NASA recently released its 2009 edition of Spinoff , an annual publication that chronicles successfully commercialized NASA technology. It’s easy to get lost in the magazine or its Web counterpart. The 2009 issue features 49 “spinoffs” in the areas of health and medicine; public safety; consumer, home, and recreation; environmental and agricultural resources; and more. I enjoyed many of them, but my favorites are the life rafts that use water to prevent...

Next week (November 16–20), NASA’s Digital Learning Network will host a series of videoconferences with NASA employees who had a special connection with Apollo 11 to let students hear firsthand accounts from people who made the lunar landing possible. The 1-hour programs will be held each day at 1 p.m. EST from a different NASA location and will be webcast to the public . The schedule will run as follows: Monday: (from NASA’s Langley Research Center...

Smartbean lists images from the Hubble Space Telescope like this one of the Bug Nebula (NGC 6302) as a reason kids will love astronomy. NASA photo Cultivating children’s interest in astronomy is a goal for professional scientists, planetarium directors, schoolteachers, and astronomy clubs alike. So it’s nice to see when parents are encouraged to get involved in astronomy with their kids. In a recently published article, SmartBean is doing just that...

Official Galilean Nights poster Another International Year of Astronomy 2009 Cornerstone Project kicks off tomorrow night around the globe. The goal of Galilean Nights , October 22-24, is to allow hundreds of thousands of people all around the world to experience their own “Galileo moment” when they look up at the sky through a telescope for the first time. Currently there are more than 1,000 public observing events in more than 70 countries to help...

A waxing gibbous Moon. Astronomy.com member "LATiger" photo I have a love-hate relationship with the Internet. It makes getting information easier than ever, but it also can make getting the CORRECT information more difficult than ever. Sometimes, it takes a lot of sifting through less-than-reputable sites to find goods ones you can trust. So it’s a bonus when someone else does it for you. The Astronomy Society of the Pacific has been working...

The November 2009 issue of Astronomy should be in your mailbox any day now (if it’s not already in your hands), and we’ve updated Astronomy.com with our newest web extras to give subscribers exclusive information complementary to the issue. Take a sneak peek inside the November 2009 Astronomy magazine . Or watch Editor David J. Eicher's video preview of the issue . If you subscribe to Astronomy , make sure you’re registered with Astronomy.com...

Last Friday, NASA and Disney Parks officially welcomed space ranger Buzz Lightyear back to Earth from the International Space Station (ISS) with a ticker-tape parade at Disney’s Magic Kingdom in Orlando (and, no, I’m not joking). The 12-inch action figure spent more than 15 months aboard the ISS, returning to Earth September 11. In addition to that celebration, NASA and Disney Parks are collaborating again to launch new efforts to help young students...

NASA’s Desert RATS — or Research and Technology Studies — has concluded two weeks of technology development tests on two of the agency's prototype lunar rovers from the Black Point Lava Flow in Arizona. The studies allow NASA to analyze and refine technologies and procedures in extreme environments on Earth. The annual studies featured a simulated 14-day mission. Two crew members, an astronaut and a geologist, lived for more than 300 hours inside...

Now, I know the main science objectives of the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO) — currently in orbit around the Moon — are to help NASA identify safe landing sites for future explorers, locate potential resources, describe the Moon's radiation environment, and demonstrate new technologies. Still, I admit I was most excited about seeing the LRO's Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter Camera (LROC) images of the Apollo landing sites. And I wasn’t disappointed...

Although the fall season doesn’t officially start for another few weeks, it is time to head back to school (for those who didn’t already start last week). College students probably have just spent an arm and a leg on books, room and board, and tuition. And some might now be thinking, “I could really use some scholarship help right now.” Well, for those studying aeronautics or related fields, NASA offers a great opportunity: the NASA Aeronautics Scholarship...