Forgive my absence gentle readers, I was on a well deserved R & R after the preceding, and life changing, two months (I had some evergreen content timed to go, I thought. But, well, for whatever reason Microsoft won again …). After which I was deemed healthy enough to return to work full time. So, last …
Category Archive: cosmology
Jan 20 2013
Radio wavelengths bring dim nebula into exquisite high resolution
Not long ago this object didn’t even have a name. It was just a dim hazy splotch in most telescopes, if they could see it at all. After being imaged by a high res wide radio telescope array in New Mexico, the one made famous in the movie Contact, it was christened the manatee nebula …
Jan 07 2013
There’s something wrong with the universe
Why deeply religious people aren’t all drawn to cosmology, I have no idea. That’s where some of the answers are. And from that field come a fascinating finding from a team of astronomers, incidentally using software written by the 15 year-old son of one of them:
Nov 28 2012
Ultra massive black hole not easy to explain
Sometimes I dream that, one day, we’ll be studying what we think is a natural object or event in the universe of incomprehensible scope, only to eventually learn it’s a manufactured item. That didn’t happen today! But it is a nice segue to this interesting cosmic tidbit: astronomers have clocked stars in the nucleus of a …
Nov 15 2012
A long time ago in a galaxy far far away …
Some people call a 13.7 billion year old universe ancient, but others think it’s held up nicely and doesn’t look an eon over five billion. Or in Bobby Jindal’s lesser epochs, a day over 5,000 years. But however one mismeasures time, lo those many billennia ago, there was at least one galaxy burning bright, and where there’s one modest-sized super massive black-hole …
Oct 06 2012
Evolution, the Big Bang — LIES from the Pit of Hell!
It probably wouldn’t shock anyone if you heard that some wingnut dufus said that in public. What’s becoming even more disturbingly acceptable is this particular dufus sits on the House Science Committee. Ethan Seigal does the honors:
Jul 29 2012
Cosmos fileld with voracious vampire stars
We know there’s some weird and rare stellar denizens in the cosmic jungle, galaxies hollowe dinto rungs like giant Ferris Wheels, dark matter pockets, pocean planets and diamond worlds. But it turns out one species of misfit may be way more common than thought. Cannibal stars, sometimes referred to as vampires, that suck the life blood out of …
Jun 22 2012
Voyager One: until we meet again
After an epic journey by any standard, Voyager 1 is leaving the solar system, forever. And we stand, collectively, on the cusp of being just barely an interstellar species:
Apr 19 2012
About those rogue planets I’m obsessed with
I’ve posted on rogue planets and nomads and even a few wandering worlds that reach incredible speeds. A new study confirms what common sense would tell us: some of these restless worlds end up in alien solar systems:
Apr 09 2012
New solar system beats our own in planet count
What with Pluto being demoted and exosolar astronomy going gang busters, a solar system with more planets than our own was bound to turn up sooner or later. New data from a near twin of our sun 130 light-years away has come sooner:
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