From a JPL press release: Astronomers using data from NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope have, for the first time, discovered buckyballs in a solid form in space. Prior to this discovery, the microscopic carbon spheres had been found only in gas form in the cosmos. The new work, led by Prof. Nye Evans of Keele University,
Posted by Universe Today
I'm a little torn about this: the Twitter machine and other social mediums have blown up about this story at Science Express, which claims that the faster-than-light neutrino result from the OPERA collaboration has been explained as a simple glitch: According to sources familiar with the experiment, the 60 nanoseconds discrepancy appears to come from
Posted by Cosmic Variance
Let me start this off by first noting this is an unconfirmed report. We don't have anything solid yet. Keep that in mind, please!Via my pal Kiki Sanford comes news that the results of an experiment showing neutrinos moving faster than light (FTL) may have been due to equipment malfunction. Science Insider is reporting, citing unconfirmed sources, that a GPS had a bad connection to a computer, and this caused the timing for the experiment to be thrown off:According to sources familiar with the ex
Posted by Bad Astronomy
You might think I'm posting this just because of the awesome title above, but in fact it's for a video that's even better. I know!Here's the scoop: after WWII, the US government found they had some extra sodium no one wanted, so they disposed of it. In a lake. Full of water. And by the way, it was ten tons of pure sodium. So yeah, you wanna see this newsreel footage from the event:Holy crap.[UPDATE: By a funny coincidence, I just found out that io9 posted a similar article with 10 videos featurin
Posted by Bad Astronomy
... Tagged: moon, NASA, science, SDO, sun, sunspots,
Posted by Lights in the Dark
Here's a fascinating physics model by computer artist Mark J. Stock, showing the 3-dimensional movements of 1 million bodies, each given their own gravity: One can easily imagine witnessing the birth of galaxies after the Big Bang, millions — even billions — of years passing before your eyes in seconds! It's amazing how quickly a
Posted by Lights in the Dark
This just in: new time-lapses from the ISS, by way of the Image Science & Analysis Lab at Johnson Space Center and The Gateway to Astronaut Photography of Earth. Enjoy! (Descriptions from JSC.) The above sequence of shots was taken February 4, 2012 from 07:55:38 to 08:11:19 GMT, on a pass from the North Pacific
Posted by Lights in the Dark
While winter is not usually thought of as a great time to gaze at the starry heavens, some of the brightest planets are putting on a show not to be missed. Starting off with Venus, you can find the goddess of love dominating the early evenings in the southwest starting right after sunset. Look to…
Posted by Breaking Orbit
In this episode of my live Q&BA chat session, I answered a question about how "gravity slingshots" work. This is the process of using the gravity of a planet to accelerate (or decelerate) space probes so they can more easily get to the inner and outer planets. It turns out gravity is not the only process at work here. This technique is used all the time for spacecraft, and engineers are pretty good about nailing them perfectly, too. Sometimes the probes pass by Earth and take amazing pictures of
Posted by Bad Astronomy
the photo below shows an inflated 30 foot diameter grid sphere balloon satellite, attempted for use by NASA in the 1960s. also, the most awkward soccer match, ever. the idea was to launch the deflated satellite, inflate in orbit and then use as a communications satellite. as the national museum of the US air force describes though, "unfortunately, the closed structure of the inflated balloon satellite was, in time, deformed and pushed out of orbit by the pressure created by the sun's radiation
Posted by astropixie
Named after aÂ12th century Chinese artist, Xiao Zhao is a young 15-mile (24-kilometer) wide crater on Mercury. Its broad, bright rays indicate its youthfulness, as the lighter material ejected by the initial impact has not yet had enough time to grow dark. “Young” is a relative term, of course. On Mercury that can still mean
Posted by Lights in the Dark
... America's Youth to study science and take up careers in the Science, Technology, Engineering and Math (STEM) technical fields, the Obama
Posted by Universe Today
... that the astronomy science fair ideas a tripod. When you are seeing right ..
