Regulus to Disappear Next Wednesday (for some)

This is really cool.  A very bright (m_v = 1.4) star is going to disappear because of an asteroid occultation.  That in itself is cool, but the science that can be done with it is exceptional.  This occultation will only happen for people around New York and points NW and SE of it.  Now, imagine if you had thousands of people at different points all looking to determine when the star disappeared. If they all record the time (and their GPS position) of the disappearance and reappearance of the star, they can essentially map the structure of the asteroid.

Check out the records from previous occultations (of a double asteroid 90 Antiope and a single asteroid 704 Interamnia.  The different lines show when different people could see the star.  The dark spots show when they couldn't.  So now we know the shapes of those asteroids!  Much more good information at Sky and Telescope.

Scale of the Solar System

I don't think I've ever seen such a great demonstration of the scale of the universe!  Check it out!

COSMOS Remix

There is a mini-series called Cosmos: A Spacetime Odyssey which begins Sunday (9/8c on Fox, 10/9c on National Geographic).  If you're not familiar, this is redoing an incredibly successful 1980 mini-series by Carl Sagan.  The science, and the graphics have changed a lot since then.  This appears to be a big, expensive, flashy, production (Seth McFarlane is the executive producer).  Every question on the final will be from the mini-series.  That's not really true, but I really want you to watch it.