Christmas is a special day with a magic of its own. A Christmas eclipse is a great treat and centuries ago a long-awaited comet finally showed up on Christmas day. On the other hand, imagine spending the holidays a quarter of a million miles from home as the crew of Apollo 8 did.

Christmas in the skies

Mona I found that a fascinating article. Masses of info. and I liked the way you tied it together with Issac Newton at the end.

This is a good post. I like the details that you have given.

The star of Bethlehem did not exist in nature. It is a literary star only.

A fascinating article Mona, had not really noticed before just how many astronomy related events took place around Christmas...............and I love that tree.

The Expedition 34, who've recently arrived at the International Space Station, have sent holiday greetings to Earth. You can send your greetings to them, too. Here are the links: Space Station Holiday Greetings

This is an article from last year, which you might enjoy. I enjoyed researching it. It's about some Christmases in space and other Christmas-related astronomy events: Christmas in the Skies.

And did you know that there is a Christmas Tree Cluster? It's about 2600 light years away from us in the constellation Monoceros (the Unicorn).

William Anders took a picture of Earthrise from lunar orbit on Christmas Eve 1968. Apollo 8 was the first manned mission to orbit the Moon. The photo became - and still is - very popular and has been considered one of the most influential environmental images of all time.

Season's Greetings to All

Christmas is a special day with a magic of its own. A Christmas eclipse is a great treat and centuries ago a long-awaited comet finally showed up on Christmas day. On the other hand, imagine spending the holidays a quarter of a million miles from home as the crew of Apollo 8 did.

Christmas in the skies

Many years ago enterprising astronauts made a Christmas tree of cans. Today on the International Space Station the astronauts have a little artificial green tree and each crew member had a Christmas stocking. I don't know what Santa Claus put in the stockings and whether he was confused by the tree and the stockings pointing in different directions. Here is the scene on Christmas Eve with ESA astronaut Samantha Cristoforetti.