Brad BlogSpeed - Filed under 'Moon'

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How Far Away is the Moon? A Visualization.

As discussed on a recent episode of the Skeptic's Guide to the Universe, an asteroid named 2005 YU55 whipped past the earth on Nov 8 at about 29,000 mph. At 1,300 ft wide, things wouldn't have been pretty had it hit us. Terrifyingly, the asteroid came so close to our planet that it was within the orbit of the moon!

So did anybody feel the breeze as it passed?

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Tagged Apollo Asteroid Astronomy Earth Moon Scale Space Travel

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The Gift of Apollo

The Sagan Series (pt8)

Produced by Reid Gower - Written and Narrated by Carl Sagan

Alright. I'm sure you folks are tired of all this Halloween nonsense, so let's get back to the business of blogging about this big old world of ours, and some of it's neighbours.

In fact, maybe that's overstating what I'll be doing today. To be honest I have very little to say about the following piece of content, mostly because it already states itself so beautifully. Many astronomy enthusiasts have seen this clip already, and most don't need to be convinced of it's message, but I'm posting it for anybody out there not in both categories.

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Tagged Apollo Astronomy Carl Sagan Moon Pale Blue Dot Space Travel

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How the Moon Buggy Fit on Apollo

Daddy's supposed to be able to answer any question about space ships. But how on Earth did the damn buggy get to the Moon?

Ever since our trip to the Ontario Science Centre the other day, my kids have been way into the Saturn V rocket and the Apollo missions. They're stil a little young to remember all the details of course, but for the last few nights they've opted to forgo storytime in exchange for a few minutes of whatever YouTube videos the old man could drum up on the subject.

Between real clips from the missions, handy 3D simulations, and some choice scenes from the movie Apollo 13 and the miniseries From the Earth to the Moon, I've been able to paint them a pretty comprehensive picture of how the whole thing went down. The best moment came when my five year old was told about Neil Armstrong piloting the Eagle softly down to the lunar surface, and how nobody had ever done so before. He followed with a decidedly impressed sounding "Whoa".

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Tagged Moon Moon Buggy Moon Landing Space

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My Favourite Astronomy Photos

Photo taken today of the partial solar eclipse

Purty Pictures of Space and Stuff

I had to quickly modify this post because the image above just came out, as in today! Above is an image of the solar eclipse that could be seen from parts of Asia today. But look closely, do you see the second eclipse? That's right, that's the International Space Station passing in front of the Sun. Click on it to see larger. Wow.

The following is a short-list of some of my favourite photos of the heavens, taken over the course of the last few years. I was inspired to put this together from a similar post on Universe Today documenting 2010's best snaps, and indeed 3 of the images you see below are from there, but I wanted to go further to include pictures from other years.

All the images can be clicked on for a higher-resolution look, but where noted some images are much larger. (Posterous seems to limit the size an image can be so I apologize if they're still not big enough)

Enjoy!

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Tagged Astronomy Aurora Borealis Eclipse Hyperion Mars Meteor Shower Moon Mystic Mountain Nebula Photography Science Space Space Shuttle Space Station Sun Sunspot Wide Field

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Yes. It's Real.

I've received a lot of questions from people asking if Mars will, as has been said, appear as big as the Moon this week. I guess people have thought to ask me either because I'm very public with my interest in astronomy, or because I've been known to call out some things as bullshit from time to time. That's what us skeptics do, after all.

But not this time. Below you'll see a list of things that will stun and amaze you, and are all 100% real!!! Amazing!!! Stupendously fantastic!!!

Yes. On Friday, Mars will appear as large in the sky as does the Moon, even though there’s no physical mechanism by which this could ever happen, as even a 12 second effort on Google will tell you.

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Tagged 2012 Aliens Autism Bullshit Conspiracy Conspiracy Theories Fake Ghosts Hoax Mars Materialism Mayan Moon Natural Naturalism Psychics Sarcasm Skepticism UFOs Vaccines

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Designing Darkness

On Starlight and Streetlights and Saving Mankind

Last night my bride and I woke at 2am, hopped in my topless Jeep, and took a chilly drive out to the Torrance Barrens Dark Sky Preserve. It was the darkest place we knew of from which to observe the Perseids meteor shower, an event that lit up the night sky with all sorts of pyrotechnics. My wife, typically uninterested in astronomical pursuits, was on this occasion gung-ho to tag along. Upon arriving we stumbled our way amongst the stargazers by the light of our cellular phones (our flashlight would have ruined everyone's nightvision), spread out in the pitch-black field and let the heavens entertain us.

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Tagged Astronomy Civilization Culture Dark Darkness Design Environment Environmentalism Light Light Pollution Meteor Moon Perseids Pollution Population Shower Society Stars Systems Torrance

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Old Man Punches Moron in Face, Saves World

How Buzz Aldrin's Beat-Down of Moon-Hoaxer Gives Me Strength (Video)

Buzz Aldrin is a great hero of the modern age. He's one of only 12 people to have ever stepped foot on another world. He's also an accomplished mechanical engineer, fighter pilot, and humanitarian. He's been critical of NASA's recent lack of ambition, and endeavours to motivate the public to aggressively pursue the space effort. Yet while he was only the second man on the moon, he's first in my books.

That's because in the video below Buzz, wittingly or no, struck a major blow against conspiracy theorists and their nonsense. Just in case anyone hasn't been paying attention, conspiracies, pseudoscience, and denialism really tend to stick in my craw. Those that like to invent their own reality are of course perfectly welcome to do so, but when they start trying to spread their bunk about the world I start to get my back up. It's just infuriating to me that someone selling patently false delusions can reasonably expect to find an audience amongst otherwise rational people. Alas, that audience is certainly there.

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Tagged Apollo Buzz Aldrin Conspiracy Theories Humour Moon Moon hoax Nasa Passion Punch Skepticism

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Saturn's Moons and Ice Volcanoes

Just some cool new Cassini photos I found online. Pasted below is the original text from the article, found here if you're interested.

"While we humans carry on with our daily lives down here on Earth, perhaps stuck in traffic or reading blogs, or just enjoying a Springtime stroll, a school-bus-sized spacecraft called Cassini continues to gather data and images for us - 1.4 billion kilometers (870 million miles) away. Over the past months, NASA's Cassini spacecraft has made several close flybys of Saturn's moons, caught the Sun's reflection glinting off a lake on Titan, and has brought us even more tantalizing images of ongoing cryovolcanism on Enceladus. Collected here are a handful of recent images from the Saturnian system."