Meteorites Help Answer Questions About Solar System Evolution

Ten Years After Katrina

As we remember the devastation that Hurricane Katrina caused ten years ago, we also look to the improvements made in the past decade in storm prediction and forecasting.

Hurricane Katrina impacted many people, businesses and communities; and even two NASA facilities were hit by the storm. Marshall Space Flight Center and Michoud Assembly Facility were both hit by the harsh storm (seen below).

During Hurricane Katrina in 2005, our satellites were hard at work monitoring and watching the storm from above. Thanks to the higher resolution models we have today, simulations can recreate historical storms, like the below of Hurricane Katrina. Scientists can then study these and learn about past events.

Surprisingly, the United States hasn’t experienced the landfall of a Category 3 hurricane or lager since 2005. This is the longest period of time that has passed without a major hurricane making landfall in the U.S. since reliable records began in 1850.

Although we don’t know when a severe storm will form, we do know that advancements in technology can help us better prepare and predict its path. So, on this ten year mark of this devastating storm, we look back to remember what we saw: https://www.flickr.com/photos/gsfc/sets/72157656646633089

Why Do X-Ray Mirrors Look So Unusual?

Does the object in this image look like a mirror? Maybe not, but that’s exactly what it is! To be more precise, it’s a set of mirrors that will be used on an X-ray telescope. But why does it look nothing like the mirrors you’re familiar with? To answer that, let’s first take a step back. Let’s talk telescopes.

How does a telescope work?

The basic function of a telescope is to gather and focus light to amplify the light’s source. Astronomers have used telescopes for centuries, and there are a few different designs. Today, most telescopes use curved mirrors that magnify and focus light from distant objects onto your eye, a camera, or some other instrument. The mirrors can be made from a variety of materials, including glass or metal.

Space telescopes like the James Webb and Hubble Space Telescopes use large mirrors to focus light from some of the most distant objects in the sky. However, the mirrors must be tailored for the type and range of light the telescope is going to capture—and X-rays are especially hard to catch.

X-rays versus mirrors

X-rays tend to zip through most things. This is because X-rays have much smaller wavelengths than most other types of light. In fact, X-rays can be smaller than a single atom of almost every element. When an X-ray encounters some surfaces, it can pass right between the atoms!

Doctors use this property of X-rays to take pictures of what’s inside you. They use a beam of X-rays that mostly passes through skin and muscle but is largely blocked by denser materials, like bone. The shadow of what was blocked shows up on the film.

This tendency to pass through things includes most mirrors. If you shoot a beam of X-rays into a standard telescope, most of the light would go right through or be absorbed. The X-rays wouldn’t be focused by the mirror, and we wouldn’t be able to study them.

X-rays can bounce off a specially designed mirror, one turned on its side so that the incoming X-rays arrive almost parallel to the surface and glance off it. At this shallow angle, the space between atoms in the mirror's surface shrinks so much that X-rays can't sneak through. The light bounces off the mirror like a stone skipping on water. This type of mirror is called a grazing incidence mirror.

A metallic onion

Telescope mirrors curve so that all of the incoming light comes to the same place. Mirrors for most telescopes are based on the same 3D shape — a paraboloid. You might remember the parabola from your math classes as the cup-shaped curve. A paraboloid is a 3D version of that, spinning it around the axis, a little like the nose cone of a rocket. This turns out to be a great shape for focusing light at a point.

Mirrors for visible and infrared light and dishes for radio light use the “cup” portion of that paraboloid. For X-ray astronomy, we cut it a little differently to use the wall. Same shape, different piece. The mirrors for visible, infrared, ultraviolet, and radio telescopes look like a gently-curving cup. The X-ray mirror looks like a cylinder with very slightly angled walls.

The image below shows how different the mirrors look. On the left is one of the Chandra X-ray Observatory’s cylindrical mirrors. On the right you can see the gently curved round primary mirror for the Stratospheric Observatory for Infrared Astronomy telescope.

If we use just one grazing incidence mirror in an X-ray telescope, there would be a big hole, as shown above (left). We’d miss a lot of X-rays! Instead, our mirror makers fill in that cylinder with layers and layers of mirrors, like an onion. Then we can collect more of the X-rays that enter the telescope, giving us more light to study.

