Why I love Atronomy

The Aurora from Terje Sorgjerd on Vimeo.

Amazing, and yes that's the song from Gladiator ^_^

Mother Nature Really is a Bitch

So last night was a total lunar eclipse, and of course it was completely cloudy...and tonight there are barley any clouds in the sky. But thanks to YouTube and people being in the right place in the right time here is an AMAZING video of the eclipse from last night!!

On another note, I got to see Matt and Morgan last night, we did a mini little xmas gift exchange. They both liked their gifts and got me totally some totally awesome ones! They got me a phone case with "Rock-Paper-Scissors-Lizard-Spock on the back, and the coolest night light EVER! It's a real leaf that's been dipped in metal...with a moose on it, because who doesn't love moose ;)

So Pretty!

I so want to go to Alaska or some where up north so I can see the Aurora Borealis!

Aurora Borealis timelapse HD - Tromsø 2010 from Tor Even Mathisen on Vimeo.

Funny Picture

So I saw this the other day online and had to save it, made me laugh!

Why I LOVE astronomy

So today's astronomy picture of the day is actually a time lapse video of one night watching the Cotopaxi Volcano in Ecuador. It's absolutely beautifully majestically amazing and captures one of the main reasons that I love astronomy as much as I do! So for you viewing pleasure here's the video!

there's no sound to the video so you can listen to the nice music I've added or just watch the prettyness on mute ^_^

Enjoy!

XOXO

T

P.S. for all you non-astronomy nerds the band of stars/cloud that looks to be going around the volcano...that's an arm of our Milky Way Galaxy *sigh so pretty*!!

Procrastination at its best

OK, so nothing exciting has been happening in my life lately.  I got my test back.  On my Solar System exam I got a 94 an then on my Stellar I got a 101 *woot*!! I'm pretty sure that it's the highest grade in  the class, I'm excited.  

The guys from the construction company are going to be paying for a new hood on my car.  I need to ask my mom if I can borrow her car while mine is in the shop.  They people that gave me the estimate said that it would be a least a 3 day job...I figured since mom will be going to Hawaii to visit my dad for a week I can get it in then, that way the guys don't have to pay for a rental car...and i don't particularly want a rental car.  The people that did the estimate said that it looked like something metal fell on my car and then bounced...or as Oscar put it, someone sat on the hood...poor Charlie.

Hmm...other news...I got a fish today.  He's so cute in his 1 gallon tank, he's so tiny that the filter pushes him around. ^_^  I'll have to try and take a picture of him.  I was out looking/trying to get ideas for Jenny's Graduation gift.  I have Tipti's and Heather's all finished/figured out, all I need is Jenny's...and maybe Chris...Anyways I was near the Petsmart on 51st and decided to go in and look and see if they were having any specials on Harley's food and look at the fish...and then I ended up buying one and an orange tank to go with it...now all I need is a name for him.  He's a Black Moor goldfish.  Any suggestions?  

OK I've got nothing else interesting happening in my life,

XOXO kids

T

Excitment...well maybe just for me ^_^

Today there were 2 extrasolar planets that are Earth like *sqee*  Here is the article from Yahoo!!

