Fore!

February 6th is the 46th anniversary of the first space sport. On this day in 1971, golf enthusiast-turned-astronaut Alan Shepard hit a golf ball on the moon! It’s unknown just how far the ball traveled but the best estimates are between 400 yards and a little over a mile.
Proto-planet imaging continues to improve: a new device called a vortex coronagraph redirects light from young stars by combining and cancelling light waves. It allows otherwise invisible dust rings around young stars to be seen that could be forming Jupiter-sized objects close to the stars.
Night Skies at the Observatory this month features excellent planet observing, great planetarium shows and Dr. David Grinspoon, Senior Scientist at Planetary Science Institute and author of NPR Science Friday’s Best SCIENCE Book of 2016, Earth in Human Hands. He presents a deep-time and deep-space view of the human presence on Earth.