Look for a total lunar eclipse tomorrow night, February 20. A lunar eclipse occurs when the moon enters the shadow of the Earth, casting the usually bright full moon in a reddish hue. The moon will enter the darkest part of the Earth's shadow around 8:45pm Eastern time (5:45pm Pacific) and will look reddish for a couple hours. Unfortunately, it is looking like certain rain for us Southern California types.
So NASA is going to transmit the Beatles song "Across the Universe" out into space in the direction of Polaris, the north star. This is to celebrate anniversaries of the song itself and NASA. While this is a fine idea that melds popular culture with some fun science it doesn't really accomplish anything productive for NASA's image. Instead of fostering youth accomplishment in math and science and inspiring the next generation of American technical leadership, NASA again comes off as wasting time and effort on silly gestures (like hitting a golf ball from the space station). Furthermore, this all comes during the week in which we remember the loss of 3 crews.
Today marks 5 years since space shuttle Columbia was lost during re-entry.
Rick Husband.
William McCool.
Michael Anderson.
Ilan Ramon.
Kalpana Chawla.
David Brown.
Laurel Clark.
per aspera ad astra
