Friday marks the official start of summer. Night sky viewing this week includes the opportunity to observe Venus and Mercury in fairly close proximity Thursday. Plus, Lone Signal's METI project allows anybody to send a message to a potentially habitable solar system located a mere 17.6 light years away.
When to Listen
SkyTalk is a weekly discussion of what's new and interesting in astronomy with Dr. Derrick Pitts and WHYY FM's Dave Heller every Monday evening during NewsWorks Tonight at 6 pm.
New stars just overhead
Following last week's disclosure that Leonardo DiCaprio is signed up to take an out-of-this-world trip on Virgin Galactic, now Justin Bieber, Angelina Jolie and Ashton Kutcher say they, too will go aloft. Space Exploration on the world stage: Shenzhou10 due to liftoff mid-June for China's 5th manned space mission.
Stars in space
Leonardo DiCaprio is heading to space next year on Virgin Galactic; fastest trip ever to International Space Station; final days to see Jupiter after sunset and last opportunity to see Jupiter with Mercury, Venus, this close together until 2026!
The intrepid Mars Rover Opportunity rolls on
Opportunity has traversed 22.2 miles in its nine years and four months on the Red Planet, and is still performing good science. Jupiter, Venus, Mercury appear to cluster together in the night sky, and come Friday, a good sized asteroid will make its closest approach to Earth for the next 200 years.
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