Featured Posts
Space Fellowship
11 Jun 2010, 09:43 UTC
Expedition 24 Flight Engineer Tracy Caldwell Dyson talked to the ESPN2 network Thursday on the eve of the World Cup opening matches in Johannesburg, South Africa. She also talked with students at the Cradle of Aviation Museum in Garden City, N.Y. Caldwell Dyson talked about her perspective of Earth from space and discussed living and working on the International Space Station. Commander Alexander Skvortsov and Flight Engineer Mikhail Kornienko continued their science and maintenanc [...]
Crew Awaits New Members; Caldwell Dyson Conducts Interviews
11 Jun 2010, 09:43 UTC
Expedition 24 Flight Engineer Tracy Caldwell Dyson talked to the ESPN2 network Thursday on the eve of the World Cup opening matches in Johannesburg, South Africa. She also talked with students at the Cradle of Aviation Museum in Garden City, N.Y. Caldwell Dyson talked about her perspective of Earth from space and discussed living and working on the International Space Station. Commander Alexander Skvortsov and Flight Engineer Mikhail Kornienko continued their science and maintenanc [...]
The Discovery Enterprise
11 Jun 2010, 07:05 UTC
Today on Discovery Enterprise we present a grand debate between SETI@Home founder Dan Werthimer and planet-hunter and skeptic, Geoff Marcy concerning whether or not sentience and technological civilizations are prevalent in the Milky Way Galaxy and the rest of the Cosmos. Science Fiction portrays our Milky Way Galaxy as teeming with advanced civilizations engaged in interstellar communication,
SETI: The Great Debate – Are We Alone?
11 Jun 2010, 07:05 UTC
Today on Discovery Enterprise we present a grand debate between SETI@Home founder Dan Werthimer and planet-hunter and skeptic, Geoff Marcy concerning whether or not sentience and technological civilizations are prevalent in the Milky Way Galaxy and the rest of the Cosmos. Science Fiction portrays our Milky Way Galaxy as teeming with advanced civilizations engaged in interstellar communication,
Parabolic Arc
11 Jun 2010, 04:54 UTC
Constellation's Congressional supporters are not amused by the Obama Administration's latest effort to kill the program. As you might have expected, the Obama Administration’s decision to invoke the Anti-Deficiency Act in order to shut down the Constellation program has not gone over real well with Congressional supporters of NASA’s human spaceflight effort. I’ll let the senior Senator from the Lone Star State explain it all: Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison (R-Texas), Ranking Member of the Senate Commerce, Science, and Transportation Committee, today said NASA leadership was skirting the law to shut down the Constellation program after NASA leadership publicly announced a decision to reprioritize work on the program. NASA’s stated justification for these actions is the Anti-Deficiency Act (ADA), which prohibits spending funds beyond levels that are appropriated in a given year, or obligating the government to pay money before funds have been appropriated. There are a number of unanswered questions on whether the ADA would apply in this situation, and if it did, the recently passed Defense Supplemental legislation clarifies that regardless of any provision of law, work must continue on the Constellation program. (...)Read the rest of Constellation’s Congressional Supporters Not Amused By Obama’s Latest Attempt to Kill the ...
Constellation’s Congressional Supporters Not Amused By Obama’s Latest Attempt to Kill the Program
11 Jun 2010, 04:54 UTC
Constellation's Congressional supporters are not amused by the Obama Administration's latest effort to kill the program. As you might have expected, the Obama Administration’s decision to invoke the Anti-Deficiency Act in order to shut down the Constellation program has not gone over real well with Congressional supporters of NASA’s human spaceflight effort. I’ll let the senior Senator from the Lone Star State explain it all: Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison (R-Texas), Ranking Member of the Senate Commerce, Science, and Transportation Committee, today said NASA leadership was skirting the law to shut down the Constellation program after NASA leadership publicly announced a decision to reprioritize work on the program. NASA’s stated justification for these actions is the Anti-Deficiency Act (ADA), which prohibits spending funds beyond levels that are appropriated in a given year, or obligating the government to pay money before funds have been appropriated. There are a number of unanswered questions on whether the ADA would apply in this situation, and if it did, the recently passed Defense Supplemental legislation clarifies that regardless of any provision of law, work must continue on the Constellation program. (...)Read the rest of Constellation’s Congressional Supporters Not Amused By Obama’s Latest Attempt to Kill the ...