Nested mirrors like this have been used in many X-ray telescopes. Above is a close-up of the mirrors for an upcoming observatory called the X-ray Imaging and Spectroscopy Mission (XRISM, pronounced “crism”), which is a Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA)-led international collaboration between JAXA, NASA, and the European Space Agency (ESA).

The XRISM mirror assembly uses thin, gold-coated mirrors to make them super reflective to X-rays. Each of the two assemblies has 1,624 of these layers packed in them. And each layer is so smooth that the roughest spots rise no more than one millionth of a millimeter.

Why go to all this trouble to collect this elusive light? X-rays are a great way to study the hottest and most energetic areas of the universe! For example, at the centers of certain galaxies, there are black holes that heat up gas, producing all kinds of light. The X-rays can show us light emitted by material just before it falls in.

Stay tuned to NASA Universe on Twitter and Facebook to keep up with the latest on XRISM and other X-ray observatories.

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Solar System: Things to Know This Week

It’s the time of year for summer break, swimming, and oh, yes storms. June 1 marks the beginning of hurricane season on the Atlantic coast, but we’re not alone. Our neighboring planets have seen their fair share of volatile weather, too (like the Cassini spacecraft’s view of the unique six-sided jet stream at Saturn’s north pole known as “the hexagon”). 

This week, we present 10 of the solar system’s greatest storms.

1. Jupiter’s Great Red Spot

With tumultuous winds peaking at 400 mph, the Great Red Spot has been swirling wildly over Jupiter’s skies for at least 150 years and possibly much longer. People saw a big spot on Jupiter as early as the 1600s when they started stargazing through telescopes, though it’s unclear whether they were looking at a different storm. Today, scientists know the Great Red Spot has been there for a while, but what causes its swirl of reddish hues remains to be discovered. More >

2. Jupiter’s Little Red Spot

Despite its unofficial name, the Little Red Spot is about as wide as Earth. The storm reached its current size when three smaller spots collided and merged in the year 2000. More >

3. Saturn’s Hexagon

The planet’s rings might get most of the glory, but another shape’s been competing for attention: the hexagon. This jet stream is home to a massive hurricane tightly centered on the north pole, with an eye about 50 times larger than the average hurricane eye on Earth. Numerous small vortices spin clockwise while the hexagon and hurricane spin counterclockwise. The biggest of these vortices, seen near the lower right corner of the hexagon and appearing whitish, spans about 2,200 miles, approximately twice the size of the largest hurricane on Earth. More>

4. Monster Storm on Saturn 

A tempest erupted in 2010, extending approximately 9,000 miles north-south large enough to eventually eat its own tail before petering out. The storm raged for 200 days, making it the longest-lasting, planet-encircling storm ever seen on Saturn. More >

5. Mars’ Dust Storm 

Better cover your eyes. Dust storms are a frequent guest on the Red Planet, but one dust storm in 2001 larger by far than any seen on Earth raised a cloud of dust that engulfed the entire planet for three months. As the Sun warmed the airborne dust, the upper atmospheric temperature rose by about 80 degrees Fahrenheit. More >

6. Neptune’s Great Dark Spot

Several large, dark spots on Neptune are similar to Jupiter’s hurricane-like storms. The largest spot, named the “Great Dark Spot” by its discoverers, contains a storm big enough for Earth to fit neatly inside. And, it looks to be an anticyclone similar to Jupiter’s Great Red Spot. More >

7. Sun Twister 

Not to be confused with Earth’s tornadoes, a stalk-like prominence rose up above the Sun, then split into about four strands that twisted themselves into a knot and dispersed over a two-hour period. This close-up shows the effect is one of airy gracefulness. More >

8. Titan’s Arrow-shaped Storm 

The storm blew across the equatorial region of Titan, creating large effects in the form of dark and likely “wet” from liquid hydrocarbons areas on the surface of the moon. The part of the storm visible here measures 750 miles in length east-to-west. The wings of the storm that trail off to the northwest and southwest from the easternmost point of the storm are each 930 miles long. More >

9. Geomagnetic Storms

On March 9, 1989, a huge cloud of solar material exploded from the sun, twisting toward Earth. When this cloud of magnetized solar material called a coronal mass ejection reached our planet, it set off a chain of events in near-Earth space that ultimately knocked out an entire power grid area to the Canadian province Quebec for nine hours. More >

10. Super Typhoon Tip

Back on Earth, Typhoon Tip of 1979 remains the biggest storm to ever hit our planet, making landfall in Japan. The tropical cyclone saw sustained winds peak at 190 mph and the diameter of circulation spanned approximately 1,380 miles. Fortunately, we now have plans to better predict future storms on Earth. NASA recently launched a new fleet of hurricane-tracking satellites, known as the Cyclone Global Navigation Satellite System (CYGNSS), which will use the same GPS technology you and I use in our cars to measure wind speed and ultimately improve how to track and forecast hurricanes. More >

Discover more lists of 10 things to know about our solar system HERE.

