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METEOR UPDATE: Perseid meteors are now hitting Earth's upper atmosphere with a speed of 58 to 60 km/s, about 130,000 mph. That's the result of triangulation by a dual-station meteor monitoring system operated by NASA's Meteoroid Environment Office. Last night the system detected five fireballs that provided the data for this speed estimate... EARLY PERSEIDS: The Perseid meteor shower is slowly intensifying as Earth plunges deeper in Comet Swift-Tuttle's debris stream. On August 4th, amateur astronomer Thomas Ashcraft caught an early arrival using an all-sky camera at his observatory near Santa Fe, New Mexico. Click on the image to play...

Real 'Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds' gravely ill June 12, 2009, 9:22 AM EST LONDON (AP) -- They were childhood chums. Then they drifted apart, lost touch completely, and only renewed their friendship decades later, when illness struck. Not so unusual, really. Except she is Lucy Vodden — the girl who was the inspiration for the Beatles' 1967 psychedelic classic "Lucy in the Sky With Diamonds" — and he is Julian Lennon, the musician son of John Lennon. They are linked together by something that happened more than 40 years ago when Julian brought home a drawing from school...

POSSIBLY the clearest skies on Earth have been found - but to exploit them, astronomers will have to set up a telescope in one of the planet's harshest climates...[Scientists] evaluated different factors that affect telescope vision, such as the amount of water vapour, wind speeds and atmospheric turbulence...The team found that the Antarctic plateau offers world-beating atmospheric conditions - as long as telescopes are raised 20 meters above its frozen surface...[The Antarctic air is] drier than the Atacama desert in Chile [where some of the best telescopes in the world are currently located].

I saw a huge fireball? in the sky last night practically sailing through our backyard, VERY CLOSE! It was at 9:47pm on Tuesday 4/7/09. I reported it to the news, I am curious if it is these galaxies colliding I have heard about? or possibly something with the talk of missiles being fired? Just curious~

HOUMA — Some people saw Jesus. Others blamed UFOs. Harkening to the popular Journey song, a wheel in the sky appeared over Terrebonne and Lafourche parishes early Saturday morning, a seemingly perfect hole punched though the sheet of clouds blanketing the sky. Locals who phoned and e-mailed the Daily Comet and The Courier this weekend about the strange cloud formation did agree on one thing: “It was the weirdest thing I’ve ever seen,” said Raceland resident Sandra Ledet, who shared some spectacular photos with the Daily Comet. Shawn O’Neil, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service in Slidell, identified the...

TAMPA BAY, FL -- It was an odd, but not oddly shaped, cloud formation and it caught the eye of many in the Bay area Monday morning. ABC Action News viewer Jerry Kessie grabbed his camera and snapped shots of the cumulus ringous and sent them to ABC Action News where we have posted them on our website. In fact our own photo journalist Scott Eason and Captain Al spotted the unidentified hole in the sky saying, "We had just landed the chopper after doing morning traffic. So we got out of the helicopter and looked up and it was...

CAMP STRIKER — An air cavalry unit in Iraq has found itself ringing in the New Year by flying to a remarkable milestone. The 3rd Squadron, 17th Cavalry Regiment’s Kiowa Warrior helicopters have collectively flown over 20,000 flight hours since arriving here in May, 2007. The squadron is on pace to fly nearly 40,000 hours during their 15-month deployment and have managed to maintain a readiness rate of nearly 92 percent fully mission capable, said Chief Warrant Officer Mike Cavaco, production control officer, 3-17th Cav. Regt. The Kiowa Warrior, a two-seat scout helicopter based on an airframe that dates to...

Full moon near Mars on December 23 Earth & Sky Radio Series with hosts Deborah Byrd, Joel Block, Lindsay Patterson and Jorge Salazar. Sunday, December 23, 2007 For us in the U.S., the full moon is tonight. And if you look outside you’ll see this full moon near a blazing reddish light in our sky. It’s the planet Mars. Flying through space at 18 miles per second, Earth is about to go between the sun and Mars. Earth will pass between Mars and the sun tomorrow. So the distance between us and Mars is now about at its least for...

