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Environment & Science

Watching the Skies with Brad Klein -- Dec. 25-31: The ‘Cold’ Moon

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LehighValleyNews.com
Watching the skies with Brad Klein

BETHLEHEM, Pa. — Brad Klein reviews the week’s astronomical highlights with Bethlehem’s "Backyard Astronomy Guy," Marty McGuire.

This week will provide the final full moon of 2023 which in December is known as the ‘Cold Moon’.

Marty has a suggestion if you need a last minute present for that special friend: It’s not too late to send your name, or a friend’s, to Jupiter’s moon, Europa.

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NASA’s Message in a Bottle program allows you to send your name into space

“This is free,” according to McGuire, “And your name will actually be etched onto a microchip that rides along on the spacecraft.”

NASA’s Europa Clipper is scheduled to launch in 2024, and won’t arrive at Jupiter’s moon until 2030. But if you visit NASA’s ‘Message in a Bottle’ site [https://europa.nasa.gov/message-in-a-bottle/sign-on/] you can sign up, and print out your own documentation.

And while you’re there, check out ‘ A Poem for Europa’ by U.S. Poet Laureate, Ada Limón.

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Christine Dempsey
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LehighValleyNews.com
Brad Klein, left, and Marty McGuire at the SteelStacks in Bethlehem.