Hubble Space Telescope Word Search
The Hubble Space Telescope is celebrating the 30th anniversary of its deployment into orbit on April 25, 1990. While Hubble opened up our eyes to the vastness of the Universe, we’ve hidden 44 words related to it in this Word Search puzzle. The words may be horizontal, vertical or diagonal. If you would like to …
QuizMe: Project Apollo
Project Apollo encompassed more than 400,000 Americans working together to make it possible for 24 NASA astronauts to journey to the Moon between 1968 and 1972. This mammoth engineering feat is the featured topic in this edition of our QuizMe series of educational content. Put your knowledge to the test with these 11 questions about …
This Week in History: April 19-25
APRIL 20, 1910: Comet 1P/Halley passes through perihelion at a heliocentric distance of 0.587 AU. Halley’s 1910 return, which is described in a previous “Special Topics” presentation, was quite favorable, with a close approach to Earth (0.15 AU) and the exhibiting of the longest cometary tail ever recorded. APRIL 20, 2025: NASA’s Lucy mission is …
Comet of the Week: Arend-Roland 1956h
Perihelion: 1957 April 8.03, q= 0.316 AU There weren’t any bright comets that appeared the year I was born, 1958, but two bright comets appeared the previous year. These two objects were the brightest comets to become easily visible from the northern hemisphere since the return of Comet 1P/Halley in 1910. The first of the …
Special Topic: Designations and Names of “Small Bodies”
Throughout “Ice and Stone 2020” I refer to numerous specific objects, including in all of my “Comet of the Week” presentations as well as in several of my “Special Topics” presentations and in the lists of weekly historical events. It is appropriate, then, to discuss how these various objects are designated and named. The conventions …
‘Apollo 13: Home Safe’ documentary gives inside look at mission
Apollo 13 suffered a catastrophic explosion en route to the Moon but has since become known as “a successful failure” because the three-man crew was able to safely return to Earth thanks to the round-the-clock heroic efforts of the entire NASA team to devise a solution to save the trio. NASA’s third planned manned lunar …
This Week in History: April 12-18
APRIL 13, 2029: The near-Earth asteroid (99942) Apophis will pass just 0.00026 AU from Earth, slightly less than 5 Earth radii above the surface and within the orbital distance of geosynchronous satellites. At this time this is the closest predicted future approach of a near-Earth asteroid. The process of determining future close approaches like this …
Comet of the Week: 153P/Ikeya=Zhang P/2002 C1
Perihelion: 2002 March 18.98, q = 0.507 AU One of the many successful Japanese comet hunters of the 1960s was Kaoru Ikeya who, coming from a family of modest means, built a homemade telescope for the equivalent of US$20 and began to hunt comets with it. He discovered his first comet in 1963 and would …
Special Topic: Prediction of Future Approaches
During the third week of July 1994 the various fragments of Comet Shoemaker-Levy 9 1993e impacted Jupiter, liberating enormous amounts of energy in the process and creating large planet-sized “scars” in Jupiter’s atmosphere that lingered for some time afterwards. (Comet Shoemaker-Levy 9 and these events are discussed in a future “Comet of the Week” presentation.) …
Kennedy Space Center Word Search
Locate words related to the Kennedy Space Center Visitor Complex hidden in this Word Search puzzle. The words may be horizontal, vertical or diagonal. If you would like to learn more about Kennedy Space Center, consider reading these features on the KSC Visitor Complex and Launch Complex 39A.