The moon of Wednesday, Sept. 26 also carries the title of the Harvest Moon for those living in the Northern Hemisphere. The moon officially turns full when it reaches that spot in the sky diametrically opposite (180 degrees) to the sun in the sky. This moment will occur on Wednesday at 19:45 Greenwich Time (3:45 p.m. EDT or 12:45 p.m. PDT). Wednesday's full moon is the one that comes the closest to the September equinox so this year it falls in September, although in one out of three years this title can be bestowed upon the October full moon (as...

Lyrid meteors to grace the weekend sky 07:11 20 April 2007 NewScientist.com news service David Shiga A meteor streaks across the sky against a background of star trails in this long-exposure image taken in 1985 during the Geminid shower (Image: Jimmy Westlake) The Lyrid meteors will appear to radiate from the constellation Lyra, which includes Vega, one of the brightest stars in the sky (Illustration: NASA) The oldest known meteor shower is expected to return for its regularly scheduled performance this weekend. Although it is outshone by the December Geminids and the August Perseids, the Lyrids may provide the best...

The mysterious catastrophe has taken place over a period of three weeks in Esperance, about 450 miles southeast of Perth. The area was declared a disaster zone by government officials. So far, authorities are clueless as to the cause. Autopsies on the birds have shed no light. The main casualties, according to Australian news sources, are wattle birds, yellow-throated miners, new holland honeyeaters and singing honeyeaters. Some dead crows, hawks and pigeons have also been found. Some birds were seen convulsing when they died. Wildlife officers are baffled by what they characterize as a "catastrophic" event. It does not appear...

Blue sky tinkering (Filed: 17/09/2006)Page 1 of 5 Scientists fighting global warming are now considering wacky ways of deliberately manipulating the environment to control the world's climate. Philip Sherwell in New York reports on the schemes that were once dismissed as the work of crackpots Trillions of tiny sunshades orbiting in space; a mirror 150 miles high stationed between Earth and the sun; clouds sprayed with seawater; planes pumping sulphates into the stratosphere. They may sound to a layman like the weird and wacky fantasies of an eccentric bunch of boffins, but such ambitious plans for cooling the planet are...

Sky Lights: Confused About Your Direction? If you lack a sense of personal trajectory, astronomers can help. By Bob Berman DISCOVER Vol. 27 No. 09 | September 2006 | Space Throughout most of history, humanity hasn't had a clue about where it's going. The idea that we're all being whisked through space aboard a spinning Earth was alien even to brilliant thinkers like Aristotle and Pythagoras. The first to argue that our planet is in motion was Heracleides, who in 350 B.C. maintained that Earth turns on an axis. A century later, Aristarchus of Samos earned a lot of laughs...

6/7/2006 - KANDAHAR AIRFIELD, Afghanistan (AFPN) -- What has a 50-foot wingspan, buzzes like a giant insect and can put an AGM-114 Hellfire missile through a window from 8,000 miles away? It is the Air Force’s MQ-1 Predator unmanned aerial vehicle, and it’s arguably one of the most requested assets in Operation Enduring Freedom, said Capt. Jonathan Songer, commander of the Predator launch and recovery element here. “They can’t get enough of us. They simply can’t get enough Predators in the air,” he said. Captain Songer and the Airmen of the 62nd Expeditionary Reconnaissance Flight are responsible for the operation...

Comet break-up puts on sky show The comet is breaking into fragments. (Image: European Southern Observatory) A comet is delighting astronomers with a marvellous night-time display as it makes a near pass of the Earth. The ball of ice, rock and dust has broken up into more than 60 pieces; two of the larger fragments are visible through binoculars or small telescopes. At its closest approach this weekend, the comet will be some 10 million km (six million miles) from the Earth. Continued disintegration means this may be the last swing around the Sun for Comet 73P/Schwassmann-Wachmann 3. Good chance...

