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Sky Guys: Winter Solstice Edition

Here in the Northern Hemisphere, the winter solstice on Dec. 21 marks the longest night and shortest day of the year. The Sky Guys help us identify what we're seeing in the night sky this month. We remember astronaut and American legend, John Glenn, who died this month at age 95.  He became the first American to orbit the Earth in 1962. And we discuss the top space news stories of 2016.

GUESTS: 

  • Mal Cameron - former astronomy and space educator at the McAuliffe Shepard Discovery Center and coordinator of its NASA Educator Resource Center.
  • John Gianforte – co-founder of the "Astronomical Society" of northern New England and astronomy instructor for Granite State College and UNH.

 

Click on this linkto watch the entireUniversal Newsreel of John Glenn's 1962 orbital space flight.

 

 

One of the top stories of 2016 was Elon Musk's announcement of his plan to begin colonizing Mars by 2022.

Credit SpaceX Photo on Flickr
A computer rendering of SpaceX's Red Dragon capsule landing on Mars

The Cassini probe entered Saturn's orbit in 2016 and continued sending images back to Earth.

 

Photo from NASA's Cassini spacecraft showing a hexagon-shaped storm in Saturn's northern hemisphere.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

This video from eclipse2017.org shows the projected path of the moon's shadow across the US during the total solar eclipse, occuring on August 21, 2017. 

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