Apollo 8: Opening The Lunar Frontier

On Dec 21, 1968, James Lovell, William Anders and Frank Borman (pictured L-R) embarked on the first human voyage to another world. The Apollo 8 mission marked the first time humans had seen the farside of the Moon, the first launch of the Saturn 5 Moon rocket, and the first time Earth was photographed from space by a human. During the mission, the 3 astronauts traveled farther into space than any human had ever ventured, and perhaps the most important discovery they made was a different view of our own planet Earth. The 'Earthrise' photograph (top) was taken by the Apollo 8 crew on Christmas Eve during its 4th orbit of the Moon. This iconic image would become one of, if not the most influential picture of the 20th Century – showing humans for the first time our home planet from another world, expressing the frailty of our ecosystem and igniting the environmental movement. In essence, Apollo 8 was a game-changer. It capped a tumultuous year for the USA and set the stage for the first Moon landing just 7 months later. With humanity now preparing to again explore our closest celestial neighbor, many lessons from Apollo 8 can be carried forward: the technological advancements, the ability to overcome the fear and risks of the unknown, the importance of humans being a multi-world species, and the realization that sometimes we must travel all the way to the Moon to appreciate how special what we have here on Earth truly is. (Credit: NASA)

One of the most popular and longest-running planetarium shows across the globe is the Star of Bethlehem, also known as the Star of the Magi or the Christmas Star. The show has been running at most planetariums since the 1940s in what has become one of the newer Christmas traditions. The show takes visitors on a trip through time to examine the theories behind the celestial event that prompted the Magi, or Three Kings, to travel to Bethlehem sometime around 1 AD to witness the birth of Jesus. Recent technological developments in astronomy software have assisted scientists in pinpointing the renowned star by recreating the night sky around the time of Jesus' birth. Astronomers present different scenarios ranging from comets to supernova to planetary conjunctions in an attempt to identify the Star of Bethlehem. The most common theory is known as 'Christmas in June,' which places the event in June of the year 2 BC during a conjunction between Jupiter and Venus very near to the star Regulus. The 2 planets were so close they could have appeared as a single bright star from out of nowhere. Astrologically, Jupiter is known as the 'kingly planet' and Regulus the 'king star,' drawing connections to the birth of the 'King of the Jews.' Whatever explanation one chooses to accept – be it divine intervention or the clocklike orbits of our Solar System neighbors, the mystery of the Star of Bethlehem has captured the scientific community and public alike, and is likely to continue for years to come. (Credit: NASA)