Posted by My Astronomy Blog
What are all the steps and stages of Felix Baumgartner's record-setting freefall attempt which will take place later this year? This infographic provides a look at what happen during the jump. More info see our article about Baumgartner and the Red Bull Stratos mission, or the Red Bulletin. Alan Boyle's Cosmic log has a different
Posted by Universe Today
…with this stunning time-lapse video by photographer Randy Halverson, set to a dramatic score by Bear McCreary. Amazing! This is four minutes of some of the most breathtaking sky you've ever seen. Shot in South Dakota, Wisconsin, Utah and Colorado during the months of June, September and October 2011, the video is made up of…
Posted by Breaking Orbit
Sometimes astronauts just wanna have fun! The video above was taken during the Apollo 17 mission on December 11, 1972, when astronauts Gene Cernan and Harrison “Jack” Schmitt Âwent off in search of lunar samples during an EVA (short for Extra-Vehicular Activity.) Enjoying the 1/6 gravity, Jack felt the urge to break into song.ÂCan you
Posted by Lights in the Dark
Via Laura Hollis at the Twitter machine, here's an interesting paper by chemist Addy Pross. The author tries to extend the idea of Darwinian natural selection to the realm of inanimate objects. Toward a general theory of evolution: Extending Darwinian theory to inanimate matter Addy Pross Though Darwinian theory dramatically revolutionized biological understanding, its strictly
Posted by Cosmic Variance
Here's a gorgeous new time-lapse video created by the talented Randy Halverson and featuring a dramatic score by composer Bear McCreary, recently of Battlestar Galactica and The Walking Dead fame. (Can't see the video above? Watch in HD here.) Breathtaking! Randy describes the video (from his Vimeo page): What you see is real, but you
Posted by Lights in the Dark
president obama's reaction to this 14 year old's marshmallow cannon is just plain awesome! of course someone make a cute gif of the event and here is the full video:regardless of politics, obama is a nice guy and incredibly enthusiastic around kids. i think that's great.
Posted by astropixie
Europe scored a major space success with today's (Feb. 13) flawless maiden launch of the new Vega rocket from Europe's Spaceport in Kourou, French Guiana. The four stage Vega lifted off on the VV01 flight at 5:00 a. m. EST (10:00 GMT, 11:00 CET, 07:00 local time) from a new launch pad in South America, conducted
Posted by Universe Today
... think I took my PhD at Leicester at almost exactly the right time – if you ignore the catastrophic downturn in education funding. The reason is I've had the opportunity to work with a few people who have been inspiringly innovative in their teaching. Derek Raine introduced me to Problem-Based Learning, when he built
Posted by AlunSalt: Ancient Science and the Science of Ancient Things
This animation, made from images taken by NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory, shows active region 1416 as it rotated into view over the past week, doubling in size as it approached the center of the Sun's disk. According to SpaceWeather. com's Dr. Tony Phillips, AR1416 is magnetically charged in such a way as to be ready to
Posted by Lights in the Dark
Acquired in March 2007, this eerie image from Hubble's Advanced Camera for Surveys's ultraviolet camera show glowing auroral emissions, always present in Jupiter's polar regions. The aurora is hundreds of kilometers wide and about 250 kilometers above the planet. It is caused by electrically charged particles striking atoms in the upper atmosphere from above, the
Posted by Lights in the Dark
... to replace American science instruments and rockets being scrapped. NASA's Fiscal 2013 Budget is due to be announced on Monday, February 13
Posted by Universe Today
Sometimes, the images from the Cassini Saturn probe are so cool it's tempting just to post them and say, "Look at THAT!" See what I mean? [Click to gigantesenate.]But of course, I can't just leave it at that. This image, taken on January 4, 2012, is a bit different than most. Sure, we see Saturn's magnificent rings, nearly edge on from this perspective. And we've seen this icy moon Enceladus many, many times (see Related Posts below for tons more pictures). Look at the bottom of the moon: see th
Posted by Bad Astronomy
... caught this video on Geekologie, and it made me laugh. This is a brilliant idea: a woman put a camera on a hula hoop, and then, well, hula'ed:[WARNING: some folks might feel ill watching this. I will not be blamed if you have to wipe vomit off your keyboard.] [Note: at the end of the video there are links to other videos like it.]I found this fascinating. For one thing, the motion is slower than I would've expected. I suspect that may be due to an illusion when you watch from the outside as a
Posted by Bad Astronomy
How often have you wanted to be a fly on the wall during media interviews of top scientists and engineers? Here's your chance! On Friday, February 10, we'll be having our first live interview via a Google+ Hangout On Air. We've done the weekly Space Hangout for several weeks now and Fraser has done multiple
Posted by Universe Today
... states the particular science ...
