Endeavour Touches Down

The space shuttle Endeavour landed at 12.32 pm EDT today at the Kennedy Space Center, ending a 13 day mission to the International Space Station. The mission was cut short by one day due to the possibility of Hurricane Dean causing problems with NASA centers in Texas. They added a truss segment to the station, and brought up supplies and items for future missions.

This mission featured Barbara Morgan, who was Christa McAuliffe’s backup in the “Teacher in Space” program in the 1980’s. She had since been trained as an actual astronaut, and has finally fulfilled the mission that her and other teachers have dreamt about for decades.

Locally, we have the Community Media Center to thank, as they broadcast NASA-TV on local cable channel 24 (Livewire). The GRAAA sponsors NASA-TV locally.

The Universe (The Most Dangerous Place in the Universe)

The new episode of The Universe for this Tuesday is “The Most Dangerous Place in the Universe.” Here’s a preview…

Take a tour of the cosmic hot zones–black holes, galaxy mergers, gamma ray bursts and magnetars. Super massive black holes can literally “lasso” the Earth out of the solar system. A clash between two galaxies can result in a barbaric ritual called “galactic cannibalism” in which the dominant galaxy’s super massive black hole literally eats the weaker one. Magnetars are a cosmic magnetic force so strong it could wipe out data on every credit card on the planet. Cutting-edge computer graphics are used to bring the universe down to earth to show what life would be like on other planets, and to imagine what kind of life forms might evolve in alien atmospheres.

As we’ve said before, “check your local listings” for a show time near you. This excellent series is a rarity on television these days. You won’t be disappointed.