Hi everybody!

Here's the latest article from the Astronomy site at BellaOnline.com.

Kew Observatory
An observatory that a king built to watch the 1769 transit of Venus. The place where official time for London used to be set. Where a murderer was sometimes in attendance when the King walked in the gardens. Find out about the history of Kew Observatory.

http://www.bellaonline.com/articles/art20247.asp

The Scale of the Universe

This is great. Once it's loaded you start at the human scale. Then you can use the scroll bar to go to bigger or smaller things. You can also click on what's in a circle to get to another scale and you can click on objects to find out more about them. I found this very interesting and amusing as well. It was quite something to be able to go from quantum all the way up to the observable universe. I was quite taken aback by how many clicks it took to get from the smallest observable length down to the Planck length! It gives a sense of the relationship between scales which is difficult to convey. Great for educators, students and everybody else!

http://htwins.net/scale2/scale2.swf?bordercolor=white

Spectacular solar eruption

Here is a short NASA video of an enormous solar prominence taken by the Solar Dynamics Observatory. It's best on full screen. By the way, you need Flash in order to see this, but if you search “solar eruption april 2012” you can pick up some versions that don't need Flash – but you'll get an advertisement.

http://www.nasa.gov/multimedia/videogallery/index.html?media_id=140728461

I wish you clear skies.  Please visit astronomy.bellaonline.com for even more great content about Astronomy.

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Mona Evans, Astronomy Editor
http://astronomy.bellaonline.com
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