SOUTHWEST ASIA, March 24, 2006 – The convoy travels down the dusty desert road. Soldiers keep watchful eyes, surveying the barren landscape surrounding them. Today, their minds are slightly at ease. Overhead, an armed F-16 in direct contact with their team is watching the road ahead. No one will be lost today. An F-15E Strike Eagle flies over the coast in Southwest Asia. Aircraft like this and others are capable of monitoring the battlespace with their targeting pods. This concept is known as nontraditional intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance. Photo by Master Sgt. Lance Cheung, USAF  (Click photo for screen-resolution image);high-resolution...

Sky falls in on Bush the outcast Plagued by Iraq, the President's own party is abandoning him as his poll ratings plunge. Paul Harris reports from New York Sunday March 19, 2006 The Observer (UK) When president George W Bush launched a high-profile series of speeches last week aimed at calming nerves about the Iraq war he chose to do so in the heart of Washington DC. At George Washington University, he asked America to stay the course through troubled times. It was a familiar message to an audience that had heard it all before. What was new was the...

U.S. Army Gen. John Abizaid, U.S. Central Command commander, speaks to U.S. Army soldiers assigned to Combined Task Force Bayonet after an awards presentation held Nov. 30, 2005, at Kandahar Airfield, Afghanistan. Sgt. Jose Mondragon, 74th Long Range Surveillance Detachment, was one of three soldiers from the 173rd Airborne Brigade presented a Purple Heart during the ceremony. U.S. Army photo by Staff Sgt. Jacob Caldwell More Photos Sky Soldiers Honored for Actions in Combat Three Silver Stars and three Purple Hearts were presented to the soldiers fo actions taken and injuries sustained during Operation Enduring Freedom VI. By U.S....

Sky Sports has been censured by a media watchdog... The character, played by an American, Mark Copani, entered the ring wearing an Arab headdress and surrounded by a phalanx of masked men in combat clothes who were described by the commentators as his "sympathisers". There was also use of emotive language, including the words "martyr", "sacrifice" and "infidel" and footage of a previous clash between him and another wrestler was set to music that sounded like the Muslim call to prayer. After the programme, Sky approached WWE to ensure the character would be withdrawn, and it ended his contract.

U.S. Army Staff Sgt. Nicholas Gaytangarner, Bravo Company, 1st Battalion, 508th Infantry Regiment (Airborne), shows a group of Afghan National Army soldiers a paper target that was fired at with an AK-47 set on automatic Nov. 18, 2005 at Kandahar Airfield. Only one round made it to the paper, none were on the target. U.S. Army photo by Staff Sgt. Jacob Caldwell Sky Soldiers Teach Marksmanship Skills U.S. Army soldiers, along with Romanian and other coalition soldiers took the lead in teaching Afghan soldiers basic rifle marksmanship. By Staff Sgt. Jacob Caldwell TF Bayonet Public Affairs KANDAHAR, Afghanistan, Nov....

Diverted by weather to a deployed base housing both airmen and soldiers, the F-16 pilots had the opportunity to see the troops they support from the air. By U.S. Air Force Tech. Sgt. Paul Dean 407th Air Expeditionary Group Public Affairs ALI BASE, Iraq, Oct. 28, 2005 — The sky above Balad Air Base, Iraq, was thick with dust and sand when four F-16 Fighting Falcon pilots completed another mission in support of Operation Iraqi Freedom.They were headed to their deployment “home� in Balad when they were eventually diverted here Oct. 17. "There’s no simulator that can teach you...

10/19/2005 - ALI BASE, Iraq -- The sky above Balad Air Base was thick with dust and sand when four F-16 Fighting Falcon pilots completed another mission in support of Operation Iraqi Freedom. They were headed to their deployed home at Balad Oct. 17 when they were eventually diverted here. Their mission started early that morning, but it was well past lunch when they traveled in a holding pattern above a dusty Balad. The four F-16 pilots, from the 332nd Expeditionary Fighter Squadron, had aerial refueled and were waiting for the sandstorm to pass. But weather forecasters determined the storm...

