By Chris Benedict

Astronomy nerds have had very good reason, not accounting for murmurs or arrhythmias, for their hearts to go aflutter of late. NASA’s New Horizons spacecraft, while traveling through the Kuiper Belt, did a fly-by of Pluto two weeks ago and transmitted back to Earth the first high-resolution photographs detailing geographical particulars of everybody’s favorite demoted dwarf-planet. Take that, Neil deGrasse Tyson.

Then came last Thursday’s NASA announcement revealing the existence of a distant exoplanet named Kepler 452b, just one of many celestial wonders named after the 17th Century German astronomer Johannes Kepler, approximately 1,400 light years from our solar system. This is no garden variety discovery, however. Kepler 452b, while one and a half times the size in radius and of our home planet not to mention five times the mass, exhibits Earth-like data readings and orbits a star much like our Sun in 385 days’ time, only twenty days longer than our calendar year. All things considered, these findings bode well for Kepler 452b to be potentially suitable for water sources and, thus, habitable for complex, carbon-based life forms. SETI (Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence) scientists have already begun listening for distant radio-wave signals from what is being referred to as “Earth’s distant cousin” or “Earth 2.0”.

Hopefully you took advantage of the opportunity to stop and gaze upon last night’s Blue Moon, seeing as though it will be the last one for two years. Just to clarify, a Blue Moon refers not to a visible change in hue (same holds true for the ominous sounding Blood Moon), but to the fact that there are two full moons in a month’s time, or four in one season rather than the normal three. So, while it may not be exceedingly rare, it is still uncommon enough to warrant a nice long second look, whether through a telescope or simply by the naked eye.

And, there isn’t too terribly long to wait until the next noteworthy stellar event. Produced from the Swift-Tuttle meteor, the Perseids Meteor Shower promises quite a spectacle on the nights of August 12th and 13th. The lunar calendar calls for a thin crescent moon which will offer very little in the way of obstructive natural light, giving the shooting stars a relatively blank canvas on which to display their wonders. So, be sure to mark the dates on your calendar, grab a blanket, head down to the beach or up into the mountains, bring along your favorite guy or gal if you’re lucky enough to have one, and enjoy the show.

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