Let’s Go to the Carnival

The Carnival of Space

This week’s Carnival of Space, #188, is up for all to enjoy. If you’ve never read or heard of the Carnival of Space, it’s a weekly event hosted by a different blogger — a sort of romp down the cosmic carnival midway. This week, the Carnival is hosted by AARTScope Blog and features entries from nearly a dozen science writers scattered around the Web, including one of my own entries.  This week’s host also did something rather cool — he has embedded QR codes for each bloggers so that folks who want to explore these entries from their mobile devices can simply scan the code and have the entry right there! Very neat idea and I’ve now embedded a QR code in my own page — over there in the left column. Here’s AARTScope’s QR code for you to use if you’re catching ME on mobile.

So, check out the Carnival — it’s a great way to catch some new views of the cosmos from readers you might not have seen yet.

On the skygazing front, there’s a good chance you can catch Jupiter and Venus together in the western sky over the next few nights. If you’ve got clear weather, step out about 35 or 40 minutes after sunset and look west. The bright starlike object will be Jupiter. The dimmer one closer to the horizon just below Jupiter will be Mercury.  The folks at Sky&Telescope.com have a nice little graphic that you can use as reference.

The western view the next few nights, courtesy of Sky&Telescope.com
Mark C. Petersen, aka Geodesium, in concert.

Finally, while you’re browsing around, check out my March 13, 2011 episode of 365 Days of Astronomy. This month, in response to queries about the music that appears behind my podcasts for 365 Days, I decided to do a segment about space music. It features cosmic sounds I’ve spent much of my adult life hearing around the house because it’s composed by my husband, Mark C. Petersen!

Check it out, and read more here!