APOD 1.5

Have I gone color blind? Does it seem like the photo is in black and white? Well don't worry, we haven't gone crazy, the photo was taken with a digital camera then enhanced the photo to make it black and white. This beautiful photo was taken at Hatteras Island in North Carolina above the dunes and next to the water.  Behind the dunes lies the ocean which looks like just a sea of stardust. Above the dunes the stars really shine out from the use of the contrasting colors in the photo. Several parts of constellations can be found from the glowing array of stars in this picture.   Sagittarius the archer can be found with in the center next to Scorpius the Scorpion. Zubenelgenubi can also be found within the clusters of stars. Its amazing how beautiful a black and white picture can turn out.

Sources for Jeremiah Horrock's Research

"Jeremiah Horrocks." Science and Its Times. Ed. Neil Schlager and Josh Lauer. Vol. 3: 1450 to 1699. Detroit: Gale, 2001. 393. Gale Virtual Reference Library. Web. 26 Sept. 2014.

    "Horrocks, Jeremiah." Complete Dictionary of Scientific Biography. Vol. 6. Detroit: Charles Scribner's Sons, 2008. 514-516. Gale Virtual Reference Library. Web. 26 Sept. 2014.

Burnell, Paul. "Celebrating Horrocks' Half Hour." BBC News. BBC, 06 May 2004. Web. 07 Oct. 2014. <http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/england/lancashire/3776889.stm>.

APOD 1.4

Have you ever wanted to live on a different planet? Maybe get away for awhile and see a whole new side of the universe. Well in this photo is four potential moons you could visit to do just that. Currently Astrobiologists are researching where potential habitable places places could be besides earth. This is very difficult as there are many requirements needed to sustain life. The Galileo's mission to Jupiter discovered Europa global waters and Ganymede's interior seas. The Cassini probe detected water on Enceladus and detected lakes of hydrocarbons on Titan. These planets still lack the necessary environment to completely sustain life as of right now but they are one step closer with the evidence of water. An interesting thing scientists are discovering is that there are far more moons that are potential candidates for being habitable compared to planets. So next time you feel that you need a break, try flying to Europa or Ganymede to get some space.


" Potentially Habitable Moons" NASA

Observation 1

As I was driving down US 41 I looked up and noticed the waning Gibbous moon around 1130 on September 13 2014. The moon had a slight orange/yellow tinge and appeared to be larger then normal. It looked slightly like an orange peel in the sky.

APOD 1.3

Is that a giant gas cloud in space? Well yes, however its a very important gas cloud. This is remnants of supernova Puppis A. Over 7,000 lights years away, a massive star exploded creating this cloud of dust. However this dust is actually heavy elements that can be used to create new stars and even new life way in the future. Supernovas help scientists to look at and figure out how humans first existed and origins of the universe. Since this cloud exploded 7,000 light years away, light from the explosion reached earth around 3,700 years ago. This cloud is enormous. The complete size of this cloud is around 180 light years wide. The Chandra and XMM/ Newton observations were able to take advanced X-rays of the sky and find this cloud. The blue is gas heated by the supernova shock wave. The red and green parts are regions of warm dust. This cloud is not just a beautiful thing to look at but also can help form new planets and life and can help us figure out where we came from.  

Supernova Remnant Puppis A 
Image Credit: X-ray: NASA/CXC/IAFE/ G. Dubner et al., ESA/XMM-Newton 
Infrared: NASA/ESA/JPL-Caltech/GSFC/ R. Arendt et al.

                http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap140912.html

APOD 1.2

Wow look at the night sky! Is that an alien in the bottom left corner? Actually, that's a person standing to the entrance of the cave, and if you look closely thats not the nighttime sky either. This is a picture of Hollow Hill cave located in New Zealand. The lights are made by Arachnocampa luminosa otherwise known as the New Zealand glowworm. This worm emits a glowing light to fool insects into flying into a webbed trap above. The light patterns emitted by the glowworms resembles the night sky and constellations,such as in the top left which looks similar to the southern cross, The landscape of the cave has a similar appearance to mars. This is a very neat and eerie photo and shows that there can be locations here on Earth that appear as other celestial objects in the universe. 





" The starry sky under Hollow Hill"               http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap140830.html