Blog Profile / Cosmic Log
| URL : | http://cosmiclog.msnbc.msn.com/ | |
|---|---|---|
| Filed Under: | Academics / Astronomy | |
| Posts on Regator: | 2620 | |
| Posts / Week: | 12.9 | |
| Archived Since: | June 30, 2009 | |
Blog Post Archive
Space ventures want your videos
What better way to celebrate the glories of space exploration than to make a video about it? How about making a video about space exploration, and winning a trip for four to one of NASA's space centers? That's the top prize in the "Why Space Matters to the Future" video contest, …
Seeing Comet PanSTARRS is tricky for skywatchers, but it's easy online
By Alan BoyleScience Editor, NBC News
Comet PanSTARRS has proved to be harder to spot in the Northern Hemisphere than some might have expected — but some hardy souls have captured time-lapse videos of the sparkle in the sky.
"Certainly not a 'great co …
Gay? Conservative? High IQ? Your Facebook 'likes' can reveal traits
When you click a "like" button on Facebook, you could be telling the world whether you're gay or straight, liberal or conservative, intelligent or not so much — even if you don't intend to. That's what researchers found when they ran tens of thousands of Facebook prof …
Volunteer crews chase their dreams in a desert Mars
NASA says it could be another 20 years before humans touch down on Mars, but in a sense, the Mars Society has been exploring the red planet for more than a decade — in Utah.
The nonprofit society's Mars Desert Research Station, near Hanksville, Utah, has been hom …
SpaceX's Elon Musk shows off Grasshopper test rocket's latest hop
SpaceX's billionaire founder, Elon Musk, gave attendees at the South by Southwest festival in Texas the first public look at the fourth flight test carried out by his company's reusable self-landing rocket, nicknamed the Grasshopper. This latest "hop," conducted on Thursday at S …
'Marsageddon' comet scenario adds to concerns about space threats
It sounds like an "Armageddon" sequel, set on Mars instead of Earth: A supermassive doomsday comet is heading toward the planet in 2014, and there's nothing anyone can do about it. Not even Bruce Willis. The comet presents a good-news, bad-news situation for the Red Planet, and f …
Snow leopard captured ... on video
Tibetan wildlife photographer Matse Rangja has been tracking snow leopards for eight years, and his efforts have paid off in a video clip that shows the elusive cat sniffing at the hidden camera's lens. Last October, Rangja captured infrared video of snow leopards roaming the 15, …
How to get the most out of Comet PanSTARRS while it's at its peak
You'll be hearing a lot about Comet PanSTARRS, also known as C/2011 L4, now that it's become visible in the Northern Hemisphere — but if you're not properly prepared, the experience can be underwhelming. You have to know where and when to look, and with what. Fortunate …
Radar reveals traces of monstrous Martian flood millions of years ago
A 3-D reconstruction of structures beneath the surface of Mars shows the 600-mile-wide footprint of a mega-flood that carved deep channels into the planet within the past 500 million years, scientists say. Since that time, the evidence of the flood in a region known as Marte Vall …
Russell Crowe's UFO video explained
Did Oscar-winning actor Russell Crowe really capture photos of a UFO outside his office in Australia, passing over Sydney's Royal Botanic Gardens? Or was it just a sailboat passing by? In a series of Twitter updates, Crowe — who won the best-actor Oscar for his role in …
Beyond NASA: Meet the folks who are planning trips to moon and Mars
Selling trips to the moon? Sending astronauts to Mars and back? These sound like 1960s-era science fiction adventures, but they're actually in the works for later this decade. Will these privately backed projects get off the ground? That's the billion-dollar question. The Golden …
Is it THE Higgs boson? Can't say yet
The subatomic particle discovered last year at Europe's Large Hadron Collider is looking more and more like the fabled Higgs boson, the one fundamental piece that's been missing from the theory that governs particle physics. But at a widely anticipated conference in Italy, physi …
Why it's good for SpaceX's private spaceships to rise above the glitches
The commercial SpaceX rocket venture has launched Dragon cargo capsules to the International Space Station three times in the past year, and every time there's been a problem. Should NASA be upset? Not really. The fact that glitches have cropped up — and have been solved, w …
African-American's Y chromosome sparks shift in evolutionary timetable
Scientists say an African-American male's odd genetic signature suggests that the human Y chromosome's lineage goes back further in time than they thought — perhaps due to interbreeding with other populations such as Neanderthals.
"This really upsets a lot of ideas, …
African-American's genetic signature opens up an evolutionary mystery
Scientists say an African-American male's odd genetic signature supports the view that our species is more diverse and goes back farther in time than they thought — perhaps due to interbreeding with other populations such as Neanderthals.
"This really upsets a lot of i …
Locust swarm of biblical proportions strikes Egypt, Israel before Passover
Three weeks before Passover, a plague of locusts is swarming from Egypt to Israel, sparking fears among farmers in the region. The timing of the insect invasion is eerie, because the Bible's Book of Exodus tells of 10 plagues that hit Egypt before Moses and the Jews were allowed …
The outlook brightens for Comet PanSTARRS as sky show shifts
Observers in the Southern Hemisphere have been watching Comet PanSTARRS for weeks, but the Northern Hemisphere is due to get its first looks at one of the year's most eagerly anticipated sky extravaganzas this week. And there's more good news for northerners: The up-and-down exp …
Venus sparkles in views from Saturn
NASA's Cassini spacecraft has sent us eye-filling pictures of the giant planet Saturn, but every so often, the camera also sees the small fry of the solar system — such as Venus, which shines in the latest offerings from the Cassini imaging team. One of the photos, cap …
Space station crew brings SpaceX's Dragon cargo craft in for a hookup
Astronauts used the International Space Station's robotic arm to grab SpaceX's Dragon capsule on Sunday after the unmanned spacecraft made a dramatic recovery in orbit. The grapple operation reached its successful climax an hour ahead of schedule, proving that the unmanned c …
Space station's crew makes a smooth grab for SpaceX's Dragon cargo craft
SpaceX's commercial Dragon cargo ship made a flawless approach to the International Space Station on Sunday, proving that the unmanned capsule had fully recovered from a post-launch glitch that affected its propulsion system.
NASA and California-based SpaceX decided to go ah …