In the arena of political discourse, a “straw man” is often a weak or extreme argument one side in a debate falsely attributes to their opponents.  It’s an age-old tactic that presents a nice-sounding argument that is, in reality, easily refuted or “knocked down.” That is the tactic now being used to defend the court-ordered legalization of same-sex “marriage” in Massachusetts last year.

Just a heads-up's to FR geeks. The meteors have already started, but it looks as if this could be a real event.

Hey, we still have electricity! The rain just stopped. No wind. No storm. Everything is calm. The crickets are playing their music outside. They have no idea what's coming! ;-) We made some pictures of Hurricane Dennis today.This link takes you to my home page which is hosted on a free server. Please, DO NOT CLICK ON THE REFRESH or RELOAD button in your browser. Do not put a lot of stress on the server. (If 200 people want to download the pictures at once that may cause my home page to go offline.) Good bye! I am afraid that...

Happy Easter! Last week the subject theme for the photography thread was Sunrise, wherein someone suggested that sunrises are better than sunsets. That sounds like a challenge to me! Let's see if we can top the sunrise thread with some beautiful sunset shots. Please post your bestest sunset photos here - your own work, please.

I noticed an arts/photography topic in the general forum, so I'll take advantage of this and post a photo theme thread every Sunday. Texas Windmills

t is a bit of irony that Ernie Garven,who died last week at his Florida home, wrote the unforgettable Hamm's beer advertising jingle, "From the land of sky blue wa-a-aters.

In the opening scene of Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow, a Zeppelin docks with the airship mooring mast atop the Empire State Building. In the real world of yesterday, this feat was attempted only once, and was abandoned as being far too dangerous. This failed effort demonstrated the peril of trying to make real what begins as marketing hype. The mooring mast had only been added to the architectural designs of the Empire State Building in order to make it taller than the competing Chrysler building. Sky Captain also falls into a trap laid by its own hype....

8 September 2004 BRUSSELS - By the year 3000, Brussels will be a coastal capital and Antwerp will have disappeared into the sea, warned a report out on Wednesday. The study into the effects Belgium could suffer from global warming was carried out by the Catholic University of Leuven (UCL) and was commissioned by the environmental group Greenpeace. A team of 20 experts, headed by climatology professor Jean-Pascal van Ypersele, warned Belgium would not escape the green house effect. The researchers predicted that the country will see milder winters in the years to come, but that summers would become more...

Live Thread: President Bush Skydives. This is taking forever....

A boat party in an exclusive area of Long Island Sunday night was interrupted - when a severed human hand mysteriously dropped out of the sky onto the deck of a boat, police said yesterday.

Sky 'fell in' on Everest By David Derbyshire, Science Correspondent (Filed: 27/05/2004) The eight climbers killed on the single deadliest day on Everest may have been victims of the "sky falling in", according to a study. An analysis of weather patterns in May 1996 suggests the mountaineers died when the stratosphere sank to the level of the summit, 29,000ft above sea level. The freak weather caused pressure and oxygen levels to plunge within the "death zone" - the area above 26,000ft where the oxygen is extremely thin. Normally Everest's summit lies just below the atmospheric layer. But on May 10,...

Comets to put on morning sky show By Dr David Whitehouse BBC News Online science editor Comet Bradfield passes the Sun Astronomers say there could be three comets visible to the unaided eye in the night sky in a few weeks' time. Comet Bradfield has just rounded the Sun and is heading for the dawn sky. It will be visible around 24 April. Comet Linear, too, is promising and should be seen at northern latitudes in the morning sky on about the same date. Finally, Comet Neat may be visible though experienced observers say it will be a week or...

Eight American troops died in Baghdad, as fighting erupted between Coalition troops and followers of Muqtada al-Sadr. Hearing the news, Senator Edward Kennedy (D., Mass.) declared Iraq to be "George Bush's Vietnam." Evening-news anchors question whether this weekend's violence marked the start of a Shii revolt. Quite the contrary. Far from rebelling, the majority of Shia are breathing sighs of relief. Iraqis consider action to rein in Muqtada al-Sadr long overdue. An Iraqi judge issued a warrant for Muqtada's arrest last summer, charging him with instigating the April 10, 2003, murder of respected cleric Majid al-Khoie, hacked to death in...

