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JEFF MITTON
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I can hardly resist the lure of flowering thistles.
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You know that moment in a movie when everything seems to be falling apart? When the bride you met in Scene One is slamming the door and walking out on her groom?
Full Story Everyone knows you're not supposed to stare at the sun. But why not? According to one Chinese myth, the sun is so shy that her sister, the moon, gave her a gift of golden needles with which she could prick the eyes of any human bold enough to stare directly at her.
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JEFF MITTON
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Two feisty creatures met on a lonely sandy road beside a lake in the Sand Hills of Nebraska. I was going south, looking for painted turtles. I was going south, looking for painted turtles.
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The Visible Universe, in partnership with NASA's Swift telescope and massive stars throughout the galaxy, is proud to present the premiere of a terrifying extragalactic murder mystery. Prepare for thrills and chills in this awesome display of cosmic savagery. Astronomers call it Sw 1644+57.
Full Story 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.
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Photo by Bill Bowman
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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.
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JEFF MITTON
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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.
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JEFF MITTON
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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.
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JEFF MITTON
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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.
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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.
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Jeffry B Mitton
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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.
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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.
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Photo by Jeff Mitton
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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.
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JEFF MITTON
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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?
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Jeff Mitton
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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?
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