Contributing Editor for Sky and Telescope magazine. "This colorful term is actually a calendrical goof that worked its way into the pages of Sky and Telescope back in March 1946, and it spread to the world from there." ... read more |
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Naval Research Lab Studies Solar Storms![]() Imagine a threat to the global community with the potential to damage communication satellites, interrupt navigation systems, shut down regional power grids, impede oil and gas exploration, expose aircraft crews to high levels of radiation, and endanger the lives of astronauts. That threat exists, but it's not from any well-organized terrorist group. It's from t ... more Cassini Team Showcase Saturn Moon Movies And Raw Images ![]() Like sugar plum fairies in "The Nutcracker," the moons of Saturn performed a celestial ballet before the eyes of NASA's Cassini spacecraft. New movies frame the moons' silent dance against the majestic sweep of the planet's rings and show as many as four moons gliding around one another. To celebrate the holidays, the Cassini imaging team has created a video collection of "mutual events," ... more Curtain falling on 'Digital Decade' ![]() While it got off to a rocky start with the overhyped Y2K bug and dotcom bubble, the era dubbed the "Digital Decade" by Microsoft's Bill Gates has turned out to be a dizzying period of innovation. "It's been an amazingly vibrant decade for the Internet and for digital things in general," said John Abell, New York bureau chief of Wired magazine, which has chronicled the technological leaps and bounds of the past 10 years. "People simply don't exist in a non-digital world at all," Abell told AFP. "Even grandmothers and Luddites all have tools and devices - even if they don't realize they're using them - which connect them to a digital world." ... more |
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![]() Vampires And Collisions Rejuvenate Stars ![]() Stellar Mosh Pit Of Crashing Stars Resolves A Mystery ![]() Instant online solar energy quotes Solar Energy Solutions from ABC Solar |
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Studying The Surface Of Titan![]() A University of Arkansas scientist has received funding from NASA to simulate conditions found on Saturn's moon Titan to help better understand the origins of the liquids found on its surface and in its atmosphere. Vincent Chevrier, assistant research professor in the Arkansas Center for Space and Planetary Sciences, conducted preliminary studies in a planetary environmental simulation ... more Kansas Scientists Probe Mysterious Possible Comet Strikes On Earth ![]() It's the stuff of a Hollywood disaster epic: A comet plunges from outer space into the Earth's atmosphere, splitting the sky with a devastating shock wave that flattens forests and shakes the countryside. But this isn't a disaster movie plotline. "Comet impacts might be much more frequent than we expect," said Adrian Melott, professor of physics and astronomy at the University of Kansas. ... more Avatar Moon Pandora Could Be Real ![]() In the new blockbuster Avatar, humans visit the habitable - and inhabited - alien moon called Pandora. Life-bearing moons like Pandora or the Star Wars forest moon of Endor are a staple of science fiction. With NASA's Kepler mission showing the potential to detect Earth-sized objects, habitable moons may soon become science fact. If we find them nearby, a new paper by Smithsonian ... more |
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![]() Space Debris A Concern In Satellite Launch ![]() Brown Dwarf Pair Mystifies Astronomers ![]() A Reflecting Surface Of A Lake On Saturn's Moon Titan |
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