Technology, Books and Other Neat Stuff

From Space Weather News:

This Saturday, August 16th, people on every continent *except* North America can see a lunar eclipse. At maximum, around 2110 UT (5:10 pm EDT), more than 81% of the Moon will be inside Earth's shadow, producing a vivid red orb in the night sky visible to the naked eye even from light-polluted cities. The entire eclipse lasts more than 3 hours, so there's plenty of time for gazing, drinking coffee, and taking pictures.

North American folk will have to make do with a web cast.

Google's just added the Sky to Google Earth, using images from various sources, including the Hubble. Sadly it doesn't just switch on - you'll need to download a new version of the application first.



There's some fantastic imagery there, and it's well worth exploring the bundled KML files. I rather enjoyed the "User's Guide to Galaxies"...

It may just be a test "Large JPEG file" for the folks at DSLreports, but to the rest of us, it's a rather amazing picture of the moon...

[946KB image at the link]

No more Period.

The IAU has decided that Pluto is a trans-Neptunian body and not a planet...

Astronomers meeting in the Czech capital have voted to strip Pluto of its status as a planet.

About 2,500 experts were in Prague for the International Astronomical Union's (IAU) general assembly.

Astronomers rejected a proposal that would have retained Pluto as a planet and brought three other objects into the cosmic club.

And there I was looking forward to a horoscope with Xena Rising...

It's looking more and more likely that we'll soon have to change those mnemonics for the planets. No more Matilda Visits Every Monday And Just Stays Until Noon Period. We'll have to add in Ceres, Charon and 2003 UB313...

Professor Owen Gingerich, who chairs the IAU planet definition committee, said: "In a sense we're demoting Pluto by taking it off the list of classical planets. But we're promoting it by making it the prototype of this new category of plutons."

[...]

The basis for this re-evaluation is a new scientific definition of a planet which uses gravity as the determining factor.

According to this definition, two conditions must be satisfied for an object to qualify as a planet:

* The object must be in orbit around a star, but must not itself be a star
* It must have enough mass for the body's own gravity to pull it into a nearly spherical shape

On whether he was confident the resolution would be passed, Professor Gingerich told the BBC News website: "It will be a very awkward situation if they don't.

"On Sunday afternoon, we proposed it out of the blue for the division chairmen and they voted unanimously that they would be prepared to back it. That's a good cross-section of astronomers.

"I'm sure it will be controversial to those with a stake in some other solution, but I hope we will get an overwhelming endorsement."

Ah, the politics of the IAU. Long may they debate.

A slow supernova-like explosion in intergalactic space has baffled astronomers.

Of course, if you've read Dave Langford's War in 2080 you'll might just wonder if someone out there is testing a gamma ray laser on some innocuous star.

The Celestron Sky Scout has to be one of the coolest gadgets ever.



It's a personal planetarium. Point it at an object in the night sky, and it will tell you what you're looking at, from a database of 6,000 objects. It'll even help you find something you're looking for. Turn it on and you'll get a list of the 10 coolest things you can see right now. It uses GPS to find where you are, and then magnetic and inertial sensors to know where you're pointing... Best yet, it's updateable.

Out in March, and no prices yet.

[via Gizmodo]

The BBC has put every episode of the Sky at Night since December 2001 online.

Now that's what I call nifty.

[Real Player only, sadly...]