Astronomy (renamed)

[Elnath]

Comets are generally visible long enough and far away enough that everybody gets a chance to see them. They remain fixtures in the sky for days, weeks, in this case months. It will get brighter and brighter then eventually start to fade. I think that if you don't see it right at the moment of it's closest proximity, you'll get a view almost as good the previous or following night.

This page has got some good information.

http://earthsky.org/space/big-sun-diving-comet-ison-might-be-spectacular-in-2013

[wolf4furbears]

http://waitingforison.wordpress.com/comet-ison-whats-the-big-deal/

here is some more info. should be visible in the northern hemisphere

[Elnath]

This one snuck up on me! http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/asteroids/news/comet20130307.html You might be able to see it tonight and tomorrow, you need to look southwest at twilight, there's a 15 minute window. But I'm worried that even if you're right on the coast, the island might block our view. I don't know how close to the horizon it will be. Worth a look!

[Alloud]

Not an astronomical event, but cool stuff nonetheless. Here's a few "Space Sims" I love to play with every now and then. They're both free, too.

SpaceEngine
  With SpaceEngine you can zip around the known universe (on pretty much all scales; from the surface of a solid celestial body to galaxies) and anything that isn't "known" is procedurally generated and modeled. I love to put on some music and zone out with this if I have 20 minutes to kill before my next class.

Outerra
  The planet surface simulations in SpaceEngine are quite barren and boring, so this helps fill that void. In this alpha demo it's just Earth, but it's modeled with real satellite data and you can even pull up a Google Maps widget to go to precise locations. It's still early work - there's only one real biome, can't really do anything, etc... But they've improved it a decent amount since I first toyed with it.
Could you imagine Star Wars: Battlefront using an engine like this? Where you could hop in a ship and fly to different locations/planets without interrupting gameplay... That'd be freaking rad.

[TheronEindridi]

Space Engine actually brings some kind of idea of how massive the universe is.. We can put it into context but our minds can not actually fathom the vastness of space without some kind of visual example... Im going to get lost in this for hours, i can already tell.

[Elnath]

I'll have to check them out. Though not realistic in many ways, Kerbal Space Program deserves an honourable mention. It reminds me of all the lander and orbiter sims I used to play with at the various space centers and museums we used to visit when I was little.

[Elnath]

Chris Hadfield performing Space Oddity on the ISS. The man can sing.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=KaOC9danxNo

[Elnath]

A meteorite hit the moon on march 17th. The explosion could be seen from earth with the naked eye. http://www.space.com/21197-moon-crash-meteor-impact-explosion.html