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On this day in 1963, Mercury MA-9 (Faith 7), with astronaut L. Gordon Cooper Jr. aboard, launched from Cape Canaveral. His orbital flight lasted 1.43 days.

The Sun’s surface temperature is roughly 10,000-degrees-Fahrenheit. The Sun’s core can be over 27-million-degrees-Fahrenheit. Nuclear fusion is possible in the core due to these high temperatures and high pressures.

In 2004 on this date, a private firm, Scaled Composites, launched a test flight of their SpaceShip One, reaching an altitude of 46km and a speed of Mach 2.5. During a portion of the flight, the computerized ‘director display’ failed; however, the pilot continued the planned trajectory simply using the view from his window.

About 20 minutes after sunset tonight, you can find three planets and the Moon in the west. The Moon will be paired with Venus about 5° above the horizon; these will be tough to see. If you wait another 15 minutes, however, Mercury and Mars will also become visible a bit higher in the sky.… Continue reading →

On this day in 1949, Cape Canaveral is officially selected as a future site for US rocket launches and long-range flights. Negotiations with the British government begin for installation of a string of tracking stations along the islands of the Bahamas.

Arcturus, a giant orange star, is the 4th brightest star in the night sky. You can find it in the east at 9:00pm. Arcturus is the brightest star in the constellation Boötes the Herdsman.(Although photographically it appears yellow, Arcturus is considered to be an ‘orange’ star due to its surface temperature.)

In 1965 on this date, Luna 5, an unmanned Soviet lunar probe, was launched. After experiencing gyroscope and engine problems, it crashed into the moon some 700km from its intended soft-landing site, and became the second Soviet probe to reach the Moon.

At 9:00pm, you will find a kite-shaped group of stars high in the eastern sky. This is the spring constellation Boötes the Herdsman.