The Errata of the Day

Happy Thursday everyone! Only one more day till Friday...  Just thought I would post a few quick notes:

• Jupiter and the Moon are particularly close tonight in the late evening and night sky.  The simulated view to the right shows the sky to the southeast at around 11:06pm local time (since the moon is moving slowly across the field of background stars, YMMV).  And nothing special happens right at 11:06pm, that's just when I pressed stop in Celestia ;-) The close proximity of the Moon to Jupiter (and Uranus) makes it a bit easier to locate those planets, so it is worth taking a look, even for those who don't have telescopes (like myself).  Jupiter is approaching opposition, which occurs on September 22.  On that date, Jupiter will be opposite the Sun from the Earth, meaning the planet (and its attendant moons) will rise over the horizon at sunset, reaches its highest point in the sky at local midnight, and set below the horizon at sunrise.  This is also the best opportunity to observe Jupiter because it will reaches its largest size in the night sky.  In fact, this will be Jupiter's closest approach to Earth than at any other time between 1963 and 2022.
• The Carnival of Space #168 is now up over at Weird Sciences.  Read up on Trojan kuiper belt objects, bistatic experiments on the Moon, and the Laser Interferometer Space Antenna (LISA).  I submitted my write up on a method for creating true color images of Io for this week's Carnival of Space.
• Emily Lakdawalla of the Planetary Society Blog is this week's featured Woman in Planetary Science.  I'll admit, I never read that blog much because, well, I'm not a woman in Planetary Science.  But after reading a few of the profiles, I see that many of the experiences are pretty universal, and can be useful for both men and women who are considering a career in this field.