Tag: space

NASA Student Launch team in Balboa Park!

Participants in the NASA Student Launch rocket project were greeting visitors to Balboa Park today!

The NASA Student Launch Initiative is a competitive, experimental challenge where student teams design, build and launch rockets, then analyze the results.

The challenge for 2023 is to design a rocket that will reach 5000 feet. The rocket must autonomously receive NASA’s radio frequency transmissions, commanding a maneuverable camera.

The students also get to meet NASA engineers to present their findings!

Team Hydra, from MATHmania Robotics, with members from around Southern California, were in Balboa Park demonstrating how the rockets they’ve designed work. Why? Participants in NASA Student Launch are also tasked with STEM education.

Kids passing by were instantly drawn to the big rockets and were eager to learn all about them!

…

Thanks for visiting Cool San Diego Sights!

I post new blogs pretty often. If you like discovering new things, bookmark coolsandiegosights.com and swing on by occasionally!

I live in downtown San Diego and love to walk around with my camera! You can follow Cool San Diego Sights via Facebook or Twitter!

All People Touch the Earth in Normal Heights!

Thirty-year-old public art in Normal Heights still shines with wisdom and love.

All People Touch the Earth is a 310-foot-long entryway and seating wall north of the Adams Elementary joint-use park, at the corner of School Street and Mansfield Street. It was created in 1992 with the help of over 900 community members, including school children, parents, and staff from John Adams Elementary School.

Hand prints and bits of tile and other objects that were placed in wet concrete accompany wise quotes. All float among the planets of our solar system!

A book is like a garden carried in the pocket.

People who live in glass houses should not throw stones.

Love your neighbor as thyself.

He who travels slowly to his destiny arrives whole.

Good Fortune

The secret of education lies in respecting the pupil.

Locks and keys are not made for honest fingers.

All the sounds of earth are like music.

Music is the universal language of mankind.

Colors speak all languages.

Hitch your wagon to a star.

It is there that our hearts are set. In the expanse of the heavens.

He who seeks to understand the universe understands nothing.

For every person who has ever lived there shines a star.

One can see the universe in a grain of sand.

Live long and prosper.

It takes a whole village to educate a child.

Talk does not cook the rice.

It is good to warm one’s self by another’s fire.

Three years old habit lasts till eighty years old.

…

Thanks for visiting Cool San Diego Sights!

I post new blogs pretty often. If you like discovering new things, bookmark coolsandiegosights.com and swing on by occasionally!

I live in downtown San Diego and love to walk around with my camera! You can follow Cool San Diego Sights via Facebook or Twitter!

The brilliant Stellarium: 100 light-years across!

Do you know the friendly gentleman who plays the didgeridoo in Balboa Park? That’s Mitchell Walker.

He loves astronomy. He’s super creative. He never stops dreaming. That’s how he managed to shrink a volume of space 100 light-years across and fit it inside a plexiglass cube!

Mitchell’s one-of-a-kind, incredible Stellarium shows all of the stars within 50 light-years of the sun, placed in their correct spatial positions. That makes 166 stars in our stellar neighborhood. (Mitchell is now playfully calling his unique cube SITH–Stars in the ‘Hood!)

The colors of his tiny illuminated stars are based on spectral classification: the Morgan-Keenan system. Press a button and you hear a recording made by Mitchell describing his Stellarium.

I first blogged about The Great Stellarium Project over three years ago. You can see a smiling Mitchell and learn more about his brilliant creation here.

Since then modifications have been made to the Stellarium, including a visible ultraviolet light.

Today I heard that more improvements are coming!

During Stars in the Park this evening, Mitchell showed me his detailed plan to have each star light up individually with a touch of a button. That way the position of a particular star can be seen in relation to others and to our sun.

Mitchell starts with a dream. Then he makes it come true.

What are your dreams?

…

Thanks for visiting Cool San Diego Sights!

