Space

The Daytime Astronomer on... Super Mario Galaxy!?!

The Wii game 'Super Mario Galaxy' is a triumph of inventive game play and a favorite in our family. But oh, the muddled science message is like a bad version of the old "Who's on First" routine. In the game, you collect star bits a ...

Blog Post - Alex "Sandy" Antunes - Mar 10 2009 - 7:50am

Astronomers Start To Make A 3-D History Book Of The Universe

Astronomers have obtained exceptional 3D views of distant galaxies, seen when the Universe was half its current age, by combining the the Hubble Space Telescope’s acute eye and the ESO’s Very Large Telescope to probe the motions of gas in tiny objects. By ...

Article - News Staff - Mar 10 2009 - 5:29pm

Top 10 Sources Of Gamma Rays (We Can See)

A new map combining nearly three months of data from NASA's Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope is giving astronomers an unprecedented look at the high-energy cosmos. To Fermi's "eyes", the universe is ablaze with gamma rays from sources wi ...

Article - News Staff - Mar 11 2009 - 10:49am

Galactic Dust Bunnies Are Not Carbon Free

Researchers have found evidence suggesting that stars rich in carbon complex molecules may form at the center of our Milky Way galaxy- and it helps solve a mystery.   Namely, why have telescopes never detected carbon-rich stars at the center of our galaxy ...

Article - News Staff - Mar 12 2009 - 6:40pm

The Daytime Astronomer on Hacking NASA

Our website got hacked. Astronomy sites are a popular target. It's safer to hack NASA than, say, the NSA. All the bragging but little of the risks. Hacking NASA to get at 'inside stuff' is generally pointless. The whole purpose of NASA is to ...

Blog Post - Alex "Sandy" Antunes - Mar 13 2009 - 8:01am

Arp 261 And Other Peculiar Things

Sometimes different is good.  You may not want a strange cup of coffee when you go to Starbucks and you would like for your car to work the way cars should, but in science the peculiar can teach us a lot.   This was the idea behind Halton Arp’s catalogue o ...

Article - News Staff - Mar 16 2009 - 10:10am

GOCE delayed again and again

Maybe ESA’s Gravity field and steady-state Ocean Circulation Explorer (GOCE) is destined to launch on the exact same date as Vanguard 1, the third artificial satellite to ever orbit our planet after Sputnik and Explorer 1. On March 17th 1958 Vanguard 1 was ...

Blog Post - Bente Lilja Bye - Mar 20 2009 - 7:15am

NGC 6240- Cosmic Train Wreck By Black Holes A Million Times The Mass Of The Sun

Want to see a collision between the cores of two merging galaxies, each powered by a black hole with a  millions of times the mass of the sun? You're in luck.   NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope recently caught that very thing.   The galactic cores ...

Article - News Staff - Mar 16 2009 - 9:23pm

The Value Of Pluto

I'll admit I'm a Plutophile. Whether it's called a planet or not, it's a very interesting place. Yet despite sending New Horizons to visit it (fastest launch ever!), despite the discovery of other Kuiper Belt objects, one facet of Pluto ...

Article - Alex "Sandy" Antunes - Mar 18 2009 - 4:31pm

A Parade Of Saturn's Moons For St. Patrick's Day

The Hubble Space Telescope recently captured a photo sequence of four moons of Saturn passing in front of their parent planet. The moons, from far left to far right, are icy white Enceladus and Dione, the large orange moon Titan, and icy Mimas. Due to the ...

Article - News Staff - Mar 17 2009 - 11:48am