Space

Arp 142: Celestial Bird Takes Flight

Arp 142 looks like the profile of a celestial bird but its imagery shouldn't overlook the fact that close encounters between galaxies are a messy business. The interacting galaxy duo Arp 142 contains the disturbed, star-forming spiral galaxy NGC 2936 ...

Article - News Staff - Jun 21 2013 - 4:30am

Super Moon- Your Semi-Annual Dose Of Apocalypse

A 'Super Moon'- a new or full moon at 90% of its closest perigee- hasn't happened since...well, last year. But it's still cause for concern, according to people who need things to be concerned about. ...

Article - Hank Campbell - Jun 23 2013 - 5:41pm

Concepts For A CubeSat LARP

I am a firm believer that simulations improve reality.  If you want to launch a CubeSat, you should start with a fictional CubeSat, a very small orbiting satellite concept.  After deciding what you'd want to orbit the Earth (or Moon), you move to a 1: ...

Article - Project Calliope - Jun 26 2013 - 12:41pm

NGC 6811 Is The First Star Cluster Found With Transiting Planets

All stars begin their lives in groups, though most, including our Sun, are born in small, benign groups that quickly fell apart. Others form in huge, dense swarms that survive for billions of years as stellar clusters. Within such rich and dense clusters, ...

Article - News Staff - Jun 27 2013 - 9:12am

Spiral Galaxies Like Our Milky Way Much Larger Than Thought

Spiral galaxies like our own Milky Way appear to be much larger and more massive than previously believed, according to new observations made with Hubble's Cosmic Origins Spectrograph. ...

Article - News Staff - Jun 28 2013 - 5:30am

Sorry Vulcan, Kerberos and Styx Know All The Right People

The International Astronomical Union, which declared itself the arbiter of names for the entire universe, is in hot water with "Star Trek" fans. A social media campaign, including endorsements by William Shatner and Leonard Nimoy, put Vulcan at t ...

Blog Post - Hank Campbell - Jul 7 2013 - 7:06pm

Might there be Microbes on the Surface of Mars?

Martian micro-organisms would be of extraordinary interest for the life sciences, especially if interestingly different from Earth life. In the past Mars was much more habitable than it is now, so most of the focus was on past life, and deep habitats beyo ...

Blog Post - Robert Walker - Dec 24 2016 - 11:05am

Coronal Mass Ejection Heads Toward Mercury And Venus

The Solar Impulse airplane, brain-child airplane of Bertrand Piccard and André Borschberg (who co-piloted the entire journey) that can fly day and night without fuel or polluting emissions, has ended its cross-country journey in New York City. Solar Impul ...

Article - News Staff - Jul 7 2013 - 9:53pm

Cosmochemist Says He Has Solution To 136-Year-Old Chondrules Mystery

How did numerous small, glassy spherules become embedded within specimens of the largest class of meteorites, the chondrites? British mineralogist Henry Sorby first described these spherules, called chondrules, in 1877. Sorby suggested that they might be ...

Article - News Staff - Jul 8 2013 - 4:40pm

How Valuable is Pristine Mars for Humanity- Opinion Piece?

One day, perhaps, brave astronauts will set forth to colonize the planet Mars. However human colonies can't be sterilized in the way a rover can be, so they may conflict with the desires of astrobiologists to keep Mars biologically pristine. Would be ...

Blog Post - Robert Walker - Jan 19 2014 - 11:23am