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Saturday, February 06, 2010

Rice Astronomer Recreates Stellar Jet With Laser Blast Posted by Guy Pirro on 2/6/2010 1:31 PM Rice University Astronomer Patrick Hartigan and a team of laser scientists, physicists, and technicians used the beams at the University of Rochester's Laboratory for Laser Energetics to recreate, on a small scale, the super velocities at work in newborn stars and simulated the fiery jets that burst from their poles. | Read full story | 0 Comments... |

Wednesday, February 03, 2010

Herschel Space Telescope Uncovers Sources of the Cosmic Infrared Background Radiation Posted by Guy Pirro on 2/3/2010 10:27 AM A weak cosmic infrared radiation field that reaches Earth from all directions contains not yet deciphered messages about the evolution of galaxies. Using first observations with the PACS Instrument on board ESA¡¦s Herschel Space Telescope, scientists from the Max Planck Institute for Extraterrestrial Physics and other institutions have for the first time resolved more than half of this radiation into its constituting sources. Observations with Herschel open the road towards understanding the properties of these galaxies, and trace the dusty side of galaxy evolution. | Read full story | 0 Comments... |

Tuesday, January 26, 2010

Close Encounter with Mars Posted by Paul Walsh on 1/26/2010 An antidote to those silly emails about Mars looking bigger than the full moon, this is the real deal... | Read full story | 0 Comments... |

Spirit is Now a Stationary Science Platform Posted by Paul Walsh on 1/26/2010 CAPTION: Spirit's last tracks. This view from Spirit's navigation camera shows tracks left by the rover as it drove backward, dragging its inoperable right-front wheel, to the location where the rover became trapped in soft sand in April 2009. | Read full story | 2 Comments... |

Saturday, January 23, 2010

Why are Galaxies Shaped as They Are? Posted by Guy Pirro on 1/23/2010 4:58 PM For the first time, astronomers have explained the diversity of galaxy shapes seen in the universe. Two scientists from the California Institute of Technology (Caltech) and Embry-Riddle University in Arizona, tracked the evolution of galaxies over thirteen billion years from the early Universe to the present day. The astronomers built a model based on the ‘Lambda Cold Dark Matter’ model of the Universe. To their surprise, their computations reproduced not only the different galaxy shapes but also their relative numbers. | Read full story | 0 Comments... |

Wednesday, January 20, 2010

Shuttle Prices Slashed! Posted by Paul Walsh on 1/20/2010 Break out the colored flags, balloons for the kids, hot dogs for Mom and Dad! NASA can now put you behind the wheel for a mere 28 large (ok, make that very large) | Read full story | 0 Comments... |

Saturday, January 16, 2010

Iowa Astronomers Image a Magnetic Field on a Star Other than Our Sun Posted by Guy Pirro on 1/16/2010 10:00 AM Two University of Iowa astronomers have made the first direct radio image of a stellar coronal loop on a star other than the sun. The image of the was made of the star Algol, a well-known eclipsing binary star in the constellation Perseus. High resolution radio interferometry over a period of six months allowed the researchers to image features that would otherwise have been undetectable. Coronal loops at are associated with sunspots, which in turn, are associated with space weather. This work will help provide scientists with information that may lead to a better understanding of how such phenomena as space weather affect the Earth. | Read full story | 0 Comments... |

Friday, January 08, 2010

Flying Telescope Passes Key Test Posted by Paul Walsh on 1/8/2010 On Dec. 18th, the Stratospheric Observatory for Infrared Astronomy (SOFIA), flew in a modified Boeing 747 at 15,000 feet for one hour and 19 minutes. | Read full story | 2 Comments... |

Tuesday, January 05, 2010

Hubble's Deepest View to Date Unveils Never Before Seen Galaxies Posted by Guy Pirro on 1/5/2010 10:04 PM NASA's Hubble Space Telescope has broken the distance limit for galaxies and uncovered a primordial population of compact and ultra-blue galaxies that have never been seen before. The deeper Hubble looks into space, the farther back in time it looks, because light takes billions of years to cross the observable universe. This makes Hubble a powerful "time machine" that allows astronomers to see galaxies as they were 13 billion years ago, just 600 million to 800 million years after the Big Bang. | Read full story | 5 Comments... |

Monday, January 04, 2010

NASA’s Kepler Space Telescope Bags Its First Five Exoplanets Posted by Guy Pirro on 1/4/2010 9:03 PM NASA's Kepler space telescope, designed to find Earth-size planets in the habitable zone of sun-like stars, has discovered its first five new exoplanets, or planets beyond our solar system. Launched on March 6, 2009, from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida, the Kepler mission continuously and simultaneously observes more than 150,000 stars. Kepler's science instrument, or photometer, already has measured hundreds of possible planet signatures that are being analyzed. | Read full story | 1 Comments... |

Thursday, December 31, 2009

The New Decade Arrives Under a Blue Moon Tonight Posted by Guy Pirro on 12/31/2009 8:07 PM Tonight, New Year's Eve, you should look up because there is going to be a Blue Moon. Will it really be blue? Of course not. But it is still called a Blue Moon. The term “Blue Moon” has had a few different meanings throughout history. However, most commonly nowadays, a Blue Moon is the second full moon in one month. Tonight's moon is the second full moon of December 2009 -- The first one occurred on Dec. 2. So with that little bit of trivia, I wish you all a Happy New Year... and a Happy New Decade. | Read full story | 12 Comments... |