HATFIELD, England – In the search for Earth-like planets, astronomers zeroed in Tuesday on two places that look awfully familiar to home. One is close to the right size. The other is in the right place. European researchers said they not only found the smallest exoplanet ever, called Gliese 581 e, but realized that a neighboring planet discovered earlier, Gliese 581 d, was in the prime habitable zone for potential life.
"The Holy Grail of current exoplanet research is the detection of a rocky, Earth-like planet in the 'habitable zone,'" said Michel Mayor, an astrophysicist at Geneva University in Switzerland.
An American expert called the discovery of the tiny planet "extraordinary."
Gliese 581 e is only 1.9 times the size of Earth — while previous planets found outside our solar system are closer to the size of massive Jupiter, which NASA says could swallow more than 1,000 Earths.
Gliese 581 e sits close to the nearest star, making it too hot to support life. Still, Mayor said its discovery in a solar system 20 1/2 light years away from Earth is a "good example that we are progressing in the detection of Earth-like planets."
Scientists also discovered that the orbit of planet Gliese 581 d, which was found in 2007, was located within the "habitable zone" — a region around a sun-like star that would allow water to be liquid on the planet's surface, Mayor said.
He spoke at a news conference Tuesday at the University of Hertfordshire during the European Week of Astronomy and Space Science.
Gliese 581 d is probably too large to be made only of rocky material, fellow astronomer and team member Stephane Udry said, adding it was possible the planet had a "large and deep" ocean.
"It is the first serious 'water-world' candidate," Udry said.
Mayor's main planet-hunting competitor, Geoff Marcy of the University of California, Berkeley, praised the find of Gliese 581 e as "the most exciting discovery" so far of exoplanets — planets outside our solar system.
"This discovery is absolutely extraordinary," Marcy told The Associated Press by e-mail, calling the discoveries a significant step in the search for Earth-like planets.
While Gliese 581 e is too hot for life "it shows that nature makes such small planets, probably in large numbers," Marcy commented. "Surely the galaxy contains tens of billions of planets like the small, Earth-mass one announced here."
Nearly 350 planets have been found outside our solar system, but so far nearly every one of them was found to be extremely unlikely to harbor life.
Most were too close or too far from their sun, making them too hot or too cold for life. Others were too big and likely to be uninhabitable gas giants like Jupiter. Those that are too small are highly difficult to detect in the first place.
Both Gliese 581 d and Gliese 581 e are located in constellation Libra and orbit around Gliese 581.
Like other planets circling that star — scientists have discovered four so far — Gliese 581 e was found using the European Southern Observatory's telescope in La Silla, Chile.
The telescope has a special instrument which splits light to find wobbles in different wavelengths. Those wobbles can reveal the existence of other worlds.
"It is great work and shows the potential of this detection method," said Lisa Kaltenegger, an astronomer at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090421/ap_on_sc/eu_britain_new_planet

Good Start of the week ^_^

So I got one of my astronomy test back today, I'll get the other one back on Thursday *shudder*, I kicked butt on the test though!  The score that I got was an 89, and when we were going over the test today in class most everyone noticed that there was a 4 point discrepancy on the scantron part. So I was thinking yay if he goes back and credits the 4 points to everyone I have myself a 93...not bad, but I would have liked higher.  Then as we are going over the essay part of the test on one question he had given me 3(out of 5) points and a question mark next to picture that I had drawn.  So after class I go up and ask him about the question, I mean everything was right just not the picture I drew...which is good, I mean I even put the equations on there, so he said that he would give me another point and only take a point off for the picture.  So *totting my own horn* I got 1 point shy of a perfect score on the essay part of my test *toot toot* So I got a 90, and if he gives everyone 4 points a 94 AWESOME!

In other news Harley has been diligently protecting the house, she lays at the foot of my bed with her front paws on the footboard and her head down looking through the window and buffing and watching everyone and everything that may be out there.  She starts grunting, her way of talking, and buffing anytime the squirrel, that barks at us when ever we go outside,  is in the tree, on the fence...or worse on the roof.  When he was on the roof the other day she stood up and put her front paws on her crate and knelt down to look out the window, all the while just a talkin the squirrel, I wonder what she would have done if the window had actually been cracked?!  Anytime certain people get home she starts barking, grunting and buffing, its kinda funny, but when that person gets home late at night/wee morning hours it's not fun.

Hmmm...last piece of "news" I got a futon this weekend, a lady at my mom's office is moving to New Orleans with her boyfriend and is selling all her furniture and stuff, so she sold us her couch originally and then she sold us her all wood futon (for $80...awesome since they are usually $400!), so my parents are letting me choose which one I want to take and then Tommy and Ana might take the other since their futon is poking them with the springs...fun.  So I've decided that the futon might be better.  All we have to do is buy a new pillow thing because the one it came with is all stained and gross.  Awesome, I also got a 4 slice toaster, and then someone else at mom's office has offered to give me their kitchen table because they are getting a new one, but mom's not sure about it because (1) they don't have anywhere to put it, they don't even have room for the futon and (2) mom's not sure how it looks, she doesn't want to get a table that's all beat up and stuff, plus I have until July/August to get all the crap I will need for a new apartment.

Now I'm off to "do my homework"

XOXO

T

Talk about your Hot flashes!

Gee I wonder what it would be like to live on this planet o_0

http://news.aol.com/article/planet-with-hot-flashes/320901

gotta love those extra-solar planets, always really interesting!