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Solar System: Things to Know This Week

Our solar system is huge, so let us break it down for you. Here are five things you need to know this week:

1. The Lure of the Rings

Scientists and stargazers alike can’t resist the call of Saturn’s rings, or of its moon Titan. Both have been under close scrutiny by the Cassini spacecraft lately, and there are striking new pictures to prove it. Check out the latest images HERE.

2. A New Moon Rises

The Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter has captured dramatic landscapes on the moon for more than six years. “A New Moon Rises,” now on display at the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum in Washington, DC, showcases those images ranging from Apollo landing sites to mountains that rise out of the darkness of the lunar poles. See an online version of the exhibit HERE.  

3. Around the (Giant) World in (Just Under) 88 Days

The Juno mission is closing in on Jupiter. On July 4, the spacecraft enters orbit around the king of planets. Learn more about Juno HERE.

4. Spiders and Volcanoes and Glaciers, Oh My

The more data that New Horizons spacecraft sends down about Pluto and its moons, the more there is to fascinate explorers, from spider-shaped canyons to signs of glacial flow. Take a peek at the new finds on Pluto HERE.

5. World of Wonders

Hexagonal craters, mysterious mountains, eye-catching bright patches — the dwarf planet Ceres is proving to be an intriguing place. The Dawn mission is looking for clues to how it works. See the latest from Ceres HERE.

Want to learn more? Read our full list of the 10 things to know this week about the solar system HERE.

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From Frozen Antarctica to the Cold Vacuum of Space

A new experiment that will collect tiny charged particles known as galactic cosmic rays will soon be added to the International Space Station. The Cosmic Ray Energetics And Mass for the International Space Station payload, nicknamed ISS-CREAM, will soon be installed in its new home on the Station’s Japanese Experiment Module Exposed Facility. ISS-CREAM will help scientists understand more about galactic cosmic rays and the processes that produce them.

Wait, what are cosmic rays?

Cosmic rays are pieces of atoms that move through space at nearly the speed of light. Galactic cosmic rays come from beyond our solar system. 

They provide us with direct samples of matter from distant places in our galaxy.

Why do these things go so fast?

Galactic cosmic rays have been sped up by extreme processes. When massive stars die, they explode as supernovas. The explosion’s blast wave expands into space along with a cloud of debris. 

Particles caught up in this blast wave can bounce around in it and slowly pick up speed. Eventually they move so fast they can escape the blast wave and race away as a cosmic ray.

Where can we catch cosmic rays?

Cosmic rays are constantly zipping through space at these super-fast speeds, running into whatever is in their path -- including Earth.  

But Earth’s atmosphere is a great shield, protecting us from 99.9 percent of the radiation coming from space, including most cosmic rays.  This is good news for life on Earth, but bad news for scientists studying cosmic rays.  

So… how do you deal with that?

Because Earth has such an effective shield against cosmic rays, the best place for scientists to study them is above our atmosphere -- in space.  Since the 1920s, scientists have tried to get their instruments as close to space as possible. One of the simplest ways to do this is to send these instruments up on balloons the size of football stadiums. These balloons are so large because they have to be able to both lift their own weight and that of their cargo, which can be heavier than a car. Scientific balloons fly to 120,000 feet or more above the ground -- that’s at least three times higher than you might fly in a commercial airplane!  

Credit: Isaac Mognet (Pennsylvania State University)

Earlier versions of ISS-CREAM’s instruments were launched on these giant balloons from McMurdo Station in Antarctica seven times, starting in 2004, for a total of 191 days near the top of the atmosphere.  Each of these flights helped the team test their hardware and work towards sending a cutting-edge cosmic ray detector into space!  

How is going to space different than flying balloons?

Balloon flights allowed the team to collect a lot of cosmic rays, but even at 120,000 feet, a lot of the particles are still blocked. Scientists at the University of Maryland, College Park, who operate ISS-CREAM, expect to get about 10 times as much data from their new home on the International Space Station. 

