Bob Moler's Ephemeris Blog

Ephemeris for Tuesday, December 9th.  The sun will rise at 8:07.  It’ll be up for 8 hours and 54 minutes, setting at 5:02, officially the earliest sunset of the year.   The moon, 3 days past full, will rise at 8:25 this evening.

Last month we had two space tragedies, the explosion of a Antares rocket on its way to resupply the International Space Station and the death of a pilot of SpaceShipTwo on a test flight.  This past week good news, Tuesday (Wednesday Japan time) the launch in Japan of the Hyabusa 2 spacecraft to bring back samples of an asteroid. And on Friday the first test flight of an Orion Crew Module to test, mainly its heat shield, and if it could withstand the heat of reentry coming back from deep space.  It will be nearly 4 more years before the Space Launch System, the rocket to be used with the Orion module, will be ready to be launched.  If you’re wondering about the slow pace, well NASA doesn’t have the budget it did back in the 1960s.

Times are for the Traverse City/Interlochen area of Michigan.  They may be different for your location.

Addendum

The launch of Hyabusa 2. Credit JAXA.

Artists rendition of Hyabusa 2 taking a sample from the asteroid. Credit: JAXA.

Orion Crew module being launched by a Delta 4 Heavy rocket. Credit: NASA.