Death Ribbon

Today's Astronomy Picture of the Day is of a few wisps from the Veil Nebula, in and around the constellation of Cygnus. It is a remarkably difficult object to see under our increasingly bright suburban and urban skies, but it marks a "bubble" of expanding gas from a star that went supernova.

Long Gaps. Brief Bursts.

I had been hoping to be getting back to more regular blog postings once power was restored after Sandy, but things have not turned out that way. This is due to a combination of craziness at work (increased demands on a decreased workforce are leading to just plain fatigue and low morale) and the fact that my past few weekends (and one weekday when I was "off") have been filled with helping people in my state affected by Sandy.

So, long silences filled with short bursts of "catching up" until "normal" becomes a state of being again.

Sandfalls on Mars

Today's Astronomy Picture of the Day shows a shot taken by the MRO, currently doing amazing job in orbit around Mars. The spring Sun melts carbon dioxide ice, causing sand to fall and expose darker interior grains. This results is a strange-looking set of images such as this.

New Diamond in a Spiral

Today's Astronomy Picture of the Day shows NGC 1365, a spiral galaxy in the constellation of Fornax. If you look closely at the upper right/center around the central core, you'll see a set of brackets showing a recently-discovered supernova in that galaxy.

Dense Field of View

Today's Astronomy Picture of the Day is a wonderful combination of dark nebula, bright nebula and dense starfields: the regions around the so-called Pipe Nebula.

The Long Trail

Today's Astronomy Picture of the Day is a beautiful shot of a single Leonid meteor trail. This one stretches practically from horizon to horizon!

Bad Luck = Good Sight

Today's Astronomy Picture of the Day is another shot of the recent solar eclipse. Bad luck in the form of clouds led to a good sighting of another eclipse phenomena: shadow bands.

Ring

Today's Astronomy Picture of the Day shows the Moon with a halo around it. The halo is caused by ice crystals in high thin clouds (from the ground it sometimes looks as if there are no clouds at all). Snow coming?

The Space Review

In the current issue of The Space Review, a few items caught my eye: Jeff Foust looks at the grim budget outlook for the planetary exploration programs (and how history may guide). Vidvuds Beldavs and Jeffrey Sommers look at similar themes: how to escape the downward spiral and get to real economic growth again. Jeff Foust reviews Caleb Scharf's recent non-fiction work, Gravity's Engines.

Skyfall

Today's Astronomy Picture of the Day shows the Leonid meteor shower over Monument Valley.

An Archway of Diamonds

Today's Astronomy Picture of the Day is a combined series of images from the Hubble Space Telescope showing one of the most massive stars known plus a vast star-forming region. (For some reason this reminds me of images from 1980's shows such as Buck Rogers.)

Shine On

Today's Astronomy Picture of the Day is a shot of the solar eclipse, this time in the partly-cloudy skies over Queensland, Australia.