“Ultimately most music is still made through in-person collaboration, so we want to make it as easy as possible to translate the online relationship to an in-person experience,” says founder Neal Humphrey.

Preparing for the last space shuttle launch, an upcoming lecture by DCist’s very own space correspondent, a win for a local planetarium and rockets in the D.C. sky are all in this week’s Look Up.

Good morning, space fans. I know it’s been awhile since we posted a Look Up column (every winter, space takes a backseat to photography, as you know), but we have a few good bits for you today. Read on for once-in-a-lifetime launch viewing opportunities, how the Japan earthquake permanently altered the Earth, and some debunked space myths.

Washington, D.C. native Alvin Drew was the sixth and last astronaut strapped in a few minutes ago aboard the space shuttle Discovery at Kennedy Space Center in Florida. This is Drew’s second shuttle mission, his first since STS-118 in 2007.

“Erupting into Space” by Michael Benson. An 86-mile-high volcanic plume explodes above the horizon of Jupiter’s moon Io. The plume is erupting over a caldera (volcanic depression), named Pillan Patera, after a South American god of thunder, fire, and volcanoes. Hello again, space readers. Look Up is back from a short hiatus while your DCist Space Editor was out in the field. Let’s start with some events in D.C. before we get to the…

Photo of Shuttle Atlantis the night before launch in November 2009 by Heather Goss.As if you need us to tell you, there’s not a whole lot to look up to see this week unless you want to get slapped around by snowflakes. In the meantime, those of you who still have power and internet can at least do a little remote viewing. Update: Endeavour’s launch was scrubbed this morning due to weather; it’s been…

Photo by philliefan99 We were tempted to recycle last week’s column for this week’s, but instead we’ll just give you a link and say: Geminids! They peak tonight! Of course it’s rainy and gross outside, so the potential of actually seeing any has gotten much, much slimmer, but you can still follow along and see some great photos at #Meteorwatch (like this nice one). It’s also supposed to be a little clearer tomorrow night,…

Photo by Pianoman75. No really, look up! Those are the Leonids streaking through the sky (they began on November 10). This meteor shower often gives one of the best shows of the year, on rare occasions being so spectacular that it surpasses being just a shower and becomes a “meteor storm,” with over 1000 meteors per hour. We won’t get quite that amazing a sight this year, but the debris from comet Tempel-Tuttle should…