Morning. The sky mostly clear to the far horizon, just a few wisps of cloud far out there over the sea where the sun will soon rise. The air is tinged pink, orange, and yellow, like layers of sugar icing on the turquoise sea.
Astronomy
The green flash at sunrise • Photo by Luis Argerich (CC BY-NC 2.0)
New England, awash in light pollution • NASA (Public Domain)
Washed away in a sea of light
A few weeks ago I was with a group of students from MIT and Salem State College under clear dark skies at the Caribbean Marine Research Center in the Bahamas.
A Leonid meteor • Image by Navicore (CC BY 3.0)
Listening for the music of creation
The 11 p.m. weather report said there might be breaks in the clouds before dawn.
The interior of the Gallarus Oratory • Photo by btwashburn (CC BY 2.0)
Alone with a sense of wonder
A few weeks ago, in the west of Ireland, I spent a night in the Gallarus Oratory, a tiny 7th-century church of unmortared stone, the oldest intact building in Ireland, probably one of the oldest in Europe.
Composite image of the four Galilean moons of Jupiter • NASA/JPL/DLR
Adam, Badam, bo-Badam
Legend has it that Adam was allowed by the Creator to name all the creatures of the Earth.
Artist's impression of an Earth impacting asteroid• Illustration by Kevin Gill (CC BY 2.0)
When your hour is up
Doc, you’ll remember me. I am the fellow who was here a little more than a year ago — worrying about rocks from the sky.
The doomed star Eta Carinae • Jon Morse/NASA/STScI (Public Domain)
From terrible violence came the elements of life
Author Doris Lessing began her sci-fi chronicle of space with this dedication: “For my father, who used to sit, hour after hour, night after night, outside our home in Africa, watching the stars.”
Impact scar on Jupiter from Comet Shoemaker-Levy 9 • Image by HST/Judy Schmidt (CC BY 2.0)
Comets, stars, and rock ‘n roll
An e‑mail query from a young acquaintance: “One of my favorite songs in all of explored space is ‘Jupiter Crash’ by The Cure.”
The surface of Europa imaged by the Galileo spacecraft • NASA/JPL (Public Domain)
Galileo gets the last laugh
Spacecraft Galileo, a 2½-ton hunk of human ingenuity, has been orbiting Jupiter since it arrived there in December 1995 after a six-year voyage from Earth.
Hubble image of the Pistol Star • D. Figer (UCLA) and NASA
This celebrity’s a real star — or two
There is a new king of the hill.