Hubble is still busy!

I caught a show on PBS the other night that was all about the Hubble repair. It was amazing how many tools they had to invent, how much training went into it (they actually practice in a shuttle sized pool) and how one mistake, like a lost screw would have made the mission all for nothing.



If you are interested - and I sure hope you are, you can watch the whole show here! Get some popcorn and a drink and settle back in your chair. This is amazing stuff!

Mars, finally

I will never stop marveling at what new technology can bring. For you, it is as natural as waking up. The latest comes from Google Earth, which your dad should download for you here.

Here is what it will shows of Mars. Yes, Mars!


And if the clouds ever clear, you need to check this out this weekend. And tell me about when I get here next week..

Don't say goodbye to Venus

It has been an incredible year to see the closet planet to the earth. Venus has been the showstopper in the evening sky all winter. But believe me, you wouldn't want to live there.

For one, it is hot. The nasty atmosphere is mostly carbon dioxide and it traps all of the heat from the sun (it is only 67 million miles away). While there are super-sized, hurricane force winds in the upper part of the sky on Venus, the surface has none. And if it did, because of how thick it is, a small breeze would knock you on your butt.

Of course you would have to survive the pressure first. Imagine being the guy on the bottom of a big pile-on. Hard to breath, weight crushing you and you can't move. That is what a vacation on Venus would be like. And the darned planet spins in the wrong direction with the sun rising in west, not the east.

The planet not only spins backwards, it takes 243 days for one day on Venus. If you were reading this on Venus, a couple of Earth days might have already passed. In fact, on Venus, one school day would last almost four months.

So it is much more fun to watch than to visit. Every day in March, Venus drops closer to the western horizon after sunset. But as it disappears from the evening sky, it enters the morning sky. It dims a bit toward the end of the month but brightens again as it assumes the title of Morning Star in April.

Saturn's March show

Note from Papa to Andre: This is a way to give you all of the information any young skywatcher should need to understand what he sees in the night sky. I'll include a weather forecast with each post, some directions and some background on the subject.

Last week, I sent your Mom an email about looking for Saturn in the early evening sky to the east of you. In it I told you about the first astronomer to see the rings around the planet. Only his telescope was so primitive - he made it himself even grinding the glass lens - that his view of the distant planet (746 million miles from earth) was rather crude.

It was so crude that Galileo assumed they were jug handles. In fact, this picture was taken using a replica of what Galileo saw. We now know that they are rings. It was two years before he was able to find the planet again and he was astonished that the rings had disappeared. Do you know why?

The next time Galileo was able to see the planet the tilt, or angle the planet was pointed at the astronomer had changed and the rings where nothing more than a straight line across the planet.

It is too bad that the weather in Bend will not be good for looking at this event but you might be able to catch it in the morning on the western horizon - perhaps underneath the clouds or in between snow showers.

Here is some other stuff about Saturn that you may not have known. It has sixty moons and is really cold. Try and imagine 170 degrees below zero cold! It also takes twenty nine and half years to get around the sun. If you were born on Saturn, you would only be a couple of months old!

Next up: some stuff you can look forward to when the clouds go away.