In Case You Weren’t Aware

2-8-11

NASA Finds Earth-Size Planet Candidates in Habitable Zone, Six Planet System

• NASA discovered first Earth-size planet candidates and first candidates in the habitable zone

• Five of the potential planets are near Earth-size and orbit in the habitable zone of smaller and cooler stars than our sun.

Photo and article courtesy of: www.sciencedaily.com

Northern Mars Landscape Actively Changing

• Sand dunes in northern Mars long thought to be frozen in time are changing

• dune fields cover an area the size of Texas around Mars north polar cap

Photo and article courtesy of: www.sciencedaily.com

Small Snack for Milky Way: Astrophysicists Find New Remnants of Neighboring Galaxy in Our Own

• new stream of stars in our Milky Way: the "Aquarius Stream"

• remnant of a smaller galaxy which had been pulled apart by the gravitational pull of the Milky Way about 700 million years ago.

Photo and article courtesy of: www.sciencedaily.com

New Images Show Cloud Exploding from Sun Ripples Like Clouds on Earth

• new images of exploding material from sun show instabilities forming that are similar to those seen in clouds in Earth's atmosphere.

• Might help scientist’s predict solar “weather”

Photo and article courtesy of: www.sciencedaily.com

Sun News

• Small sunspot growing• NASA sees entire sun

for first time on 2-6-11

Photo and article courtesy of: www.spaceweather.com

What to look for

• Just after dusk look for Jupiter in the West, it will be bright

Photo and article courtesy of: www.skyandtelescope.com

What to look for

• Taurus– 2/12 Moon will be in

Taurus– Zeus turned into the

white bull to steal Europa, depicted wading into the water

Photo courtesy of: www.crystalinks.com/taurus.html

On This Day in History

• 2/7/1971– Apollo 14 landed on the

moon

Photo courtesy of: nssdc.gsfc.nasa.gov

Moon Phases

• Moving from waxing crescent into waxing gibbous

Photos courtesy of: stardate.org/nightsky/moon