ROCKWALL, TX (Jan. 24, 2024) Unless your head has been in the sand, under a rock or you just don’t pay attention to things happening around these parts, there’s a total solar eclipse happening IN Rockwall on April 8, 2024. A total solar eclipse can be an awe-inspiring celestial event that drastically changes the appearance […]
(ROCKWALL, TX – August 20, 2017) The 2017 eclipse is upon us here in Rockwall. First contact is at 11:40 and last contact is at 2:40…that’s a fancy way of saying when it starts and finishes. It will be darkest around 1:10:43.2 seconds…give or take a few microseconds (astronomer humor!) Most of my astronomy colleagues […]
The countdown continues… ROCKWALL, TX (Jan. 8, 2015) They might not look like rocket scientists at first glance, but six Rockwall High School freshmen will soon have the experience of a lifetime. Will Brown, Ryan Figert, Brooks Helmer, Chase Howerton, Harrison Smith, and James Matthews will watch as an experiment they designed is launched into […]
(February 9, 2013) On February 15, small near-Earth asteroid 2012 DA14 will fly so close to Earth that it will pass inside the ring of geosynchronous weather and communications satellites. The flyby of asteroid 2012 DA14 is the closest ever predicted Earth approach for an object this large. If it impacted the Earth, this asteroid […]
August 7, 2012 – The modern world seemed to get a hitch in its giddy-up late Sunday night through early Sunday morning as mankind’s largest ever planetary explorer hurtled toward the Red Planet, Mars, at a top speed of 13,201 mph. Throughout the weekend anxiety increased as rapidly as the Mars Science Lab’s velocity to […]
(May 2, 2012) – In full disclosure, I started writing this column about a week ago, the day that the Dragon spaceship successfully berthed with the International Space Station. I was going to submit it that night because of the “great news” but after second thought, I didn’t want to “jinx” the Earth re-entry, descent […]
Teach your children well Why are so many things seemingly falling out of space and landing on Earth? If you have not asked this question in the past, you are very likely to start asking it by the 15th of January, 2012. By this date, the failed Russian spacecraft, Phobos Grunt, will have seen its […]
…and not be disappointed. Part II: The Telescope Tube In part II of this story, we will address the optical tube, the telescope – the thing you put your eye in so as to see into space (stars, nebulae and galaxies, or near space, planets). (If you missed Part I, you’ll want to go here before reading […]
…and not be disappointed. Part I: The Mount Hopefully if you are one of those special people with a newfound interest in amateur astronomy and have gotten this far, you know the Golden Rule of Telescope Purchase. For those of you starting here, the Golden Rule is: DO NOT BUY A TELESCOPE AT A DEPARTMENT […]
NASA successfully launches Mars probe two weeks after Russian Mars mission fails This past weekend, on Nov. 26, 2011, NASA launched the Mars Science Lab (MSL) in a flawless event that propelled the automobile-sized (mini-Cooper) spacecraft on course to the Red Planet, Mars. Named “Curiosity” by sixth grader Clara Ma, who competed in a NASA JPL […]