Watch the Moon Fly-By LIVE!

(IMAGE: NASA)

NASA spacecraft are approaching the Moon early Tuesday after lifting off on June 18 on the Atlas V rocket from Cape Canaveral, FL. The Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter and the Lunar Crater Observation and Sensing Spacecraft (LCROSS) will make their first pass over the Moon Tuesday, the first time since Lunar Prospector in 1998-1999 that a U.S. probe made a fly-by of the Moon. NASA lists that LCROSS instruments on board include: two near-infrared spectrometers, a visible light spectrometer, two mid-infrared cameras, two near-infrared cameras, a visible camera and a visible radiometer. The spacecraft will orbit about 5590 miles above the Moon's surface today.

Starting at about 8:20 a.m. EDT, NASA will stream this fly-by online live from LCROSS as it takes high-resolution images of the Moon's surface. You can watch the stream live here.

For more on the LCROSS mission, click here.

Tropical Storm Andres in East Pacific

The first tropical storm of the Eastern Pacific hurricane season formed early Monday morning off the Southwest coast of Mexico. The East Pacific hurricane season begins earlier than our Atlantic season, on May 15. However, Tropical Storm Andres is a little late to kick off the Eastern Pacific season this year. This is the latest into the season for the first named storm to form in 40 years. Still, better late than never, right? Although...I'm sure there are a lot of folks on the Western coast of Mexico and Southern Baja hoping Andres merely brushes past them instead of making a direct landfall.

Tropical Storm Andres is expected to strengthen to hurricane status by Tuesday, as the storm continues to move over very warm ocean waters. You can keep up with the latest on Andres here.

As of Monday morning, there is still no tropical cyclone activity in the Atlantic Basin. We have yet to see our first named storm of the 2009 Atlantic Hurricane Season. However, we have at least already had our first tropical depression of the year, Tropical Depression One from May 28-29. You can read a summary of that storm here.
--Carrie

Crunching The Numbers

Today was the Summer Solstice, which is the longest day of the year (14 hours and 45 minutes). This is over five hours longer than on the shortest day of the year (Winter Solstice). I've compiled all the data and put it into table form.

Can you tell today was a quiet weather day? :)