On Feb 11, 2010 The Atlas V rocket was launched.

A sun dog is a prismatic bright spot in the sky caused by sun shining through ice crystals.
The Atlas V rocket exceeded the speed of sound in this layer of ice crystals, making the shock wave visible from the ground.

The announcer can be heard in the video saying, “The vehicle is now supersonic.”

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Tonight’s full moon will be the biggest and brightest full moon of the year. It offers anyone with clear skies an opportunity to identify easy-to-see features on the moon.

This being the first full moon of 2010, it is also known as the wolf moon, a moniker dating back to Native American culture and the notion that hungry wolves howled at the full moon on cold winter nights. Each month brings another full moon name.

But why will this moon be bigger than others?

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This NASA site hosts the best and most complete online collection of astronaut photographs of the Earth from 1961 through the present.

http://eol.jsc.nasa.gov/sseop/clickmap/

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Russia will endeavour to become the world’s first nation to build a nuclear-powered spacecraft for interplanetary flights.

The Russian Government has allocated 500 million roubles ($17 million) in 2010 for designing a nuclear engine and a spacecraft for long space travel.

The draft design of the spacecraft is slated to be ready by 2012, while the actual model is expected to be developed by 2018. The total cost of the project is estimated at about $600 million.

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MOSCOW – Russia’s space chief said Wednesday his agency will consider sending a spacecraft to a large asteroid to knock it off its path and prevent a possible collision with Earth.

Anatoly Perminov said the space agency will hold a meeting soon to assess a mission to Apophis, telling Golos Rossii radio that it would invite NASA, the European Space Agency, the Chinese space agency and others to join the project once it is finalized.

When the 270-meter (885-foot) asteroid was first discovered in 2004, astronomers estimated the chances of it smashing into Earth in its first flyby in 2029 were as high as 1-in-37.

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