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Uranus and Neptune in 2008

Uranus and NeptuneUranus and Neptune spend 2008 in Aquarius and Capricornus, respectively. These are southerly constellations, which never get very high in the sky for people at mid-northern latitudes. So it's important to make the best of the relatively short window of opportunity for viewing them.

Neptune reaches opposition to the Sun on August 15th, and Uranus on November 2nd. These are the dates when the planets rise around sunset and set around sunrise, and reach their highest in the sky in the middle of the night. Neptune is reasonably well placed in the evening sky from August through the end of October, and Uranus from September to early December.

Download a detailed, printable chart for both planets in PDF format.

original source: Sky & Telescope


N.A.S.A. Wants YOU!

Help search for the Mars Polar Lander. Remember the Mars Polar Lander which crashed on descent, December 3, 1999? NASA needs help locating it. If you think you have what it takes to search through eighteen 1.6 billion pixel images and your computer monitor has the capacity required, and you believe you can successfully peruse each image containing more than 1,200 screens of monotonous Martian terrain without exactly knowing where to look for possible wreckage, you just may be the one to successfully locate a smudge representing parts of the outer shell and/or something resembling a parachute. Click here for more information.

Solar Activity
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{Thumbnail image of the solar photosphere} Current Solar Activity
Astronomy News

Planets Align for the 4th of July

On 4th of July weekend, NASA forecasts lights in the sky.No, not those lights. Look beyond the fireworks. Almost halfway up the western sky, just above the twilight glow of sunset, a trio of worlds is gathering: Saturn, Mars and the crescent Moon.

The show gets going on Friday, July 4th. Red Mars and ringed Saturn converge just to the left of the bright star Regulus. But that is just the beginning....

Read the full story!

Phoenix Digs Up Ice!

Dice-size crumbs of bright material have vanished from inside a trench where they were photographed by NASA's Phoenix Mars Lander four days ago, convincing scientists that the material was frozen water that vaporized after digging exposed it.

"It must be ice," said Phoenix Principal Investigator Peter Smith of the University of Arizona, Tucson. "These little clumps completely disappearing over the course of a few days, that is perfect evidence that it's ice. There had been some question whether the bright material was salt. Salt can t do that."

Read the full story!

Solstice Moon Illusion

Sometimes you just can't believe your eyes. This week is one of those times.On Wednesday night, June 18th, step outside at sunset and look around. You'll see a giant form rising in the east. At first glance it looks like the full Moon. It has craters and seas and the face of a man, but this 'moon' is strangely inflated. It's huge!

There's no better time to see it. The full Moon of June 18th is a solstice moon, coming only two days before the beginning of northern summer.This is significant because the sun and full Moon are like kids on a see-saw; .......

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Pluto Gets Respect: Dwarf Planets to Be Called 'Plutoids'

Pluto is finally getting its day in the sun, after being stripped of planetary status by astronomers two years ago.

From now on all similar distant bodies in the solar system will be called "plutoids." That's the decision by the International Astronomical Union, which met last week in Oslo, Norway, and announced the decision Wednesday.

Read the full story!

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