August 11th and 12th mark the peak of the Perseid meteor shower. But what is a meteor shower and what causes it? SkyGuy explains…

More about the Perseids:
http://science.nasa.gov/headlines/y2008/22jul_perseiddawn.htm

A list of meteor showers, world-wide:
http://www.obliquity.com/skyeye/misc/meteor.html

Sunrise calculator
http://www.srrb.noaa.gov/highlights/sunrise/sunrise.html

You may have noticed that all the questions I have received are from girls.

To be fair, I have received questions from boys, I just haven’t gotten to them yet. But I find it interesting that most of the questions I have received indeed do come from girls.

Why is that? I don’t really have an answer, but I do Read more »

This just in … water found on the moon!

But wait …. we are searching for water on Mars. We don’t have a lander on the Moon, and we haven’t been to the Moon since the Apollo missions. So how can scientists find water on the Moon now?

Believe it or not, it is precisely those samples from the Apollo missions that made this discovery possible. Processing some of those samples with techniques that were not available when the samples first came to Earth has enabled scientists to determine that there had been much more water on the Moon in the past.

Seems we’re finding more and more water in our solar system. Even Mercury appears to have water at its poles.

Here in the United States, the 4th of July is a holiday. We celebrate the birth of our nation. It’s a holiday filled with fireworks and parties.

July 4th is also aphelion. This is the day of the year when the earth is at its farthest from the sun. Yet, even though we get 1.7% less solar radiation, the earth is actually overall warmer on this day than it is when we are at the closest to the sun! Strange, isn’t it?

For a good explanation of this odd fact, check out this article at spaceweather.com.

Ever tried to count all the stars in the sky? Ever wondered how many there really are? Well, you probably won’t believe it but here is the answer!

It sure seems like the sun goes around the earth. In fact, for thousands and thousands of years, that is exactly what people thought. SkyGuy answers this question from Mina, who is five years old.

Galaxies are huge!. They contain at least 100 billion stars each. But how many galaxies are there? SkyGuy tries to give an accurate number!