Mount Washington Valley Astronomy | Astronomy, Science & Space

New Zealand releases UFO government files

Following on the heels of a series of international UFO sighting disclosures, the New Zealand government has made public 2,000 pages of UFO eyewitness accounts dating from 1954 to 2009. Following public pressure (and the threat of being outed by WikiLeaks which said that there are top secret cables pertaining to UFOs coming soon), the NZ military agreed to open the files for scrutiny, but only if the individuals detailed in the reports could remain anonymous. The files are accessible form http://www.stuff.co.nz/national/4486327/Original-files-NZs-UFO-sightings. In the pages, there are detailed reports of flying saucers, intimate relations with alien beings and brief...

Total Lunar Eclipse on December 21, 2010

The last total lunar eclipse occurred on Feb. 20, 2008. While there are two total lunar eclipses in 2011, North American skywatchers will have to wait until April 2014 for one as potentially spectacular as the eclipse occurring this month. For the Western Hemisphere, the eclipse will begin on Dec. 21 at 12:29 a.m. EST (9:29 p.m. PST on Dec. 20) as the moon begins to enter Earth’s outer, or penumbral, shadow. This total lunar eclipse lasts only 72 minutes from start to finish. Skywatchers will not notice any changes in the moon’s appearance until about 45 minutes into...

NASA’s Voyager 1 Has Reached The Edge of The Solar System

After a 33-year odyssey, NASA’s Voyager 1 has reached a zone where there is no outward-blowing solar wind. A NASA space probe dispatched 33 years ago for the first close-up studies of Jupiter and Saturn has entered the tail of the solar system, a place where the constant stream of charged particles flowing from the sun ebbs. This final phase of solar system exploration should last another four years, computer models show, though scientists overseeing the two Voyager spacecraft really don’t know what to expect. Voyager 1 is now about 10.8 billion miles from the sun, traveling in a...

Spectacular Meteor Shower to Dazzle December Sky

On the evening of 13 and the morning of 14 December, skywatchers across the northern hemisphere will be looking up as the Geminid meteor shower reaches its peak, in one of the best night sky events of the year. And unlike many astronomical phenomena, meteors are best seen without a telescope (and are perfectly safe to watch). At its peak and in a clear, dark sky up to 100 ‘shooting stars’ or meteors may be visible each hour. Meteors are the result of small particles entering the Earth’s atmosphere at high speed, burning up and super-heating the air around...

A comet discovered just a few days ago by amateur astronomers in Japan is gliding by Saturn in the pre-dawn sky. Comet Ikeya-Murakami (C/2010 V1) is not visible to the unaided eye, but observers say it is a fairly easy target for backyard telescopes. Images obtained over the weekend reveal what appears to be an outburst in progress. The comet’s coma (atmosphere) bears a striking resemblance to the coma of Comet Holmes, which famously exploded in 2007. After unleashing one of the brightest X-ray flares in years on Saturday afternoon, Nov. 6th, sunspot 1121 took Sunday off. No strong...

AURORA WATCH and an ASTEROID FLYBY

The solar wind is stirring up geomagnetic storms around the Arctic Circle. High-latitude sky watchers should be alert for auroras after local nightfall on Oct. 11-12th. Newly-discovered asteroid 2010 TD54 will fly by Earth on Tuesday, Oct. 12th, about 46,000 km above the planet’s surface. At closest approach, the 7-meter space rock will shine like a 14th magnitude star as it races through the constellations Pisces and Aquarius. Advanced amateur astronomers can track the flight of 2010 TD54 using this ephemeris. There is no danger of a collision. Related posts:Aurora Borealis As You've Never Seen It BeforeNASA's OSIRIS-REx Spacecraft...