Posted by My Astronomy Blog
Thanks to a close encounter with Venus , skywatchers the next few nights get a chance to easily glimpse the 7th planet from the Sun – the green giant Uranus. While the pair of planets will be visible together within the field of view of any standard 7×50 binocular until Feb. 15th, Venus and Uranus will…
Posted by Breaking Orbit
On Jan. 30, the Cassini spacecraft executed a flyby maneuver of Titan, Saturn's largest moon, passing within 19,340 miles (31,130 km) of its surface. This color composite image of the cloud-covered moon was created by combining raw data acquired with Cassini's Imaging Science System (ISS) in red, green, blue and clear color channels. The result
Posted by Lights in the Dark
... continue to believe that “quantum field theory” is a concept that we physicists don't do nearly enough to explain to a wider audience. And I'm not going to do it here! But I will link to other people thinking about how to think about quantum field theory. Over on the Google+, I linked to
Posted by Cosmic Variance
An astronaut once told me that fellow space flier Don Pettit could fix anything with a paper clip. Indeed, Pettit has nicknames like Mr. Wizard and Mr. Fixit, and he is well-known for his Saturday Morning Science videos during his first stay on the International Space Station and his “Zero G Coffee Cup” from a
Posted by Universe Today
... like: science! Yes, science, of which there is plenty to be had during any sporting event. You
Posted by Bad Astronomy
So the buzz is buzzing about Chevy's Super Bowl ad and its tongue-in-cheek portrayal of the aftermath from the 2012 Mayan apocalypse. Of course the message is typical — drive a Chevy truck and survive, drive anything else and perish. Which is cute and of course the production value is high, but the problem is
Posted by Lights in the Dark
Every professional football game begins with the flip of a coin, to determine who gets the ball first. In the case of the Super Bowl, the teams represent the National Football Conference (NFC) or American Football Conference (AFC). Interestingly, the last 14 coin flips have been won by the NFC. Working out the numbers, the
Posted by Cosmic Variance
As spring comes to Mars' north polar latitudes, the added sunlight warms layers of subsurface CO2 ice, which can rapidly sublimate and force its way outwards and upwards. When this occurs along the edges of steep scarps, as seen in the image above, the rapid expansion of the CO2 – literally ‘dry ice' – can
Posted by Lights in the Dark
It seems that finding our Milky Way's twin has become a bit of an industry these days. NASA/ESA have got in on the act today, releasing a press release about their favourite twin of the Milky Way, NGC 1073 and the below absolutely gorgeous Hubble Space Telescope image they've taken of it: Classic Portrait of
Posted by Galaxy Zoo Blog
Jupiter is our solar system's resident behemoth. It's an enormous planet that has more mass than all the others combined, not to mention the largest gravitational and magnetic influence in the solar system (besides the Sun, of coourse.) It's no wonder that it also has the most moons in orbit around it than any of
Posted by Lights in the Dark
An international plan is unfolding that will launch satellites into orbit to study global snowfall precipitation with unprecedented detail. With the upcoming Global Precipitation Measurement (GPM) satellites, for the first time we will know when, where and how much snow falls on Earth, allowing greater understanding of energy cycles and how best to predict extreme
Posted by Universe Today
[Note: Every week I hold a live video chat on Google+ where I answer questions from readers. I call it Q&BA, and when I get a question that stands alone, I'll make it its own video. ] Every now and again, I hear this urban legend that pound for pound, the human body is actually
Posted by Bad Astronomy
Over the years I have pointed out the fallacious arguments of climate change deniers when they attack legitimate climatologists like James Hansen and Michael Mann. This is, of course, like kicking at a bee hive, and whenever I do the comments section of my posts fill with lots of angry buzzing. But now, for what
Posted by Bad Astronomy
See you on the dark side of the Moon*! NASA's GRAIL mission has beamed back its first video of the far side of the moon. The imagery was taken on Jan. 19 by the MoonKAM aboard the mission's “Ebb” spacecraft. GRAIL consists of two identical spacecraft, recently named Ebb and Flow, each of which is
Posted by Lights in the Dark
Over the course of several hundred years – most notably in the 17th and 18th centuries — winter temperatures in western Europe were much lower than normal. Glaciers came much farther south than they had before, and a famous painting shows people ice skating on the Thames river — which hasn't been frozen since. The
Posted by Bad Astronomy
[Note: Every week I hold a live video chat on Google+ where I answer questions from readers. I call it Q&BA, and when I get a question that stands alone, I'll make it its own video. ] A lot of people, it seems, have morbid thoughts about space. Why else would I get asked this
