Jul
22
Kip!
Filed Under Astronomy and Space, Heroes of Science and Skepticism, Physics | Leave a Comment
I meant to write about this shortly after the talk so I wouldn’t forget stuff, but of course here I am over two months later trying to remember all the mind-bending (and space-time bending) things he discussed.
Kip gave a lecture at UT back when I was a student (c. 1993?), so that was the last [...]
Jun
13
Okay, maybe I’m finally ready to get this show on the road
Filed Under Astronomy and Space | Leave a Comment
It’s not for a lack of things to write about, that’s for sure! As silly as it is, one of the things that kept me from writing is that I was still trying to come up with a design that I liked. The first one I was using was cool, but I wanted something with [...]
Nov
1
Archive Post: Comet Holmes!
Filed Under Astronomy and Space | Leave a Comment
I have been meaning to post something about this very interesting comet for a week now… better late than never, I guess.
The comet, which usually hangs out in an orbit between Mars and Jupiter, had already made its closest pass by the sun (which wasn’t all that close) and was heading back out, orbiting happily [...]
Oct
4
I was going to say a few things about the 50th anniversary of the launch of Sputnik, but it looks like Phil Plait at Bad Astronomy already wrote a lot of stuff along the lines I was thinking!
Here’s a NASA page (where I took the picture from) about the spacecraft and a Science@NASA page where [...]
May
12
We go from gigantic stars blowing up to finding the one of the oldest stars in the Galaxy! This time it is Anna Frebel, the William J. McDonald Postdoctoral Fellow and her metal poor star HE 1523-0901. Yeah, it isn’t the sexiest name for a star, but that’s not what’s important about it. Since Phil [...]
May
8
Archive Post: Big-Badda-Boom!
Filed Under Astronomy and Space | Leave a Comment
I’ve got to brag on a couple of colleagues who were mentioned in the New York Times today.
From the article:
In a cascade of superlatives that belies the traditional cerebral reserve of their profession, astronomers reported today that they had seen the brightest and most powerful stellar explosion ever recorded.…Astronomers have been following the star since [...]
Feb
14
The above is one of my all-time favorite images from Mars. It’s actually only one of several objects on Mars that are heart-shaped, but for some reason this one reminds me the most of the cartoon hearts we used to draw on the little boxes we made in school for everyone to drop in those [...]
Dec
20
Archive Post: Carl Sagan
Filed Under Astronomy and Space, Heroes of Science and Skepticism | Leave a Comment
Ten years ago, we got the news that Carl Sagan had died of pneumonia, a side effect of his long battle with cancer. It felt almost like I had lost a friend, even though I had only once briefly been within two feet of him and had only been in the same room with [...]
Dec
15
Part of my job is working with a solar telescope and talking about the sun with school kids, so I tend to keep up with solar activity. The sun has a roughly 11-year cycle where it goes from essentially no activity (meaning sunspots, flares, CMEs, etc.) to a bunch of activity and then back down [...]
Dec
13
Archive Post: Amazing Mars
Filed Under Astronomy and Space | Leave a Comment
You know, since I’m in astronomy for a living and there are all kinds of amazing images and discoveries coming in everyday, you’d think I would have been blogging about astronomy more. And since I love science in general, you’d think I’d be blogging about all science more too! Well, hopefully this post will be [...]