That’s because it will be both above the atmosphere and fly far longer than is possible with a balloon. As you might imagine, there are large differences between flying something on a balloon and launching it into space. The science instruments and other systems had to be changed so ISS-CREAM could safely launch on a rocket and work in space.

What will ISS-CREAM do?

While on the space station, ISS-CREAM will collect millions of cosmic rays -- electrons, protons and atomic nuclei representing the elements found in the solar system. These results will help us understand why cosmic rays reach the wicked-fast speeds they do and, most important, what limits those speeds.

ISS-CREAM launches to the International Space Station aboard the latest SpaceX Dragon spacecraft, targeted to launch August 14. Want to learn more about ISS-CREAM and some of our scientific balloons? Check out our recent feature, NASA’s Scientific Balloon Program Reaches New Heights.

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Land is Sliding, Tell Us Where!

Summer in the northern hemisphere brings monsoon season, causing heavy rains and flooding that trigger landslides. Next time you see a landslide in the news, online, or in your neighborhood, submit it to our citizen science project Landslide Reporter to build the largest open global landslide catalog and help us and the public learn more about when and where they occur.

Rainfall is the most common cause of landslides.

After a storm, the soil and rock on a slope can become saturated with water and begin to slide downwards, posing a danger to people and destroying roads, houses and access to electricity and water supplies.

We have been monitoring rainfall from space for decades.

Orbiting the Earth right now, the Global Precipitation Measurement (GPM) mission is a group of 10 satellites that measure rain, snow, sleet and other precipitation worldwide every three hours. This data tells us where and when heavy rain is falling and if it could lead to disasters.

What can rainfall data tell us about landslides?

We're using GPM data to understand where and when landslides are happening. A global landslide model uses information about the environment and rainfall to anticipate where landslides are likely to happen anytime around the world every three hours.

To improve the global landslide model and other landslide research, NASA is looking for citizen scientists like you!

If you find a landslide reported online or in your neighborhood, you can provide the event details in Landslide Reporter, our citizen science project.

Your detailed reports are added into an open global landslide inventory available at Landslide Viewer. We use citizen science contributions along with other landslide data to check our prediction model so we can have a better picture of how rainfall, slope steepness, forest cover, and geology can trigger a landslide.

Because the data is open, anyone can use the data for research or response.

When you report a landslide, you improve our collection of landslide data for everyone.

Help support landslide efforts worldwide by contributing to Landslide Reporter, and you can help inform decisions that could save lives and property today! Learn more about the project at https://landslides.nasa.gov. You can also follow the project on Twitter and Facebook.

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Decoding Nebulae

We can agree that nebulae are some of the most majestic-looking objects in the universe. But what are they exactly? Nebulae are giant clouds of gas and dust in space. They’re commonly associated with two parts of the life cycle of stars: First, they can be nurseries forming new baby stars. Second, expanding clouds of gas and dust can mark where stars have died.

Not all nebulae are alike, and their different appearances tell us what's happening around them. Since not all nebulae emit light of their own, there are different ways that the clouds of gas and dust reveal themselves. Some nebulae scatter the light of stars hiding in or near them. These are called reflection nebulae and are a bit like seeing a street lamp illuminate the fog around it.

In another type, called emission nebulae, stars heat up the clouds of gas, whose chemicals respond by glowing in different colors. Think of it like a neon sign hanging in a shop window!

Finally there are nebulae with dust so thick that we’re unable to see the visible light from young stars shine through it. These are called dark nebulae.

Our missions help us see nebulae and identify the different elements that oftentimes light them up.

The Hubble Space Telescope is able to observe the cosmos in multiple wavelengths of light, ranging from ultraviolet, visible, and near-infrared. Hubble peered at the iconic Eagle Nebula in visible and infrared light, revealing these grand spires of dust and countless stars within and around them.

The Chandra X-ray Observatory studies the universe in X-ray light! The spacecraft is helping scientists see features within nebulae that might otherwise be hidden by gas and dust when viewed in longer wavelengths like visible and infrared light. In the Crab Nebula, Chandra sees high-energy X-rays from a pulsar (a type of rapidly spinning neutron star, which is the crushed, city-sized core of a star that exploded as a supernova).

