.Astronomy begins

As UK astronomy bloggers probably know - because several of them are here - I'm in Cardiff visiting the .Astronomy conference. The conference is great for me because it brings together two areas I'm interested in; astronomy and new media (web stuff). That means plenty of interesting talks covering Galaxy Zoo, the Faulkes Telescope, AstroGrid, the Virtual Observatory and much much more. The talks are available live via ustream for those who can't be here in person. Rob is also twittering with comments and links that are mentioned during the talks.

The first session happened this morning and was about Citizen Science; projects where anyone can take part in doing real science. This morning Chris Lintott announced the imminent launch of Galaxy Zoo 2 to build on the efforts of the 165000 users who have helped sort 900000 galaxies in the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS). Zoo 2 sounds pretty exciting but I was more intrigued by Chris's announcement of a future "Universe Zoo" (or "Zooniverse" - they haven't yet chosen a name) which will allow people to analyse data other than the SDSS. There are some interesting ideas in Universe Zoo including creating a guide book of the Moon using data from NASA's Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter.

You may hear about the goings on over the next few days on Chris Lintott's Universe, Orbiting Frog, the Daily Ack, the e-Astronomer or even here on Astronomy Blog.

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Posted in astro blog by Stuart on Monday 22nd Sep 2008 (14:30 BST) | 2 Comments | Permalink

Comments: .Astronomy begins

Picture a sigularity at the time of the big bang as a ball. All the energy there is,explodes in the creation of Time and Space. Perhaps the outer 4/5 of the "ball" is blown away at trans-light velocity, imparting unbelievable energy and creating great mass to this Exo universe. Leaving the core (anything left at sublight) as our visible universe which obeys the rules of relativity. The Exo universe cannot be seen or measured as it is a differant universe but its gravity pulls on ours causing the acceleration of expansion. Our universe also exerts gravity back against the Exo slowing the velocity of the closest galaxcies to sublight. This causes them to instantly exist in our universe. To just turn on in our reality. Quasars would fit this model since there velocities are extreme, highly energetic and at the edge of our universe. I could go on but, Someone answer me and tell me why this is a foolish idea

Posted by M Grooms on Monday 22nd Sep 2008 (19:53 UTC)

gravatarStuart - dot-astronomy is being great fun, but (a) I still can't get excited about Twitter and (b) Phil Plait's video talk depressed me a bit cos he said ideally one should be blogging 2-3 times a day. Gulp.

I'll let you answer Michael Groom.

Posted by Andy Lawrence on Tuesday 23rd Sep 2008 (20:12 UTC)

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