Cosmic Log
11 Jun 2010, 01:03 UTC
As a night of observations gives way to daybreak, a full moon falls toward the horizon at the European Southern Observatory's Paranal Observatory in Chile's Atacama Desert, one of the driest places on Earth. Gordon Gillet / ESOA full moon sets over the Very Large Telescope at the European Southern Observatory's Paranal Observatory in Chile. As a night of observations gives way to daybreak, a full moon falls toward the horizon at the European Southern Observatory's Paranal Observatory in Chile's Atacama Desert, one of the driest places on Earth. The four main units of the Very Large Telescope array - Antu, Kueyen, Melipal and Yepun - stand sentry on a plateau like glittering gods. ESO staff member Gordon Gillet captured the scene from 9 miles (14 kilometers) away, while on the road to nearby Cerro Amazones, the peak chosen as the site for the future European Extremely Large Telescope. "Contrary to what one may think, this picture is no montage," the ESO explains in its "Picture of the Week" advisory. "The moon appears large because it is seen close to the horizon, and our perception is deceived by the proximity of references on the ground. In order to get this ...
Moonset over the telescopes
11 Jun 2010, 01:03 UTC
As a night of observations gives way to daybreak, a full moon falls toward the horizon at the European Southern Observatory's Paranal Observatory in Chile's Atacama Desert, one of the driest places on Earth. Gordon Gillet / ESOA full moon sets over the Very Large Telescope at the European Southern Observatory's Paranal Observatory in Chile. As a night of observations gives way to daybreak, a full moon falls toward the horizon at the European Southern Observatory's Paranal Observatory in Chile's Atacama Desert, one of the driest places on Earth. The four main units of the Very Large Telescope array - Antu, Kueyen, Melipal and Yepun - stand sentry on a plateau like glittering gods. ESO staff member Gordon Gillet captured the scene from 9 miles (14 kilometers) away, while on the road to nearby Cerro Amazones, the peak chosen as the site for the future European Extremely Large Telescope. "Contrary to what one may think, this picture is no montage," the ESO explains in its "Picture of the Week" advisory. "The moon appears large because it is seen close to the horizon, and our perception is deceived by the proximity of references on the ground. In order to get this ...
Discovery News - Space News
10 Jun 2010, 21:23 UTC
Big news emerged last week from the OPERA experiment at Gran Sasso National Laboratory: researchers there made the first direct observation of one of the rarest events in high-energy physics: a specific kind of neutrino oscillation, in which one type ...
OPERA Finds a Tau Neutrino
10 Jun 2010, 21:23 UTC
Big news emerged last week from the OPERA experiment at Gran Sasso National Laboratory: researchers there made the first direct observation of one of the rarest events in high-energy physics: a specific kind of neutrino oscillation, in which one type ...
Cosmic Visions
10 Jun 2010, 20:48 UTC
Today on Cosmic Visions we present an episode of the National Geographic Channel’s outstanding documentary series “The Known Universe” that deals with two endeavours very dear to our hearts, the exploration and eventual settlement of the new frontiers of sea and space. These are the main goals of the organization we are closely associated with – The League of New Worlds. The League of the New Worlds, founded in September of 1989, intends to establish a permanent human presence in the oceans. In so doing, we will engineer the habitats, procedures and processes for the space frontier. This formal engineering process is called: Space-Ocean Analogs.Our all volunteer staff of engineers, ocean and space scientists, scientists, aquanauts, students and others all seek the same goal - to build the new outposts, colonies and cities of the New Worlds.If you are interested in discovering more about us and our program, please follow the link below. We also invite you to join us in our quest, either as an active volunteer on one of our expeditions or as a contributing member by lending your support to our Oceans 911 funding drive to establish to an intelligent ecological monitoring platform (which now does not ...
The Known Universe - Final Frontiers
10 Jun 2010, 20:48 UTC
Today on Cosmic Visions we present an episode of the National Geographic Channel’s outstanding documentary series “The Known Universe” that deals with two endeavours very dear to our hearts, the exploration and eventual settlement of the new frontiers of sea and space. These are the main goals of the organization we are closely associated with – The League of New Worlds. The League of the New Worlds, founded in September of 1989, intends to establish a permanent human presence in the oceans. In so doing, we will engineer the habitats, procedures and processes for the space frontier. This formal engineering process is called: Space-Ocean Analogs.Our all volunteer staff of engineers, ocean and space scientists, scientists, aquanauts, students and others all seek the same goal - to build the new outposts, colonies and cities of the New Worlds.If you are interested in discovering more about us and our program, please follow the link below. We also invite you to join us in our quest, either as an active volunteer on one of our expeditions or as a contributing member by lending your support to our Oceans 911 funding drive to establish to an intelligent ecological monitoring platform (which now does not ...
The Planetary Society Blog
10 Jun 2010, 18:33 UTC
Carbonate rocks should be all over Mars. Mars' atmosphere is mostly carbon dioxide, and there is clear evidence for past water acting to modify its surface. If you have liquid water under an atmosphere of carbon dioxide it's actually kind of hard, chemically speaking, not to make carbonate rocks. But it's been hard to find carbonates, surprisingly so. It's not that they're totally absent; they make up a couple of percent of the weight of ....
