Encore! Life

Saturday ‘Supermoon’ Night Live!

How to see the Supermoon and shooting stars, too — The Orbital coincidences make full moon look bigger than usual amid meteor shower.

If the full moon looks a bit bigger and brighter in Saturday night’s sky, you’re not seeing things: It’s just the “supermoon” — the biggest moon of 2012. And there’s a meteor shower from Halley’s Comet that’s peaking as well, adding to the sky show.
The full moon of May will hit its peak overnight Saturday night and early Sunday, just one minute after the moon makes its closest approach to Earth. The timing means the moon, weather permitting, could appear up to 14 % bigger and 30 % brighter than a full moon at its farthest distance — an event scientists have nicknamed the “Supermoon.”

Photo by Julio Cortez / AP: A full moon rises behind the Empire State Building in New York in this view from Eagle Rock Reservation in West Orange, N.J., on April 6. A month later, the biggest and brightest full moon of the year is arriving on Saturday night.

» Read the full article on MSNBC.com Tech/Science

» Views from NASA’s all-sky cameras are available to view the Eta Aquarid meteor shower remotely here: http://www.nasa.gov/connect/chat/allsky.html

Shuttle ENTERPRISE Waits For The NY Debut

The prototype space shuttle Enterprise is seen mated on top of NASA’s modified Boeing 747 Shuttle Carrier Aircraft at Dulles International Airport in Virginia on Friday.

Enterprise was the first orbiter built for the space shuttle program, but never went into orbit. It was used primarily for ground and flight tests within the atmosphere.
Enterprise had been on display at the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum’s Udvar-Hazy Center in Virginia, but is now being prepared for its new home at the Intrepid Sea Air and Space Museum in New York.

Photo by Bill Ingalls / NASA  |  via MSNBC.com Photo Blog

(Source: ysvoice)

Batch of dinosaur eggs found in Russia’s Chechnya region

GROZNY, Russia — Geologists in Russia’s volatile Chechnya region have discovered what they believe to be fossilized dinosaur eggs laid by one of the huge extinct reptiles that roamed the Earth more than 60 million years ago.

“We’ve found about 40 eggs so far, the exact number has not been established,” said Said-Emin Dzhabrailov, a geologist at the Chechen State University. “There could be many more laying under the ground.”……

» Read REUTERS exclusive report on MSNBC.com

Photo by Stringer / Reuters:
A man looks at what is believed to be fossilised dinosaur eggs at a site in Russia’s volatile Chechnya region on April 14. The find was uncovered when a construction crew was blasting through a hillside to build a road near the region’s border with former Soviet Georgia in the Caucasus Mountains.

| ♕ |  Naturkundemuseum Berlin  | by nowhere north | via v1ntage | rockurbody

(via rockurbody)