Space

When you go to New York City, to Central Park, to the American Museum of Natural History, to the Hayden Planetarium, to a seminar hosted by Neil deGrasse Tyson, on the entire cosmos, you might think…

Doom and gloom types always want to lament that the presence of people is killing the Earth.  Not so, say California Institute of Technology (Caltech) scientists.   At least on a cosmic…

I've often talked about how amateurs still can make contributions in modern astronomy, making us unique among the sciences.  Well, 14-year old Caroline Moore became the youngest person to…

Space explorers have found another mystery. The Shrinking Betelgeuse! This red supergiant in the constellation of Orion appears as a bright star to the naked eye observer. It has been found to be…

At parties, some people are intimidated when I say I'm an astronomer (or, worse, astrophysicist).  They assume I'm a haughty ivory tower genius who laughs at little people like them.  It's…

A recent survey of 'dark' gamma-ray bursts, which are bright in gamma- and X-ray emissions, but have little or no visible light, are giving us a look into the dusty corners of otherwise dust-free…

Space weather can kill astronauts. This is one of the motivations for funding space weather. Solar events-- flares, particle storms, and coronal mass ejections-- can knock out GPS and cell phone…

Mercury, closest planet to the sun, is as hot as you would expect, with daytime temperatures of 800 degrees Fahrenheit/450 degrees Celsius and because of its small size, its gravity is weak, only…

We're somewhat lost in how to meet future carbon footprint goals.  Heck, Germany should have been able to just close a few Soviet-era East German factories and hit their Kyoto protocol targets…

I believe that a scientist looking at nonscientific problems is just as dumb as the next guy.  - Richard Feynman I just read a neat HST result on dark matter on slashdot.org. I also enjoy…