Big hunks of carbonate rock on Mars at last
10 Jun 2010, 18:33 UTC
Carbonate rocks should be all over Mars. Mars' atmosphere is mostly carbon dioxide, and there is clear evidence for past water acting to modify its surface. If you have liquid water under an atmosphere of carbon dioxide it's actually kind of hard, chemically speaking, not to make carbonate rocks. But it's been hard to find carbonates, surprisingly so. It's not that they're totally absent; they make up a couple of percent of the weight of ....
Bad Astronomy
10 Jun 2010, 18:00 UTC
This is extremely cool news: astronomers have, for the first time, directly seen an exoplanet orbiting its star from one side to the other! Here’s the incredible picture: This makes me happy scientifically, of course, but also for personal reasons. Let me tell you a story. Two, in fact… 1) [Story the First] Beta Pic: the star, the planet, the disk The star in question is Beta Pictoris (or just Beta Pic to its friends), a very young star — it’s only a few million years old, compared to the Sun’s advanced age of 4.56 billion — with about twice the Sun’s mass and 9 times its brightness. As stars go, Beta Pix is pretty close, just 63 light years away, and is easily bright enough to be seen with the unaided eye from the southern hemisphere. In the above picture, taken using one of the European Southern Observatory’s ginormous 8.2 meter units of the Very Large Telescope, Beta Pic is represented by the dot in the center. The star is so bright its light swamps everything around it, so the star itself has been blocked by a piece of metal inside the camera that took the shot (that’s the ...
Astronomers see exoplanet orbiting its parent star!
10 Jun 2010, 18:00 UTC
This is extremely cool news: astronomers have, for the first time, directly seen an exoplanet orbiting its star from one side to the other! Here’s the incredible picture: This makes me happy scientifically, of course, but also for personal reasons. Let me tell you a story. Two, in fact… 1) [Story the First] Beta Pic: the star, the planet, the disk The star in question is Beta Pictoris (or just Beta Pic to its friends), a very young star — it’s only a few million years old, compared to the Sun’s advanced age of 4.56 billion — with about twice the Sun’s mass and 9 times its brightness. As stars go, Beta Pix is pretty close, just 63 light years away, and is easily bright enough to be seen with the unaided eye from the southern hemisphere. In the above picture, taken using one of the European Southern Observatory’s ginormous 8.2 meter units of the Very Large Telescope, Beta Pic is represented by the dot in the center. The star is so bright its light swamps everything around it, so the star itself has been blocked by a piece of metal inside the camera that took the shot (that’s the ...
Astrocast.TV Blog
10 Jun 2010, 17:02 UTC
The International Geophysical Year (IGY) in 1957-1958 contributed to the kick-off of the space race and gave birth to space geodesy. Both rather remarkable achievements. The grand finale of the International Polar Year 2007-2009 is taking place in Norway at the IPY Oslo Science Conference, and I am looking for indicators of a similar spectacular overall result as the IGY legacy. Again I am leaning towards the space segment, for a number of reasons not all of which are obvious. The obvious being the facts that I am producing A Green Space – A Green Earth and being an astrophysicist. The conference program is divided into 6 themes covering the whole range of IPY activities. Theme 1. Linkages between Polar Regions and global systems Theme 2. Past, present and future changes in Polar Regions Theme 3. Polar ecosystems and biodiversity Theme 4. Human dimensions of change: Health, society and resources Theme 5. New frontiers, data practices and directions in polar research Theme 6. Polar science education, outreach and communication In Theme 5. New frontiers, data practices and directions in polar research you find the contributions from satellites (Space for polar science) along other new observation networks and capacity developments as ...
Polar Space – Towards a Virtual Polar Satellite Constellation
10 Jun 2010, 17:02 UTC
The International Geophysical Year (IGY) in 1957-1958 contributed to the kick-off of the space race and gave birth to space geodesy. Both rather remarkable achievements. The grand finale of the International Polar Year 2007-2009 is taking place in Norway at the IPY Oslo Science Conference, and I am looking for indicators of a similar spectacular overall result as the IGY legacy. Again I am leaning towards the space segment, for a number of reasons not all of which are obvious. The obvious being the facts that I am producing A Green Space – A Green Earth and being an astrophysicist. The conference program is divided into 6 themes covering the whole range of IPY activities. Theme 1. Linkages between Polar Regions and global systems Theme 2. Past, present and future changes in Polar Regions Theme 3. Polar ecosystems and biodiversity Theme 4. Human dimensions of change: Health, society and resources Theme 5. New frontiers, data practices and directions in polar research Theme 6. Polar science education, outreach and communication In Theme 5. New frontiers, data practices and directions in polar research you find the contributions from satellites (Space for polar science) along other new observation networks and capacity developments as ...
IYA2009 Updates
10 Jun 2010, 16:06 UTC
Jacob Zuma says the World Cup can score an economic goal for his country, but a collection of international astronomers meeting in his backyard have a starry-eyed yet down-to-earth suggestion for the developing world. Read more: http://www.miller-mccune.com/science/developing-worlds-scientific-literacy-may-lie-in-its-stars-17283/
