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12/26/2014 – Ephemeris – Tragedies and triumphs of 2014
Ephemeris for Friday, December 26th. The sun will rise at 8:18. It’ll be up for 8 hours and 49 minutes, setting at 5:08. The moon, 2 days before first quarter, will set at 11:02 this evening.
2014 was a year of personal tragedy and also tragedy and triumph in space. The Space tragedies came in October with the destruction and loss of Orbital Science’s third supply mission to the International Space Station when the their Antares rocket blew up right after launch. A few days later Virgin Galactic’s SpaceShipTwo disintegrated on a test flight killing a pilot. In the Triumph department the European Space Agency’s Rosetta caught up and orbited its comet 67P, for short, in August and bounced down its lander Philae in November. It wasn’t supposed to bounce, but stick the landing. Bruised and battered Philae delivered its science before its batteries died. And this month an unmanned Orion capsule made its maiden voyage into space.
Times are for the Traverse City/Interlochen area of Michigan. They may be different for your location.
Addendum
Orbital Sciences Antares rocket explodes seconds after liftoff on October 28, 2014. Credit NASA.
SpaceShipTwo disintegrates October 31, 2014 killing a pilot. Credit USA Today.
After a second bounce on the Comet 67P the Philae lander ended up sideways apparently on the base of a cliff. Researchers were able to get data from just about all the instruments before the battery discharged. The team hopes and the comet gets closer to the sun and the sun angle changes they can revive Philae. Credit: ESA.
Screen capture of Delta IV Heavy rocket liftoff carrying the Orion test article into orbit on December 4, 2014. Credit .NASA via BBC
Ride back to the earth with Orion via a camera mounted in a window. The window is facing aft as the capsule re-enters the atmosphere heat shield first at 20,000 miles per hour. You’ll experience everything except the G forces. It comes with appropriate spacey music. It’s as close as I’ll ever get to ride in one of these things.
03/22/2013 – Ephameris – Comet PanSTARRS: Ancient and not so ancient fears of comets
Ephemeris for Friday, March 22nd. The sun will rise at 7:41. It’ll be up for 12 hours and 16 minutes, setting at 7:57. The moon, 3 days past first quarter, will set at 5:24 tomorrow morning.
Comet PanSTARRS is moving northward and away from the sun. It is slowly being seen higher in the west northwest when first spotted. The head of PanSTARRS’ brightness should be down to 3rd magnitude, as bright as the star in the Big Dipper that connects the handle to the bowl. Comets, in ancient times, were thought to be omens of the death of kings, famines and the such. Ancient astronomers and astrologers. were used to the motions of the planets, though they never really understood them, they could model the motions with varying degrees of accuracy. Comets were the wild cards, disrupting the plan of the gods, and so were considered bad news. Western astronomers from Aristotle up to Kepler thought they were atmospheric phenomena.
Times are for the Traverse City/Interlochen area of Michigan. They may be different for your location.
Addendum
Comet PanSTARRS about an hour and a quarter after sunset for March 22 through the 25th. Created using Stellarium and Cartes du Ciel. Click on the image to enlarge.
Comets were thought to be bad news:
The comet of 1857
Comets as daggers or swords. Bad news? You bet.
Comet leaves destruction in its wake. A woodcut.
Bob Moler's Ephemeris Blog 