I post new blogs pretty often. If you like discovering new things, bookmark coolsandiegosights.com and swing on by occasionally!

It’s easy to explore Cool San Diego Sights by using the search box on this website’s sidebar. Or click a tag. There’s a lot of stuff to share and enjoy!

I live in downtown San Diego and love to walk around with my camera! You can follow Cool San Diego Sights via Facebook or Twitter!

The planet Mars vanishes in San Diego!

The planet Mars vanished from San Diego’s night sky early this evening!

Members of the San Diego Astronomy Association had telescopes trained on the Red Planet near the Fleet Science Center in Balboa Park when it disappeared!

But nobody seemed in the least distressed.

That’s because those gazing skyward understood the moon in its orbit around the Earth had begun to pass “over” much more distant Mars, in what is called a lunar occultation of Mars.

Random people walking through Balboa Park came up and were invited to peer through the telescopes. At times the instruments were aimed at the planet Jupiter and its four largest moons that were made plainly visible: Io, Europa, Ganymede and Callisto.

Families and kids looked into space with a sense of wonder. Many then entered the Fleet Science Center to view the monthly planetarium show The Sky Tonight, where we saw the latest jaw-dropping images from the James Webb Space Telescope.

When the presentation ended an hour later, and we all went outside, Mars had returned!

The next image was captured by my small camera a few minutes before the lunar occultation of Mars. I set it on maximum zoom.

You can’t see the moon’s craters, but you can see fuzzy little red Mars!

…

Thanks for visiting Cool San Diego Sights!

I post new blogs pretty often. If you like discovering new things, bookmark coolsandiegosights.com and swing on by occasionally!

It’s easy to explore Cool San Diego Sights by using the search box on this website’s sidebar. Or click a tag. There’s a lot of stuff to share and enjoy!

I live in downtown San Diego and love to walk around with my camera! You can follow Cool San Diego Sights via Facebook or Twitter!

Marvin the Martian rockets through Pacific Beach!

Aliens and extraterrestrials are commonly seen in San Diego.

Take for example, Marvin the Martian. People walking through Pacific Beach often encounter Marvin rocketing through a wall off Mission Boulevard.

Marvin the Martian (or one of his #SpaceClones) has also been spotted in other San Diego neighborhoods, including Little Italy and Normal Heights.

Marvin must have a devious plan to conquer planet Earth–or at least San Diego. Hopefully Bugs Bunny shows up soon.

But I implied many aliens. Well, a house that looks remarkably like a UFO appears to have landed in La Jolla. See it here.

And there are the flying saucers I noticed recently in North Park.

And that space monkey in Mira Mesa!

In El Cajon, highly advanced aliens from distant planets, the Space Brothers, are going to be welcomed with open arms by this interesting group.

Have I ever encountered extraterrestrials? Well, I’m not sure. I definitely saw an Unidentified Flying Something nine years ago, which I photographed here!

It’s almost Friday! Let the fun begin!

…

Thank you for visiting Cool San Diego Sights!

I post new blogs pretty often, so you might want to bookmark coolsandiegosights.com and check back from time to time.

You can explore Cool San Diego Sights by using the search box on this website’s sidebar. Or click a tag! There’s a lot of stuff to share and enjoy!

I live in downtown San Diego and love to walk around with my camera! You can follow Cool San Diego Sights via Facebook or Twitter!

Giant squid attacks flying saucers in North Park!

A giant space squid has attacked several flying saucers on a street in North Park!

Don’t believe me? I offer evidence!

It seems every time I walk around North Park I see some new street art. I saw these newly painted electrical boxes on 30th Street south of University Avenue and I absolutely had to take photos.

Sometimes street art can seem a bit tired, presenting identical styles or themes.

At other times street art can be wildly different and imaginative! Like this!

I see the rampaging space squid emerged from the mind of @DuderDesigns. It was finished a couple of weeks ago!

…

Thank you for visiting Cool San Diego Sights!

