Hi everybody

Here is the latest article from the Astronomy site at BellaOnline.com.

Why it took so long to discover Uranus
The sky is full of stars, and since prehistoric times humans have known of five nomads – planets – wandering among them. No individual discovered those planets, for they're there for all to see. So why was the sixth one – now called Uranus – not known until 1781? 

http://www.bellaonline.com/articles/art305350.asp

*Alan Bean, RIP*
Alan Bean is the second Moonwalker to be lost this year. He died on May 26. Only four Moonwalkers now remain with us. As an astronaut, Bean walked on the Moon as part of the Apollo 12 mission, and later took part in the second manned mission to the Skylab space station. He had also been a naval aviator, aernoautical engineer and test pilot in the US Navy. On retirement from NASA he became an artist, concentrating on experiences in space.

*Birth anniversaries*
(1) May 26, 1951. Sally Ride - the first American woman to go into space. Her first flight was almost twenty years to the day after cosmonaut Valentina Tereshkova became the first woman in space.
(2) May 30, 1934. Alexi Leonov – a pioneering cosmonaut with numerous achievements, including being the first person to carry out a “spacewalk”.
(3) June 2, 1930. Charles “Pete” Conrad Jr. – the third person to walk on the Moon.
(4) June 6, 1932. Dave Scott – carried out an experiment on the Moon showing that a hammer and a feather fall at the same rate in the absence of air resistance.
(5) June 8, 1625. Jean Dominique Cassini – Franco-Italian astronomer, NASA's Cassini mission to Saturn was named for him.
(6) June 9, 1812. Johann Galle – German astronomer who discovered the planet Neptune following Urbain LeVerrier's calculations.

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I wish you clear skies. 

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

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