What’s Out There, Really?

Viewers in the central or eastern part of South America and the western or southern part of Africa may be able to view a phenomenon called an annular solar eclipse, where watchers will see a ‘penny atop a nickel’ effect as the Moon partially covers the Sun. This effect is due to the Moon being a bit farther from Earth than average (it is actually quite a coincidence that the Moon’s apparent diameter at its distance from Earth closely matches that of the Sun’s!).

Most of the viewing area is over the Atlantic Ocean, but viewers may still see the ringed Sun near the beginning of the eclipse.

The Space Shuttle Atlantis returned to Earth on Thursday morning, at 6:21AM, just 15 minutes after the space station–with its huge new set of solar arrays (shown newly unfurled, below)–soared over Florida.

Yikes…an unidentified ’something’ (maybe two somethings) fell off of the shuttle, most likely when jets were being fired, in preparation for Wednesday morning’s landing. NASA is investigating the object, which was caught on video by a camera in the shuttle’s cargo bay.

NASA plans to conduct a number of inspections on Wednesday. Atlantis may land as early as 6:21AM EDT on Thursday.

 

Space Shuttle Atlantis, as seen from the Space Station shortly after undocking.

The Space Shuttle Atlantis is scheduled to land this Wednesday, September 20th, at 5:57AM EDT in Cape Canaveral. The crew will spend Monday inspecting Atlantis’ heat shield.

“If we long to believe that the stars rise and set for us, that we are the reason there is a Universe, does science do us a disservice in deflating our conceits?”
-Carl Sagan

Here I share my interest in astronomy and space exploration. I can’t wait to see what happens next!