The James Webb Space Telescope will primarily observe the infrared universe. With Webb, scientists will peer deep into clouds of dust and gas to study how stars and planetary systems form.

The Spitzer Space Telescope studied the cosmos for over 16 years before retiring in 2020. With the help of its detectors, Spitzer revealed unknown materials hiding in nebulae — like oddly-shaped molecules and soot-like materials, which were found in the California Nebula.

Studying nebulae helps scientists understand the life cycle of stars. Did you know our Sun got its start in a stellar nursery? Over 4.5 billion years ago, some gas and dust in a nebula clumped together due to gravity, and a baby Sun was born. The process to form a baby star itself can take a million years or more!

After billions more years, our Sun will eventually puff into a huge red giant star before leaving behind a beautiful planetary nebula (so-called because astronomers looking through early telescopes thought they resembled planets), along with a small, dense object called a white dwarf that will cool down very slowly. In fact, we don’t think the universe is old enough yet for any white dwarfs to have cooled down completely.

Since the Sun will live so much longer than us, scientists can't observe its whole life cycle directly ... but they can study tons of other stars and nebulae at different phases of their lives and draw conclusions about where our Sun came from and where it's headed. While studying nebulae, we’re seeing the past, present, and future of our Sun and trillions of others like it in the cosmos.

To keep up with the most recent cosmic news, follow NASA Universe on Twitter and Facebook.

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Spaceships Don’t Go to the Moon Until They’ve Gone Through Ohio

From the South, to the Midwest, to infinity and beyond. The Orion spacecraft for Artemis I has several stops to make before heading out into the expanse, and it can’t go to the Moon until it stops in Ohio. It landed at the Mansfield Lahm Regional Airport on Nov. 24, and then it was transferred to Plum Brook Station where it will undergo a series of environmental tests over the next four months to make sure it’s ready for space. Here are the highlights of its journey so far.

It’s a bird? It’s a whale? It’s the Super Guppy!

The 40-degree-and-extremely-windy weather couldn’t stop the massive crowd at Mansfield from waiting hours to see the Super Guppy land. Families huddled together as they waited, some decked out in NASA gear, including one astronaut costume complete with a helmet. Despite the delays, about 1,500 people held out to watch the bulbous airplane touch down.

Buckle up. It’s time for an extremely safe ride.

After Orion safely made it to Ohio, the next step was transporting it 41 miles to Plum Brook Station. It was loaded onto a massive truck to make the trip, and the drive lasted several hours as it slowly maneuvered the rural route to the facility. The 130-foot, 38-wheel truck hit a peak speed of about 20 miles per hour. It was the largest load ever driven through the state, and more than 700 utility lines were raised or moved in preparation to let the vehicle pass.

Calling us clean freaks would be an understatement.

Any person who even thinks about breathing near Orion has to be suited up. We’re talking “bunny” suit, shoe covers, beard covers, hoods, latex gloves – the works. One of our top priorities is keeping Orion clean during testing to prevent contaminants from sticking to the vehicle’s surface. These substances could cause issues for the capsule during testing and, more importantly, later during its flight around the Moon.

And liftoff of Orion… via crane.

On the ceiling of the Space Environments Complex at Plum Brook Station is a colossal crane used to move large pieces of space hardware into position for testing. It’s an important tool during pretest work, as it is used to lift Orion from the “verticator”—the name we use for the massive contraption used to rotate the vehicle from its laying down position into an upright testing orientation. After liftoff from the verticator, technicians then used the crane to install the spacecraft inside the Heat Flux System for testing.

It’s really not tin foil.

Although it looks like tin foil, the metallic material wrapped around Orion and the Heat Flux System—the bird cage-looking hardware encapsulating the spacecraft—is a material called Mylar. It’s used as a thermal barrier to help control which areas of the spacecraft get heated or cooled during testing. This helps our team avoid wasting energy heating and cooling spots unnecessarily.

Bake at 300° for 63 days.

It took a little over a week to prep Orion for its thermal test in the vacuum chamber. Now begins the 63-day process of heating and cooling (ranging from -250° to 300° Fahrenheit) the capsule to ensure it’s ready to withstand the journey around the Moon and back. 

View more images of Orion’s transportation and preparation here.

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It's almost launch day! On Monday, June 24, the launch window opens for the Department of Defense's Space Test Program-2 launch aboard a SpaceX Falcon Heavy. Among the two dozen satellites on board are four NASA payloads whose data will help us improve satellite design and performance.