Posted by Bad Astronomy
This guest post is from Anna Han, an undergrad working on the Hubble data from Galaxy Zoo: I attended the AAS Conference in Austin, Texas with the Yale Astronomy and Physics Department to present the results from my research last summer. Many thanks to everyone in the department and Galaxy Zoo who gave me this
Posted by Galaxy Zoo Blog
Well, this is depressing: Fomalhaut b may not exist. Fomalhaut is one of the brightest stars in the sky, and is only about 25 light years away — that's close, on a cosmic scale. It's young, not more than a few hundred million years old, and surrounded by a vast ring of dust, leftover from
Posted by Bad Astronomy
It's huge — 21 miles across! It's bright — magnitude 8. 7, maybe more! And right now it's coming close to Earth — the closest it's come in 37 years! Why haven't they told us about this?!? Well, actually they have. It's asteroid 433 Eros, and on Tuesday it will come within 16. 6 million miles of
Posted by Lights in the Dark
... few years ago, I started doing a weekly video question-and-answer session I called "Q & BA". It was a series of short videos that were a lot of fun to make. Unfortunately, the overhead got to be too high — it took all day to edit them! — and I had to stop. But
Posted by Bad Astronomy
The transcript of the 20th Astronomy Twitter Journal Club meeting is now online at Chirpstory:Âhttp://chirpstory. com/dialog_embed/4028ÂorÂhttp://chirpstory. com/li/4028. You can also download the PDF:ÂTweet transcript archive.
Posted by Astronomy Journal Club
If you have any interest in the history of astronomy you should be following The Renaissance Mathematicus blog and this post, The last great naked eye astronomer, is a perfect example of why. This is a post about Johannes Hevelius who has to be one of the most famous unheard of astronomers ever. That doesn't
Posted by AlunSalt: Ancient Science and the Science of Ancient Things
Photographer Alistair Chapman traveled to Tromso, Norway — 300 km north of the Arctic Circle — to capture video of the aurorae from the recent spate of solar storms. What he caught on camera is remarkable: shimmering, waving, dancing lights moving in real time! [Make sure you set it to 720p; Chapman says higher-def footage
Posted by Bad Astronomy
as a result of a huge solar flare that occurred last week, energetic particles from the sun have shot out all over the solar system causing spectacular auroras on earth! here is the view of the solar flare from NASA'a SOHO satellite. the video includes a bit of explanation, or read phil plait's explanation here. when those electrically charged solar wind particles come barreling toward the us, the earth's magnetic field naturally guides the particles to the north and south magnetic poles, where
Posted by astropixie
I was saddened to receive a message that my friend and colleague, Roman Juszkiewicz, died earlier today. Roman was a Polish cosmologist who began his career in the Russian school, working with Ya. Zeldovich, probably the most eminent Soviet cosmologist and astrophysicist of the 20th Century. Roman himself went on to work in Paris, Berkeley, Geneva, Princeton, and of course back in Poland in both Warsaw and more recently in Zielona Gora, always doing his best to find friends and collaborators in
Posted by Andrew Jaffe: Leaves on the Line
Another update from Alfredo Carpineti: Following the previous post, we continue the analysis of galaxy mergers in the infrared. We want to understand where our galaxies stand with respect to other mergers and other infrared luminous galaxies.ÂUsing infrared radiation we can extrapolate the number of stars produced by a galaxy every year, namely the star
Posted by Galaxy Zoo Blog
NASA's New Horizons spacecraft is currently speeding through the outer solar system toward its July 2015 date with Pluto, when it will take a good close look at the dwarf planet's mysterious surface, atmosphere, moons, and rings? Less than three-quarters the size of our moon, Pluto nevertheless has no shortage of fascinating features. It has
Posted by Lights in the Dark
... have nothing to add to this, except to say it's great, and I saw it because Brian Cox mentioned it on Twitter. Oh yeah: one more thing; watch it in HD and full screen. Coooool.
Posted by Bad Astronomy
... nicely displayed quote by the legendary astronomer edwin hubble:spotted at luminous red nova.
Posted by astropixie
... mother lode of watery science – an
Posted by Universe Today
It's the 2012 version of the “Blue Marble“! Here's an amazing new high-definition portrait of our planet, made by NASA's Suomi NPP satellite launched back on October 28. This is a composite image created from multiple scans taken with the satellite's Visible/Infrared Imager Radiometer Suite (VIIRS). Suomi NPP is the first satellite designed to collect
Posted by Lights in the Dark
About | List of blogs | Leave a comment | Last updated: Thu, 23 Feb 2012 01:04 UTC