Did you catch the brightest full moon of 2010?

On Jan 29, 2010 we were graced with the brightest full moon of the year (also the first full moon of 2010). It offers anyone with clear skies an opportunity to identify easy-to-see features on the moon. This being the first full moon of 2010, it is also known as the wolf moon, a moniker dating back to Native American culture and the notion that hungry wolves howled at the full moon on cold winter nights. Each month brings another full moon name. But why will this moon be bigger than others? Here's how the moon works: The moon is, on average, 238,855 miles (384,400 km) from Earth. The moon's orbit around Earth – which causes it to go through all its phases once every 29.5 days – is not a perfect circle, but rather an ellipse. One side of the orbit is 31,070 miles (50,000 km) closer than the other. Read entire article: http://www.space.com/spacewatch/biggest-full-moon-2010-100129-tm.html

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Headline: Colliding Particles Can Make Black Holes

You've heard the controversy. Particle physicists predict the world's new highest-energy atom smasher, the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) near Geneva, Switzerland, might create tiny black holes, which they say would be a fantastic discovery. Some doomsayers fear those black holes might gobble up Earth--physicist say that's impossible--and have petitioned the United Nations to stop the $5.5 billion LHC. Curiously, though, nobody had ever shown that the prevailing theory of gravity, Einstein's theory of general relativity, actually predicts that a black hole can be made this way. Now a computer model shows conclusively for the first time that a particle collision really can make a black hole. Read the entire article: http://sciencenow.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/full/2010/122/1?etoc

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LRO Sees Apollo Landing Sites

NASA's Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter, or LRO, has returned its first imagery of the Apollo moon landing sites. The pictures show the Apollo missions' lunar module descent stages sitting on the moon's surface, as long shadows from a low sun angle make the modules' locations evident. The Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter Camera, or LROC, was able to image five of the six Apollo sites, with the remaining Apollo 12 site expected to be photographed in the coming weeks. The satellite reached lunar orbit June 23 and captured the Apollo sites between July 11 and 15. Though it had been expected that LRO would be able to resolve the remnants of the Apollo mission, these first images came before the spacecraft reached its final mapping orbit. Future LROC images from these sites will have two to three times greater resolution. Read the entire article: http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/LRO/multimedia/lroimages/apollosites.html

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Astronomy Without A Telescope – More Than Meets The Eye

Whatever hectic pressures may be at play in your life, you can always look forward to one quiet moment each week to contemplate the night sky in peace. I refer, of course, to when you have to take out the garbage – or as the Americans would have it – the trash. Bin night observing receives less attention than perhaps it should in the astronomical literature. The chance to check the night sky once a week and at about the same hour gives you a chance to experience the difference between solar and sidereal time since the same stars now rise about 28 minutes earlier they did last week. And of course, you can quickly check the ecliptic for planets and for the Moon’s phase if it’s up. Rarely, there may also be opportunities for educational outreach. A neighbor, aware of my astronomical tendencies, once asked me whatever happened to the Milky Way, which she recalled seeing as a child. I didn’t consider this a dumb question, since I remember seeing it as a kid too – it really is a ghost of its former self. Read the entire article: http://www.universetoday.com/2010/01/23/astronomy-without-a-telescope-%E2%80%93-more-than-meets-the-eye/

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NASA Sky-Mapping Spacecraft Spots First New Asteroid

NASA's latest sky-mapping space telescope has found an asteroid never-before-seen from Earth, the first of hundreds of new objects the telescope is expected to find. The near-Earth object, designated 2010 AB78, was discovered by NASA's Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer, or WISE, on Jan. 12. The space rock doesn't appear to pose any threat to Earth, NASA officials said. The newfound asteroid is currently about 98 million miles (158 million km) from Earth and has an estimated diameter of 0.6 miles (I km). The rock comes as close to the sun as Earth does, but because it circles the sun in an elliptical orbit tilted with respect to the Earth's orbital plane, the asteroid isn't thought to come near enough to our planet to pose a hazard. Scientists will monitor the asteroid though to make sure it doesn't pose an impact threat. Read the entire article: http://www.space.com/scienceastronomy/new-asteroid-found-wise-100125.html

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