A Meteor Over the Anza-Borrego Desert

1999-08-11 Jerry Schad

Meteors will be flashing across your skies over the next two nights. Specifically, the Perseid Meteor Shower should be at its best just before each morning's dawn. Observers at dark locations might see as much as a meteor a minute. Perseid ...

A Total Eclipse for Europe

1999-08-10

The last total solar eclipse of this millennium will be visible for a few minutes tomorrow from a narrow path in Europe and Asia. There, millions of sightseers will witness the Moon move directly between the Earth and Sun, covering up the Sun ...

Comet Hale-Bopp Over Val Parola Pass

1999-08-08

Comet Hale-Bopp became much brighter than any surrounding stars. It was seen even over bright city lights. Out away from city lights, however, it put on quite a spectacular show. Here Comet Hale-Bopp was photographed above Val Parola Pass in the ...

Ida and Dactyl: Asteroid and Moon

1999-08-07

This asteroid has a moon! The robot spacecraft Galileo currently exploring the Jovian system, encountered and photographed two asteroids during its long journey to Jupiter. The second asteroid it photographed, Ida, was discovered to have a moon ...

Asteroid 9969 Braille

1999-08-05

NASA probe Deep Space 1 zoomed past asteroid 9969 Braille last week as it continued to test its new ion drive in the inner Solar System. The flyby was the closest approach a spacecraft has ever made to an asteroid. Looking back afterwards, DS1 ...

The Surface of Titan

1999-08-04

If sailing the hydrocarbon seas of Titan, beware of gasoline rain. Such might be a travel advisory issued next millennium for adventurers visiting Titan, the largest moon of Saturn. Images of Titan's surface were released last week from the ...

Walking in Space

1999-08-01

Pictured above is the first american astronaut to walk in space: Edward White. White is seen floating outside the Gemini 4 capsule in 1965. The term spacewalk is deceiving since astronauts do not actually walk - they float - usually without ...

X-Ray Triple Jet

1999-07-31

Recorded on July 7, 1998, this animation using X-ray images of the Sun shows an amazing event - three nearly simultaneous jets connected with solar active regions. The two frames were taken several hours apart by the Soft X-ray Telescope on board ...

The Sea of Tranquillity: 5 Seconds To...

1999-07-30

On February 20th, 1965, the Ranger 8 spacecraft crashed into the Moon. Rapidly transmitting a series of pictures to ground controllers, its camera recorded this one at an altitude of about 11 kilometers, 5 seconds before impacting the lunar ...

Hydrogen Blob N88A in the Small...

1999-07-29

The bright blob of hydrogen gas cataloged as N88A is seen at the right. It measures a mere 3 light years across. Emerging from the cool, dusty interstellar medium in a nearby irregular galaxy known as the Small Magellanic Cloud, N88A hides hot ...