New Horizons and Ultima Thule
Just after midnight on January 1st, the New Horizons spacecraft will have its close encounter with the Kuiper Belt object Ultima Thule, also known as (486958) 2014 MU69. Since New Horizons flew by Pluto in July 2015 it has been preparing for this moment. Ultima Thule...
Simulating Apollo 8 on SciDome
Tomorrow, Friday, will be the 50th anniversary of the launch of Apollo 8, the first crewed space flight to orbit the Moon. You can simulate Apollo 8, and the other eight Apollo missions that went to the Moon, on your SciDome. Apollo 8 mission patch, showing the...
Solar System Scale: Copernicus’ Method
Nicolaus Copernicus’ (1473 – 1543) paradigm-changing work de Revolutionibus Orbium Coelestium (On the Revolutions of the Celestial Spheres) famously laid the groundwork for the overthrow of the geocentric universe that had held sway for millennia. But what many people...
Sulawesi Earthquake in The Layered Earth
When we've been discussing applications of Starry Night in the dome, there was usually little need to worry about the human element, but with The Layered Earth (TLE) this is different. Most of the layers we use and stories we're going to tell are about consequences...
Mission Impossible: Ghost Particle
Earlier this month, another "multi-messenger" announcement was made of the discovery of a new astronomical outburst by different instruments that study different parts of the universe. The first major multi-messenger astronomy discovery was announced last year after...
Spitz Fulldome Curriculum Volume 3 Overview
I’m excited to announce that Volume 3 of the Spitz Fulldome Curriculum is being released to all SciDome users, and will of course be automatically incorporated into all future SciDome installations. We thought that this would be an opportune time to give a very brief...
Visitor from interstellar space
By now I hope you're heard about the interstellar interloper that's been passing through the inner solar system recently. This asteroid, which has been named 'Oumuamua, is the first-ever discovered object that has been observed coming into the solar system from...
Gravity Waves From Neutron Star Collision
On August 17th, the Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory, or "LIGO", detected gravity waves produced by the merger of two neutron stars. There are lots of good takes on this story, and it's important that we keep retelling it in interesting ways. This...
Football and Astronomy
As the NFL season gets into gear (Go Bills!) it's time to mention football's deep connections with astronomy. The 1927 Broadway musical Good News, which gave us the popular song "The Moon Belongs To Everyone", is about the division in college life between sports and...
Simulating Near-Earth Asteroid 2012 TC4
For the last couple of days, there has been some news coverage of another small asteroid that's going to fly close to the Earth tonight. This happens fairly often, although it is a little unsettling when it does. We have just passed the 9th anniversary of the...
Astrophysics Apps for SciDome
Three long-awaited fulldome astrophysics apps created by Dr. David H. Bradstreet are now available for purchase and immediate download for installation on SciDome systems. Tides, Newton’s Mountain and Epicycles are selling for $200 individually or $500 for all three....
Roundness of the Earth
48 years ago last week Apollo 11 landed on the Moon. There is another anniversary last week that seems appropriate to mention at this point: On July 20th of 1925 the greatest scene in American legal history took place, and it was an astronomy lesson. You're probably...
Fulldome Eclipse Animations from Rice University
With the Great American Eclipse of 2017 fast approaching, many planetariums are looking for content elements to use in local programming about eclipses. Rice University, supported by a grant from NASA’s Heliophysics Education Consortium, has developed a collection of...
Simulating Juno’s Buzz by the Great Red Spot
One of the astronomical highlights of last week was the pictures returned by the Juno spacecraft orbiting Jupiter when it zipped over the Great Red Spot at an extremely low altitude (8000 km.) Although the JunoCam camera on this mission was an afterthought for public...
Upcoming Fulldome Curriculum Lesson: Titius Bode Rule
Volume 3 of the Fulldome Curriculum includes a lesson based on the Titius-Bode “Rule.” In this new teaching module we present the orbits predicted by the Titius-Bode relation in a historical timeline compared to the actual planetary orbits to show students why this...
Historical Novae and Supernovae on SciDome
Novae and supernovae are among the most energetic phenomena encountered in the galaxy. Planetarium educators can simulate a number of historical nova and supernova events on SciDome using Starry Night Dome Version 7. The following 10 transient objects can be...
Edison’s “Tasimeter” and the Eclipse of 1878
The Total Solar Eclipse of 2017 in SciDome
The appearance of a total solar eclipse is so singular that it is impossible to appreciate it without having seen it for oneself. Unexpected eclipses have changes history in the past, although they can now be predicted. Even having an eclipse forecast in hand does not...
Great Comet of 1811 (1812?)
The May issue of Sky and Telescope magazine has a timely item about "Napoleon's Comets". The most important of these was the Great Comet of 1811, which was the brightest comet with the longest duration of brightness on record (260 days) until Comet Hale-Bopp shattered...
Ben Franklin’s Birthday and the Gregorian Calendar
Today is Benjamin Franklin's birthday under the calendar we use today, although he was born on the 6th of January of 1706. He was born before the Gregorian calendar reform was implemented in the English-speaking world. The Gregorian calendar reform adjusted the way...