If you’re a wonder junkie like me, and not reading Ethan Siegal’s blog, Starts with a Bang!, you’re missing out. This post on why cosmologists think our universe is part of a multiverse is one of the best I’ve ever read. And it was from another of his superb pieces that I swiped the video below the jump showing a binary neutron star system decaying via gravity waves and merging into a single hot, throbbing mass. [Read more…]
Images from a NASA satellite show one of the largest sunspots seen in years and has solar astronomers watching closely for more indications the sun is entering an unusually active phase. One which could potentially have a dramatic effect here on earth: [Read more…]
XCOR's suborbital spaceplane, the Lynx. Click image for company homepage
I’ll have an interview with XCOR’s CEO Jeff Greason this month. But I thought you guys and gals would like to see one of the cool things they’re building, the Lynx, shown above. [Read more…]
A Near Earth Object will live up to its name next week as it grazes the earth-moon system. It won’t hit us, and that’s good. Because this sucker is plenty big enough to do some damage. But it will come close in [Read more…]
Landsat 7 shecmatic, similar to one of the satellites that may have been hacked
Officials have responded to a story leaked from a NASA report last week about a satellite that was hacked, and speculations of Chinese involvement:
Speaking at a news briefing today, China Foreign Ministry spokesman Hong Lei said claims that China was behind the hacks, which occurred in 2007 and 2008, are “untrue.” The spokesman added, according to Reuters, which attended the briefing, that China is “also a victim of hacking attacks and will oppose any form of cybercrime, including hacking.”
This NASA Hubble Space Telescope infrared mosaic image represents the sharpest survey of the Galactic Center to date.
You’re staring straight into the churning heart of our Milky Way galaxy, right through the “teapot” in the constellation Sagittarius, as revealed by infrared light and Mr Hubble’s Space Telescope. Click image for HST homepage. Image description below the fold. [Read more…]
I could smell bullshit the moment this headline popped up in my news stories: Obama Prepares to Blast NASA! What followed was a meandering screed in the Washington Times by Robert Zubrin about unmanned planetary science missions, and the evil ursurper sitting in the Oval Office who was secretly scheming to end it all. I guess it should come as no surprise that Rev Moon’s propaganda rag was fabricating and spreading more wingnut whoppers: [Read more…]
I’m working on better info, but considering the source, this article by Robert Zubrin in the Moonie Times, titled “Obama readies to blast NASA,” has all the hallmarks of a politically motivated hit piece:
The ostensible reason for the administration’s decision to kill planetary exploration and space astronomy is budgetary discipline. Yet while federal spending has grown 40 percent since 2008, NASA’s funding has remained virtually the same. It is not NASA that is bankrupting America, but OMB. If the administration needs to cut budgets, it should start with those of the regulatory agencies that are strangling the nation’s businesses …
This artist's concept illustrates an icy planet-forming disk around a young star called TW Hydrae, located about 175 light-years away in the Hydra, or Sea Serpent, constellation. Courtesy NASA/HSO
The translation of the constellation Hydra is Water Serpent, and astronomers now know the name is strangely appropriate for at least part of the formation. [Read more…]
That’s the buzz apparently. A single astronomer in Mexico reported what sounds like a comet in the process of calving. Assuming his report is accurate, working back from his location on the earth, it turns out the best explanation for why other astronomers didn’t see it would be because the object was less than 5,000 miles away:
Essentially, only certain regions of the Earth lined up with both the sun and the comet fragments — much in the same way that only certain locales are able to view a lunar eclipse. In this case, northern India and southeast Asia are among the only other places where people might have seen what Bonilla witnessed — and they “weren’t exactly astronomy hotspots in 1883.