Hubblicious

Seeing as I started a bit of a political sh*tstorm with my last post, I'll focus on another area of interest for me today.
Ever since I was small I've loved to stare at the sky. My brother and I had a little kids telescope and were always staring at the moon in the back yard. Our friend Ken has a telescope and is really into it and whenever there is something extra interesting out there we try and go sponge off his astronomy skills to see the universe. With his help we've seen Mars and Saturn. We've even got glow in the dark stars inthe basement for when it is too cold to go outside and look at the sky in the winter (there's a Saturn and moon down there too - I've yet to track down the other planets). Even last weekend at Waskeiu we tried to take shots of the perfectly clear starry sky (no tripod, but we tried...). J and I sat by the firepit and stared at the sky for hours long after the family had gone to bed.

And so I'm always checking out the Hubble Telescope Image Diary and the NASA site devoted to the Mars rovers. I still can'tbelieve they're still going - and noone seems to pay much attention. I mean, PEOPLE! There are robotic exploring cameras scientifically analyzing the surface of the planet Mars and they've been going 10X longer than anyone ever hoped for! You can watch them, see what they see, hear what they heard as they landed, and learn what they learned. Cheers I say! A few my way also scoff at the Hubble and it's practicality as a research tool. I'm no astronomer or physicist, but the images it's taken take my breath away...so many beautiful worlds and galaxies. Just. Beautiful.

What brought this on? Well, I'm a little blue, as Pluto (my second favorite planet after Jupiter) is no longer officially a planet, but we've hung out and had a few beers and a chat in the back yard and I think both of us will be able to come to terms with it!
I've never been partial to labels anyways...