Astronomers at the Space Telescope Science Institute today unveiled the deepest portrait of the visible universe ever achieved by humankind. Called the Hubble Ultra Deep Field (HUDF), the million-second-long exposure reveals the first galaxies to emerge from the so-called "dark ages," the time shortly after the big bang when the first stars reheated the cold, dark universe. The new image should offer new insights into what types of objects reheated the universe long ago. This historic new view is actually two separate images taken by Hubble's Advanced Camera for Surveys (ACS) and the Near Infrared Camera and Multi-object Spectrometer (NICMOS)....

'Hole in sky' amazes scientists By Dr David Whitehouse BBC News Online science editor A giant hole that appeared in a uniform layer of cloud over Mobile, Alabama, in the US, has produced some intriguing photos. Local resident Joel Knain said as he took pictures: "I immediately realised that I was seeing something unique." Meteorological experts believe the hole formed when ice-crystals from a passing plane fell through the cloud, causing the water droplets in it to evaporate. Experts say the process involved is related to that of cloud seeding, which is used to make rain over crop fields. The...

European airlines win concessions on sky marshals By Stephen Castle in Brussels 17 January 2004 The United States yesterday said it will not ban European airlines without sky marshals from its airspace, providing alternative security measures are deemed satisfactory. Asa Hutchinson, the deputy secretary of the Homeland Security Department, announced the compromise following talks with European Union officials in Brussels. Mr Hutchinson said there was no "blanket policy" to prevent airlines without armed guards from entering American territory. The Homeland Security Department announced last month that airlines would be required to place armed law enforcement officers on flights to America...

'Hole in sky' amazes scientists By Dr David Whitehouse BBC News Online science editor Rarely seen: A "hole-punch" cloud A giant hole that appeared in a uniform layer of cloud over Mobile, Alabama, in the US, has left scientists puzzled. Local resident Joel Knain said as he took pictures: "I immediately realised that I was seeing something unique." Meteorological experts believe the hole formed when ice-crystals from a passing plane fell through the cloud, causing the water droplets in it to evaporate. Experts say the process involved is related to that of cloud seeding, which is used to make rain...

Police on meteor alert after huge balls of fire light up Spanish sky Giles Tremlett in Madrid Tuesday January 6, 2004 The Guardian (UK) Was it a brightly shining star leading the present-laden three kings to the homes of millions of children at today's Epiphany, Spain's biggest gift-giving day of Christmas? As police scoured a remote mountainous district of the northern León province yesterday for remnants of a large, brilliant, burning object that fell to earth on Sunday, the most likely explanation was that it was part of a meteor. The search concentrated near Renedo de Valderaduey after neighbours saw...

Terror in the sky: the net tightens By David Usborne in New York and Kim Sengupta in London 03 January 2004 A week of terrorist alerts that has caused disruption on a scale not seen since 11 September 2001 culminated in dramatic scenes at Heathrow airport yesterday, when a British Airways flight to Washington DC was barred from taking off, for the second successive day, because of a specific terrorist threat. BA flights to and from the Saudi Arabian capital, Riyadh, were also cancelled after warnings from British intelligence services. BA 263, which was to take off from Heathrow at...

Woman accused of attacking US sky marshal A woman has been accused of trying to strangle a US air marshal after she became disruptive on a flight from Pittsburgh to Minneapolis. Officials say the armed marshal approached the woman, who was allegedly drunk, vocal and obnoxious on board Northwest Airlines Flight 1057 on Tuesday. Transportation Security Administration spokeswoman Jennifer Marty said the woman continued to be disruptive and tried to choke the marshal in a later exchange. She also kicked the marshal in the groin and bit a law enforcement officer after she was escorted off the plane, Marty said....

