This Week in History: April 12-18
APRIL 13, 2029: The near-Earth asteroid (99942) Apophis will pass just 0.00026 AU from Earth, slightly less than 5 Earth radii above the surface and within the orbital distance of geosynchronous satellites. At this time this is the closest predicted future approach of a near-Earth asteroid. The process of determining future close approaches like this …
Comet of the Week: 153P/Ikeya=Zhang P/2002 C1
Perihelion: 2002 March 18.98, q = 0.507 AU One of the many successful Japanese comet hunters of the 1960s was Kaoru Ikeya who, coming from a family of modest means, built a homemade telescope for the equivalent of US$20 and began to hunt comets with it. He discovered his first comet in 1963 and would …
Special Topic: Prediction of Future Approaches
During the third week of July 1994 the various fragments of Comet Shoemaker-Levy 9 1993e impacted Jupiter, liberating enormous amounts of energy in the process and creating large planet-sized “scars” in Jupiter’s atmosphere that lingered for some time afterwards. (Comet Shoemaker-Levy 9 and these events are discussed in a future “Comet of the Week” presentation.) …
Kennedy Space Center Word Search
Locate words related to the Kennedy Space Center Visitor Complex hidden in this Word Search puzzle. The words may be horizontal, vertical or diagonal. If you would like to learn more about Kennedy Space Center, consider reading these features on the KSC Visitor Complex and Launch Complex 39A.
James Webb’s primary mirror passes test before pandemic suspends work
The team building NASA’s mammoth James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) recently accomplished a major milestone – fully deploying its 21 foot (6.5 meter) primary mirror into the same configuration it will have when it is carrying out astronomical observations in space. However, NASA has also suspended virtually all future testing of the Webb Telescope – …
QuizMe: Neil Armstrong
Neil Armstrong will forever be known as the first human to walk upon the Moon. He also is the featured topic in this edition of our new QuizMe series of educational content. Put your knowledge to the test with these 10 questions about the quiet and private astronaut that was thrust upon the world stage …