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General Introduction To the Year 2008

What's up in 2008? As Mars will still the object of the attention of its afficionados, keeping being in an observational period -and the 6" limit in apparent diameter reached back by mid-June only, Venus will be a morning star during the first part of the year, and an evening star during the last part of it. Some possible interesting neighbourhoods for the faraway worlds like Uranus or Pluto, might exist, on the other hand. As far as great astronomical events are concerned, 2008, will treat us mostly with a total Moon eclipse, over the Atlantic regions, in February, and with a total solar eclipse on August 1st, occurring over Siberia and a part ofChina. The space, at last, will be routine, with a servicing mission of the Space Shuttle to the Hubble Space Telescope however, and the question pending of to know how the Cassini mission in the Saturnian system will be considered by NASA beyond its limit-date of July 1st