A group of reality show contestants are taking legal action against Sky after being tricked into seducing a woman who turned out to be a transsexual. The men are angry at being duped as part of the Sky One series Find Me a Man, which was recorded in Ibiza during the summer. The participants had to pick the woman they found most attractive from a line-up; all selected Miriam. Cameras filmed them attempting to woo the object of their affections, including scenes of them kissing. Only later did they discover Miriam was once a man. Six of the seven men...

Astronomy Picture of the Day Discover the cosmos! Each day a different image or photograph of our fascinating universe is featured, along with a brief explanation written by a professional astronomer. 2003 October 21 The Belt of Venus over the Valley of the Moon Credit & Copyright: Christine Churchill Explanation: Although you've surely seen it, you might not have noticed it. During a cloudless twilight, just before sunrise or after sunset, part of the atmosphere above the horizon appears slightly off-color, slightly pink. Called the Belt of Venus, this off-color band between the dark eclipsed sky and the blue...

<p>BERLIN, Connecticut (AP) -- Hurricane Isabel brought unholy high winds and lashing rain to the East Coast. It also dumped something almost biblical on Connecticut.</p> <p>Primo D'Agata was startled by what he thought was hail smacking on his porch September 19 as the remnants of Isabel moved through the state. But when he went outside to investigate, D'Agata discovered tiny, gelatinous eggs with dark spots in the middle.</p>

Lorraine Heggessey: Murdoch is 'against everything the BBC stands for' The Monday Interview: Controller of BBC1 By Vincent Graff, Media and Culture Editor 25 August 2003 They are sentiments which until now have been conveyed only in whispers, conspiratorial asides over lunch with sympathetic journalists. Strictly for background, you understand, we could not possibly be seen to be saying this. Now for the first time, the BBC is prepared to say in public what its executives have long believed in private about Rupert Murdoch's long-running, destabilising campaign against the corporation. Lorraine Heggessey, the controller of BBC1, does not show any...

BBC launches public attack on Murdoch 'imperialism' By Vincent Graff, Media and Culture Editor 25 August 2003 The controller of BBC1 launched an unprecedented attack on Rupert Murdoch yesterday, calling the media billionaire a "capital imperialist" who wants to destabilise the corporation because he "is against everything the BBC stands for". Lorraine Heggessey said Mr Murdoch's continued attacks on the BBC stemmed from a dislike of the public sector. But he did not understand that the British people "have a National Health Service, a public education system" and trust organisations that are there for the benefit of society and not...

The fountains of lightning that rise in the sky By Roger Highfield, Science Editor (Filed: 26/06/2003) Huge discharges of lightning that flash from the tops of thunderclouds for distances of 40 miles or more, have been observed for the first time on Earth. The dramatic discovery of a new class of lightning adds to a collection of strange atmospheric electrics, with evocative names such as blue jets, sprites and elves, that have been documented by scientists in the past few years. Though there have been anecdotal reports by pilots of blobs, jets and other unusual effects for decades, scientists have...

  Sky's Chater in Baghdad ME AND SADDAM'S HEAVIES First light came with gunfire throughout the city.A fat, waxing American moon hung over Baghdad. The armoured wagons of the US Marine Corps surrounded our hotel, writes Sky's Baghdad correspondent, David Chater. The pools of burning oil had been extinguished...but fresh flames were being set by the looters.My last night in the Iraqi capital after three weeks of war.Paranoia punctuated the dawn drive westwards to Jordan.In the outskirts of the city, we passed a checkpoint still manned by the Iraqi militia.Then through the Coalition's surrounding chokeholds where all questions were...

At 11:51PM(Central Time) on Wed night March 26, 2003, an apparent meteorite flash was seen throughout the Midwest. Per WGN Radio AM 720, Chicago, people have seen it in Michigan, Indiana, Illinois, Wisconsin, Kentucky, Tennessee, and Alabama. I was eastbound on US 24, just east of Eureka, Illinois. A bright white light appeared in the NE sky, at about 60 degrees high in the sky. While falling, shades of orange and yellow were seen with the white flash. It lasted for about 3 seconds before darkening. It did NOT appear to hit the ground from my vantage point. It feel...