BellaOnline Forums Education Astronomy Winter Celebrations

Mona, that is an incredible photo.

The Star of Bethlehem is one of the loveliest symbols of Christmas. But what was it? Simply an inspired idea to emphasize the spiritual importance of the story? Or was it based on an actual astronomical happening?

What Was the Star of Bethlehem?

Hannukah begins at sunset today (December 24) and ends on January 1st. Greetings to those of you celebrating Hanukkah.

Best wishes to all
for a very
Merry Christmas

On Christmas Eve 1968 Frank Borman, James Lovell and William Anders were orbiting the Moon in Apollo 8. They made a live broadcast that attracted what was the biggest audience ever, up to a billion people.

Here is a link to their Christmas Eve broadcast.

from

Thomas Pesquet
Happy Holidays!

Credits: ESA/NASA The crew of the Expedition 50 flight to the International Space Station wishes you all happy holidays!

Credits: ESA/NASA

Good wishes to those of you who will be celebrating Kwanzaa

This nebula is NGC 5357, which astronomers are calling a “winter wonderland.” "With that frosty blue hue and flurries of stars speckled across cosmic clouds, this wintry nebula is simply stunning."

This composite image contains X-ray data from NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory and the ROSAT telescope (purple), infrared data from NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope (orange), and optical data from the SuperCOSMOS Sky Survey (blue) made by the United Kingdom Infrared Telescope.

Credit: X-ray: NASA/CXC/PSU/L.Townsley et al; Optical: UKIRT; Infrared: NASA/JPL-Caltech

Tonight is New Year's Eve. I have, of course, been invited to so many exciting parties (Ha ha!), I couldn't choose from them, so will be staying at home and reading one of the books I got for Christmas.



Tweet from NASA JPL:

Say farewell to 2016 in cosmic style by looking up to see the #NewYearsEve #comet on December 31



Happy New Year. Good wishes to all for 2017.