I post new blogs pretty often, so you might want to bookmark coolsandiegosights.com and check back from time to time.

You can explore Cool San Diego Sights by using the search box on this website’s sidebar. Or click a tag! There’s a lot of stuff to share and enjoy!

I live in downtown San Diego and love to walk around with my camera! You can follow Cool San Diego Sights via Facebook or Twitter!

How to almost touch the stars.

Stars.

I just finished writing another short story. It’s titled The Highest Seat.

This very small work of fiction concerns stars and how one can almost touch them.

The unusual concept behind the story arose from something a friend mentioned. We were talking during my Sunday visit to Balboa Park.

The story is based a little on truth, and much on imagination. If you’re a dreamer, you might like it.

Read it here!

Map of the Interplanetary Confederation in El Cajon!

Perhaps you remember a past blog post where I shared photos of a UFO mural outside the Unarius Academy of Science in El Cajon. Or another post that included a photo of a large flying saucer on the roof of an unusual automobile that I spotted in Coronado.

Well, during my weekend walk through El Cajon, I paused outside the Unarius New World Teaching Center to read various displays in their windows.

The first thing that caught my attention was their Map of the Interplanetary Confederation, with its 33 planets that form a spiraling vortex emanating from a spiritual sun. And how in 1973 Uriel contacted the leaders of these planets, learning of their Master Plan.

Another display concerned the lost civilization of Atlantis, and the coming arrival of the Space Brothers, advanced scientists who will teach humankind interdimensional physics.

Fascinating, to say the least!

…

I live in downtown San Diego and love to walk around with my camera! You can follow Cool San Diego Sights via Facebook or Twitter!

Stars, constellations and one night in a sidewalk.

Walk along the west side of Highway 101 in Solana Beach, a short distance south of Plaza Street, and your curious eyes might see the night sky in the sidewalk. If you aren’t careful, you might plunge downward into bright stars and constellations!

This public artwork celebrates the City of Solana Beach’s incorporation on July 1, 1986. The star map underfoot shows what one would have seen gazing up into the night sky at a minute past midnight on that date.

I had some fun with these photographs, gradually increasing the contrast. Be careful! You might find yourself tumbling through space!

(Curious about that colorful mural in the distance? It’s titled Myths at Play, and you can see closer photos and learn more about it by clicking here.)

…

I live in downtown San Diego and love to walk around with my camera! You can follow Cool San Diego Sights via Facebook or Twitter!

You can easily explore Cool San Diego Sights by using the search box on my blog’s sidebar. Or click a tag! There are thousands upon thousands of photos for you to enjoy!

Outer space and UFOs seen in El Cajon!

This world is full of wonders.

Approach the corner of South Magnolia Avenue and West Douglas Avenue near the center of El Cajon. Move your eyes about. You’ll find bright stars and see far into outer space.

And if your eyes are really sharp, you might observe a flying saucer entering Earth’s atmosphere!

All this spacey street art happens to be around the Unarius Academy of Science.

What’s that?

According to their website: “In 1954, Cosmic Visionaries Ernest L. and Ruth E. Norman established the Unarius Educational Foundation to provide a higher spiritual understanding of life for the betterment of humankind.”

A sign beside the theater-like UFO mural, which can be found on the Unarius building’s north side, indicates its title is Opening the Cosmic Window.

The sign also explains: “The wall mural depicts the Earth’s future when we will be joined, once again, with the Interplanetary Confederation–32 worlds that live in peace and harmony–and share cultural and scientific knowledge for the betterment of all people…”

Stand at the nearby street corner on a starry night. Maybe–just maybe–a flying saucer will spin down from the mysterious cosmos, which is vast seemingly beyond human comprehension.

Who knows?

UPDATE!

At a later date I photographed another mural on a wall by their parking lot…

IMG_0752z

…

I live in downtown San Diego and love to walk around with my camera! You can follow Cool San Diego Sights via Facebook or Twitter!