Our experts will be live talking about the launch and NASA's missions starting this weekend.

🛰 Tune in on Sunday, June 23, at 12 p.m. EDT (9 a.m. PDT) for a live show diving into the technology behind our projects.

🚀 Watch coverage of the launch starting at 11 p.m. EDT (8 p.m. PDT) on Monday, June 24

Join us at nasa.gov/live, and get updates on the launch at blogs.nasa.gov/spacex.

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The Geminids Are Now Playing in a Sky Near You

The Geminids, which peak during mid-December each year, are considered to be one of the best and most reliable annual meteor showers. 

This month, they're active from Dec. 4-17, and peak the evening of Dec. 13-14 for a full 24 hours, meaning more worldwide meteor watchers will get to enjoy the show. 

Below are 10 things to know about this beautiful spectacle.

1. The forecast. 

From our resident night sky expert, Jane Jones: If you can see Orion and Gemini in the sky, you'll see some Geminids. Expect to see about 60 meteors per hour before midnight on Dec. 13 and from midnight-3:30 a.m. on Dec. 14 from a dark sky. You'll see fewer meteors after moonrise at 3:30 a.m. local time. In the southern hemisphere, you won't see as many, perhaps 10-20 per hour, because the radiant—the point in the sky where the meteor shower appears to originate—never rises above the horizon.

2. Viewing tips.

Kids can join in on the fun as early as 9 or 10 p.m. You'll want to find an area well away from city or street lights. Come prepared for winter temperatures with a sleeping bag, blanket, or lawn chair. Lie flat on your back and look up, taking in as much of the sky as possible. After about 30 minutes in the dark, your eyes will adapt and you'll begin to see meteors. Be patient—the show will last until dawn, so you have plenty of time to catch a glimpse.

3. Late bloomer.

The Geminids weren't always such as a spectacular show. When they first began appearing in the mid-1800s, there were only 10-20 visible meteors per hour. Since then, the Geminids have grown to become one of the major showers of the year.

4. Remind me—where do meteor showers come from?

Meteors come from leftover comet particles and bits from asteroids. When these objects come around the Sun, they leave a dusty trail behind them. Every year, the Earth passes through these debris trails, which allows the bits to collide with our atmosphere, where they disintegrate to create fiery and colorful streaks in the sky.

5. That said...

While most meteor showers come from comets, the Geminids originate from an asteroid: 3200 Phaethon. Asteroid 3200 Phaethon takes 1.4 years to orbit the Sun once. It is possible that Phaethon is a "dead comet" or a new kind of object being discussed by astronomers called a "rock comet." Phaethon's comet-like, highly-elliptical orbit around the Sun supports this hypothesis. That said, scientists aren't too sure how to define Phaethon. When it passes by the Sun, it doesn't develop a cometary tail, and its spectra looks like a rocky asteroid. Also, the bits and pieces that break off to form the Geminid meteoroids are several times denser than cometary dust flakes.

6. Tell me more. 

3200 Phaethon was discovered on Oct. 11, 1983 by the Infrared Astronomical Satellite. Because of its close approach to the Sun, Phaethon is named after the Greek mythological character who drove the Sun-god Helios' chariot. Phaethon is a small asteroid: its diameter measures only 3.17 miles (5.10 kilometers) across. And we have astronomer Fred Whipple to thank—he realized that Phaethon is the source for the Geminids.

7. A tale of twins. 

The Geminids' radiant is the constellation Gemini, a.k.a. the "Twins." And, of course, the constellation of Gemini is also where we get the name for the shower: Geminids.

8. In case you didn't know. 

The constellation for which a meteor shower is named only helps stargazers determine which shower they're viewing on a given night; the constellation is not the source of the meteors. Also, don't just look to the constellation of Gemini to view the Geminids—they're visible throughout the night sky. 9. And in case you miss the show. 

There's a second meteor shower in December: the Ursids, radiating from Ursa Minor, the Little Dipper. If Dec. 22 and the morning of Dec. 23 are clear where you are, have a look at the Little Dipper's bowl—you might see about 10 meteors per hour. 10. Endless opportunities. There are so many sights to see in the sky. Use the Night Sky Network, the Solar System Ambassadors, and the Museum Alliance to look up local astronomy clubs, and join them for stargazing events in town, and under dark skies.

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