Visual Astronomy Display: December 2015

Visual Astronomy Display for December 2015

Highlights…

  • The European Space Agency explains the difference between meteors, meteorites, asteroids, and comets;
  • XKCD explains how to go to space in a video using only the 1000 most common words in the English language;
  • NASA’s Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope have discovered the first gamma-ray pulsar in another galaxy, the object sets a new record for the most luminous gamma-ray pulsar known.;
  • How easy is it to use a tablet computer in space? In a world of touch sensitive screens and controls NASA is trying to find out how fine motor skills are affected by zero gravity environments;
  • Phil Plait teaches a couple of crash courses on the planet Jupiter and it’s moons; and
  • On November 24, 2015 Katherine Johnson was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom for her extensive contributions to the space program, such as work calculating launch windows for John Glenn’s first space mission, calculating trajectories for Apollo 11’s journey to the moon, and working to save the astronauts of Apollo 13.

Bonus Videos…

Playlist Archive

Suggestions, Comments, or Questions

About Katie Frey

Katie Frey leads the development of the Unified Astronomy Thesaurus, a community supported linked data vocabulary for sorting, filtering, and exploring astronomical literature, data sets, images, etc.

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