Blogs
Blog Archive
Asteroid Telescope First Light
Posted by Bruce Betts on 2013/08/16 03:04 CDT | 4 comments
Using a Shoemaker NEO Grant a new telescope is operating in Illinois to do asteroid tracking.
Book review: Europe to the Stars, by Govert Schilling and Lars Lindberg Christensen
Posted by Emily Lakdawalla on 2013/08/16 11:05 CDT
The world's great telescopes capture stunning photographs of stars, nebulae, and other sky phenomena. In Europe to the Stars, authors Govert Schilling and Lars Lindberg Christensen share many such photos. But the real stars of this book are the great telescopes of the European Southern Observatory.
Goodnight, Herschel Space Observatory
Posted by Jason Davis on 2013/06/18 01:29 CDT | 6 comments
The European Space Agency’s Herschel Space Observatory received its final commands yesterday, having depleted the liquid helium required to make its infrared observations.
Astronomy Enters a New Era
Join us for a live webcast about thrilling new tools that will come online in the next decade.
Posted by Mat Kaplan on 2013/05/26 08:45 CDT | 3 comments
A live conversation about just a few of the powerful new instruments that will revolutionize our knowledge of the cosmos once again.
ALMA Adventure--Complete Interviews With Planetary Radio Guests
Posted by Mat Kaplan on 2013/03/26 12:33 CDT | 6 comments
The extended, mostly unedited recordings of my conversations with many of the people I spoke to at the ALMA Observatory in Chile. Also, the full English translation of Chilean President Sebastian Pinera's speech.
Posted by Emily Lakdawalla on 2013/03/14 02:00 CDT
This week I'll be talking with NEOWISE principal investigator Amy Mainzer about moving objects that the WISE mission has spotted both inside and outside our solar system.
Atacama Diary for March 2, 2013--ALMA Explained
Posted by Mat Kaplan on 2013/03/02 07:00 CST
The second in a series of audio blogs chronicling my trip to the driest spot on Earth, Chile's Atacama desert, to see the inauguration of the ALMA Observatory. Al Wootten and Alison Peck tell the story of ALMA.
Why can Hubble get detailed views of distant galaxies but not of Pluto?
Posted by Emily Lakdawalla on 2013/02/14 12:37 CST | 15 comments
How come Hubble's pictures of galaxies billions of light years away are so beautifully detailed, yet the pictures of Pluto, which is so much closer, are just little blobs? I get asked this question, or variations of it, a lot. Here's an explainer.
Stars, and stars, and stars: pretty pictures from the European Southern Observatory
Posted by Emily Lakdawalla on 2013/01/21 03:39 CST | 4 comments
My solar system chauvinism is well-established, but I am as much a sucker for beautiful astrophotos as the rest of you. Once in a while I get a media advisory from the European Southern Observatory about a new pretty picture posted on their website, and then I inevitably lose an hour following links to one stunner after another.
Crowdsourcing the Andromeda Galaxy
Posted by Jason Davis on 2012/12/11 06:29 CST | 1 comments
Scientists would like your help starting at high-resolution images of the Andromeda Galaxy captured by the Hubble Space Telescope.
Artist's views of a night sky transformed by a galaxy merger
Posted by Emily Lakdawalla on 2012/06/04 12:25 CDT | 2 comments
A measurement of the Andromeda galaxy's proper motion shows it's coming directly at us, and will collide with the Milky Way in 4 billion years. The event will transform the appearance of our night sky.
This is how far human radio broadcasts have reached into the galaxy
Posted by Emily Lakdawalla on 2012/02/24 05:26 CST | 1 comments
There is an ever-expanding bubble announcing Humanity's presence to anyone listening in the Milky Way.
The Scale of the Universe, by Cary and Michael Huang
Posted by Emily Lakdawalla on 2012/02/16 10:14 CST
Cary and Michael Huang present a basic "powers of ten" visualization starting at human scale from which you can scrub downward smaller than quarks or upward to the scale of the entire universe.
NuSTAR telescope to get close look at black holes, supernovae
Posted by Jason Davis on 2012/02/07 02:40 CST
The NuSTAR X-ray telescope will enable scientists to get a much-improved look at black holes and supernovae in both the Milky Way and other galaxies.
A little fun with Deep Impact deep-sky data
Posted by Emily Lakdawalla on 2011/11/14 05:44 CST
Last week, the team put all of the data from Deep Impact's deep-sky imaging session online, and challenged visitors to see what they could make from it. I made some photos of M51, but there were some challenges.
Citizen Science projects for Planetary Science: Get Involved! Do Science!
Posted by Mike Malaska on 2011/05/12 05:13 CDT
Citizen Science projects let volunteers easily contribute to active science programs. They're useful when there is so much data it overwhelms computing algorithms (if they exist) or the scientific research team attempting to process it.
Posted by Emily Lakdawalla on 2011/05/02 11:26 CDT
Space.com has taken advantage of the infinitely scrollable nature of Web pages to produce a really cool infographic on the scales of orbital distances in the solar system.
Congratulations to the WISE team on a beautiful "First Light" photo!
Posted by Emily Lakdawalla on 2010/01/06 12:51 CST
Congratulations are due to the Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer (WISE) team on their lovely "First Light" image, unveiled at the 215th American Astronomical Society meeting.
An Auspicious Week for Astronomy
Posted by Mark Adler on 2009/05/11 11:54 CDT | 1 comments
On Monday, if all goes well, we will launch the Space Shuttle to rejuvenate one the greatest scientific missions launched on or off the Earth: the Hubble Space Telescope.
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