Last Space Shuttle External Tank Arrives At California Science Center.

Comet Lovejoy C/2013 R1. Taken by Gerald Rhemann, December 2013.

Goodbye to M42 for this year.  But I’ll see you again in November.  Meanwhile I can look at this picture I took in January of this year.

www.astrotidbits.com

on Nov. 28, 2013, comet ISON will fly through the sun’s atmosphere little more than a million km from the stellar surface. If the comet survives without breaking up it could emerge glowing as brightly as the Moon, visible near the sun in broad daylight.

Kindly share this, so that no one could miss that event!

Just some eye candy from the Hubble Space Telescope.  One of the great scientific achievements of our time.

Milky Way & shooting stars.

This animation shows how fast a rocket must go to leave every planet

Blue Spot. West Coast New Zealand. 

SpaceX Plans to Send 2 Tourists Around Moon in 2018

“While the trip appears to be within the technical capabilities of SpaceX, industry observers wondered whether the company could pull it off as quickly as Mr. Musk indicated. “Dates are not SpaceX’s strong suit,” said Mary Lynne Dittmar, executive director of the Coalition for Deep Space Exploration. The Dragon 2 and Falcon Heavy are years behind schedule and have yet to fly.“It strikes me as risky,” Dr. Dittmar said, adding that autonomous systems are not infallible. “I find it extraordinary that these sorts of announcements are being made when SpaceX has yet to get crew from the ground to low-Earth orbit.””