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Is the grand design within our grasp?
More than a decade ago, British physicist Stephen Hawking said there was a 50-50 chance that a unified "theory of everything" would be discovered in 20 years' time. Now Hawking thinks the theory has been found.
Accuracy, Precision and Uncertainty in Data
I recently gave a talk at the Citizen Sky Workshop in San Francisco entitled Accuracy, Precision and Uncertainty in Data. Click that for a PDF of the slides from my talk. Eventually (I think) I’ll be able to link to a video of the talk as well. I welcome questions or discussion about this. I [...]
Commercial crew, EELV, and avoiding repeating history
Many people who are opposed to the administration’s proposal to invest up to $6 billion over the next five years to develop commercial crew transportation capabilities insist that they’re not opposed to the concept of commercial crew, only the approach. If a company develops a commercial crew system on their own dime, they argue, they’d [...]
Video of the Space Station zipping across the Sun
This is pretty cool: back in July 2007, an amateur astronomer made a video of the International Space Station as it passed directly in front of the Sun: Cool! There’s a lot to note here: 1) Most obvious is the speed of the ISS. It orbits the Earth a mere 350 or so kilometers (220 miles) up; I [...]
Comet 103P/Hartley via GRAS
Left image: 120 second image taken with GRAS 05, clear filter. Right image: Stack of 4 120 sec images. So it's been pelting down with rain here. In Australia, when a drought breaks, it BREAKS. With with all the flooding, people hit by lightning, not to mention the 70 Km/hr winds removing the garden furniture, astronomy is off the menu, so to speak. Show More Summary
Grammar Grump
I find myself today worrying about the disappearing ed. The oldest example I know is the infamous “fine toothed comb”. As this venerable expression is often heard and rarely written, most folk find themselves thoughtlessly talking of a “fine tooth comb”. Most days you just let this glide past, and then suddenly you stop your [...]
Just in case you need reminding how nice a place to live Earth is.
When all is said and done, the outer solar system must be a pretty scary place to live. How’d you like to live in a location that has a battle-scarred history like this?
That’s Saturn’s moon Dione as seen in by the space probe Cassini in a recent pass of the small world. Earlier today (September [...]
Lake snake
It’s Caturday! So here’s a snake in a lake.
I was biking to the store past a lake, and there it was. Pretty cool. What I like about this is that it kinda looks like it’s gliding through hazy air.
I also took this picture second as well. This is the same lake where I saw the [...]
Comet 103P/Hartley, a Comet with a Bright Future
In October, Comet 103P/Hartley 2 will be bright. Well, "bright" for a community that thinks anything that can be seen with a telescope of less than 1 meter diameter is bright.
In reality it will be a fuzzy dot readily visible to theShow More Summary
First week of classes done.
I've survived my first week as a real astronomy professor this week, but just barely. Thank goodness for a long weekend. Two weeks ago, I started my new position as an assistant professor at Texas A&M University - Commerce, a part of the A&M system located about 70 miles northeast of Dallas. Show More Summary
Field trips for Labor Day weekend
I'm taking Monday off to mark Labor Day, the unofficial end of summer and... um, just to mark an extra day off. Regular postings will resume on Tuesday. In the meantime, here's an extra helping of food for thought to get you through the long holiday weekend.
Why the N.Z. quake is no Haiti
In January, a 7.0 quake hit Haiti, and 230,000 people died. Today, a 7.0 quake hit New Zealand, and early indications are that it caused relatively few serious casualties. Why the difference?
The main reasons don't have to do so much with the earthquakes themselves.
Hurricane Earl… from space
What does a hurricane look like from orbit? This:
[Click for Corioliciousness.]
Pretty cool. Hurricane Earl was photographed by an astronaut aboard the space station on August 30. Earl is a massive hurricane barraging the east coast of the US. But from this oblique angle the storm bands blur together, giving the massive storm a smooth, almost [...]
Planetary Society Open House on YouTube
by Lu Coffing Perhaps it was an impossible dream: the staff wishing that all of our members and supporters could attend the Planetary Society Open House. If you didn't attend in person -- or even if you did -- we invite you to join us on a virtual tour, a video showcasing our new headquarters and some of our staff. Show More Summary
Rebel without a planet
Y’know, when we were young we all had our rebellious streak. But when planets do it… [Click the image to see the whole thing.]
BTW, "Saturn som ong" translates to "Saturn in its youth". I think. Or possibly "Mynd you, møøse bites Kan be pretty nasti…"
Tip o’ the emo haircut to Torben Thinggaard.
Temporal Gallery
The Royal Observatory Greenwich's Astronomy Photographer of the Year competition 2010 has recently finished, winners chosen and an exhibition of winners will be opening shortly. Over the past few months astronomers have been creating galleries on Flickr showcasing a selection of entries that caught their eye. Show More Summary
Hanny and the Voorwerp
In 2007, a young woman with no prior experience in astronomy made a discovery that led to dozens of astronomers using billions of dollars of equipment to figure out the solution to the mystery. The young woman, named Hanny, and the object — whimsically named the Voorwerp — wound up becoming a fantastic demonstration [...]
Venus, Spica and Mars in a Line
Venus, Spica and Mars shine through the clouds on the evening of September 2, Saturn was covered in cloud by this time, although visible when I started setting up the shot (click to embiggen).
As I type wind and rain are battering the windows of the living room. Show More Summary
Fly over Saturn's icy moons
A couple of weeks ago Paul Schenk posted a few really cool videos to his personal blog. Paul's subspecialty is the topography of icy moons, and he's been doing a lot of work on the moons of Saturn lately. My favorite of the three videos...Show More Summary
Kids prove they're MoonBot masters
Alan Boyle writes: Twenty teams of teen-agers from around the country have put homebrewed lunar rover prototypes through their paces in the MoonBots challenge, a spin-off of the $30 million Google Lunar X Prize program. And the winner is... Team Landroid from New Jersey.
- Hubble Space Telescope
- International Year of Astronomy
- Astronomical Society
- Solar Dynamics Observatory
- Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter
- The Gish Bar Times
- European Southern Observatory
- Kennedy Space Center
- Earth
- NASA
- Next Big Future
- Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer
- President Obama
- Anthony Wesley
- Red Planet
- Steve's Astro Corner
- Great Red Spot
- Christopher Go
- Large Magellanic Cloud
- Stephen Hawking
