| | | A week ago, I stood on the shore of a lake in the Sand Hills of Nebraska, watching the sun rise through diaphanous clouds.
Full Story  | | Photo by Jeff Mitton |
A week ago, I stood on the shore of a lake in the Sand Hills of Nebraska, watching the sun rise through diaphanous clouds.
Full Story We think of the planets of our solar system as a family. Little Mercury, who never let go of the apron strings; sister Venus, with her hot temper; goody-two-shoes Earth, always keeping an even keel; Mars, the undersized little brother who never quite had what it took to hold on to an atmosphere and protect itself from the driving solar wind.
Full Story  | |
Photo by Bill Bowman
|
The canyon walls, monuments and delicate spires of the Colorado Plateau evoke awe and wonder. The canyon walls have many hues, ranging from deep red through orange, tan and white.
Full Story Why is trying to find a planet like trying to find a mate? No. 1: The odds are good, but the goods are odd.
Full Story  | |
JEFF MITTON
|
My colleague Bill Bowman and I were walking up one of the canyons on the east side of the San Rafael Swell, looking for a petroglyph that Bill had seen years ago.
Full Story When my grandfather was in his 80s, he developed an interest in genealogy. He traced nieces, nephews and every flavor of cousin -- first, second, fourth twice removed.
Full Story  | |
JEFF MITTON
|
The contiguous 48 states have suffered the invasion, spread and proliferation of several bird species, most notably pigeons, house sparrows and starlings. The most recent, highly successful invader is the great-tailed grackle, Quiscalus mexicanus. But this invader has a very different story, beginning with an Aztec emperor.
Full Story You don`t ask a woman her weight. You don`t ask your neighbors their rent. You don`t ask a Ph.D. student when he`s going to finish his thesis.
Full Story  | |
JEFF MITTON
|
I visited a stand of bristlecone pines at tree line on Mount Evans several summers ago, in early July. Bristlecone and limber pines at tree line evoke reverence, for some survive for more than thousand years, enduring bitter cold and thrashing winds.
Full Story  | | courtesy photo |
For decades, the mystery deepened: The Pioneer 10 and 11 spacecraft, which left Earth in the early 1970s on a mission to explore the outer solar system, were not where they were supposed to be.
Full Story If you want to feel pity for a planet, forget about Pluto and turn your sympathy toward Mercury. Pluto is now an astronomical sweetheart, the subject of books and poems, T-shirts and coffee mugs.
Full Story  | |
Jeffry B Mitton
|
On a June afternoon, while hiking on Flagstaff Mountain, I paused at a convergence of trails to consider my path into the future.
Full Story Join me in my office for a moment. Please take a seat. No, not the seat piled with yesterday's mail.
Full Story  | | Jeff Mitton |
A black-tailed jackrabbit crouched in the sand, eating juniper berries that had dropped from the tree above.
Full Story It was the best of times, it was the worst of times. OK, I stole that line. But for the past few weeks, astronomy and space exploration have been riding the complete and unabridged roller coaster from its triumphant peaks to its crawl-into-a-hole troughs.
Full Story After spending a contemplative breakfast with a tree lizard and a petrified log (see previous column at dailycamera.
Full Story What if we are alone? And what if we're not? Astronomers and philosophers spend a lot of time thinking about what it would mean if we discovered evidence of intelligent life beyond Earth.
Full Story  | |
Photo by Jeff Mitton
|
Every once in a while, an experience reminds us that great gulfs of time preceded the present, times when the world was very different.
Full Story It's almost Valentine's Day, and that means that, even though this is an astronomy column, you get to hear a love story.
Full Story I spend a lot of time trying to convince you just what a lonely place our cosmos is. I tell you about how it would take our fastest spacecraft more than 20,000 years to travel to the nearest star beyond the sun; how, on average, every cubic centimeter of interstellar space contains just one atom; how "something" is the exception, and "nothing" is the rule.
Full Story  | |
JEFF MITTON
|
Each year in early June I travel to Salida to give a presentation on natural history to 120 river guides attending a workshop organized by the Headwaters Institute.
Full Story What's the best part of a firework? Is it the candy-colored flash, or the trail of embers that takes its sweet time settling back down to the ground?
Full Story  | |
Jeff Mitton
|
I ambled across Moraine Park in Rocky Mountain National Park, looking for something to catch my eye. In this portion of the park, small- to medium-sized boulders protruded from the ground.
Full Story I don't believe in New Year's resolutions. If you are truly devoted to a goal, so devoted that you will actually stick with it beyond MLK Day, why wait for 2011?
Full Story  | |
Photo by Jeff Mitton
|
I sat at midday in the sun, in a lodgepole pine forest being thinned by bark beetles. I was taking a break for lunch and enjoying the view when I realized that not only was I not alone, but somebody was watching me.
Full Story This holiday season, advertisers have pulled off a pretty slick trick: Convincing us that the rotten economy means we should buy more, and fancier, gifts for our loved ones.
Full Story This last summer I was sitting on my front porch, enjoying a cup of tea in the warm sun, when a posturing spider distracted me.
Full Story How do you keep a wave upon the sand? How do you hold a moonbeam in your hand? How do you trap a neutral atom of antimatter?
Full Story Imagine that you've lived in the same house for your entire life. You've spent years learning the contours of its rooms and the quirks of its construction: The thumb-sized hole in the basement wall that you once thought would open into a secret passage.
Full Story | |
|
| | | | | | | | | | | | |
| | | |
Regular reader? Kachingle is a simple way to support dailycamera.com and other sites you love
|
| | | |
Regular reader? Kachingle is a simple way to support dailycamera.com and other sites you love
|
|
| | | | |
|
