Space

The Highest-Energy Cosmic Rays From Auger

I read with pleasure today a proceedings writeup of the Moriond 2010 talk given by S. Andringa on behalf of the Pierre Auger Observatory. It is too bad that I did not visit La Thuile this year: the venue of the Moriond conferences is always a very pleasant ...

Article - Tommaso Dorigo - May 22 2010 - 12:03pm

The Ribbon- Is The Sun About To Enter A Million-Degree Cloud Of Interstellar Gas?

Is the Sun going to enter a million-degree galactic cloud of interstellar gas? A group of scientists are suggesting that the Ribbon of enhanced emissions of Energetic Neutral Atoms(ENA) discovered last year by the NASA Small Explorer satellite IBEX could b ...

Article - News Staff - May 26 2010 - 1:03pm

STEREO Spacecraft Catches Comet Diving Into The Sun

Scientists from the University of California, Berekley have captured images of a comet diving into the sun. Using instruments aboard NASA's twin STEREO spacecraft, the researchers were able to track the comet as it approached the sun and estimate an a ...

Article - News Staff - May 24 2010 - 5:08pm

SDO Sees Massive Eruption, Scorching Rain On The Sun- Pretty Awesome

Check out these awesome videos from NASA's new Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO).   If you aren't familiar with it, SDO is part of NASA's Living With a Star Program, which should help us understand the Sun's influence on Earth by studyin ...

Article - Hank Campbell - May 25 2010 - 4:50pm

Milky Way Hydrogen Gas Clouds Reveal Details Of Galaxy Evolution

Astronomers studying hydrogen gas clouds found in and above the Milky Way Galaxy have discovered that the clouds have preferred locations in and around the galaxy, a fact which has given astronomers a key clue about galaxy evolution.  Astronomers studied g ...

Article - News Staff - May 26 2010 - 1:12pm

Study Reveals Subsurface Geology Of Mars' Northern Ice Cap

Scientists have reconstructed the formation of a chasm larger than the Grand Canyon and a series of spiral troughs under the northern ice cap of Mars—solving a pair of mysteries dating back four decades while finding new evidence of climate change on Mars. ...

Article - News Staff - May 26 2010 - 1:11pm

Jedi Infiltrate SpaceCamp, Destroy NASA

NASA is dead.  Jedi killed it. Used to be, growing geeks wanted to go to Space Camp.  To fly rockets, to mimic operating a shuttle, to #$^ing be an astronaut.  It was engineering and space heaven.  Based on an idea tossed out by rocket god Wernher von Bra ...

Article - Alex "Sandy" Antunes - May 28 2010 - 4:04pm

Celestial Menagerie In The Large Magellanic Cloud

The Large Magellanic Cloud (LMC), only about 160 000 light-years from our own Milky Way, so very close on a cosmic scale, is one of the closest galaxies to our own Milky Way and in this spectacular new image from the Wide Field Imager (WFI) at ESO’s La Sil ...

Article - News Staff - Jun 5 2010 - 1:01am

Why The Sky Is Falling: Space Weather Communications

GPS will die, sending airplanes crashing and sinking boats.  Cell phones will fail, stranding travelers and resulting in people in remote areas dying due to exposure.  Worse of all, our TV may go out for a few hours. These are some of the doomsday scenario ...

Article - Alex "Sandy" Antunes - Jun 11 2010 - 7:36pm

M51- A New Look In The Whirlpool Galaxy

Galaxy M51, now called the Whirlpool Galaxy, was discovered by Charles Messier in 1773 but its spiral structure was first found by William Parsons in 1845, using his huge (and wonderfully named) reflecting telescope called the Leviathan of Parsonstown.  To ...

Article - News Staff - Jun 13 2010 - 12:12pm