Space

One of my readers (via Facebook) said he loved my blog but still had no idea what I did.  Good point.  While most career scientists hyperspecialize, I've moved among multiple fields of…

Scientists have used a computer simulation to predict what the very early Universe would have appeared like 500 million years after the Big Bang.  The images, produced by scientists at Durham…

The recent video "Barriers to Innovation" has some great thoughts about the culture of NASA and its barriers to innovation. Arriving from a Johnson Space Center study, the 10 minute video is worth a…

I gave a talk on my dissertation work.  Several of the more senior scientists were amazed at the bonafide science it contained.  They'd had me pinned as someone who did 'service work'--…

We had an exciting two hours back when the STEREO solar telescope satellites were first launched. The first summed image of several hours of first-light data showed a clear distortion in one of the…

An unusual spiral galaxy in the Coma galaxy cluster has been imaged using data obtained by the Advanced Camera for Surveys on the Hubble Space Telescope. It reveals fine details of the galaxy, NGC…

I don't drink coffee, and to some degree this has impeded my astronomy career. Coffee is the one social connection even the most isolated theorist engages in. Heck, our wall of 3x3 monitors showing…

COROT has found the smallest terrestrial planet ever detected outside the Solar System. The amazing planet is less than twice the size of Earth and orbits a Sun-like star. Its temperature is so high…

Some stars go ballistic, racing through interstellar space like bullets and tearing through clouds of gas.   Images from NASA's Hubble Space Telescope, taken by Raghvendra Sahai of NASA's Jet…

The Galapagos Islands are an archipelago situated some 1 000 km to the west of Ecuador in the Pacific Ocean.  They were formed by volcanic activity around 10 million years ago. Out of the 19…