Wednesday, May 13, 2009

A note on conjunctions

I've been listening to NASA TV in the background (after checking out Mark Steiner's podcast - see below). The Space Shuttle crew is getting into their sleep cycle, having snagged the Hubble Space Telescope (HST) and locked her down in the payload bay.

They keep muttering about conjunctions with space debris. I finally realised that - while we watch conjunctions of planets all the time from Earth - when you're UP THERE, something coming THAT CLOSE is a bit worrisome.

Ah, good news, conjunction came and went and it seems nothing got punctured.

Tomorrow should be interesting - they get to look 'under the hood' on HST and start the tune-up/replacement.

What a great bunch of people,
Lauretta

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