Have you noticed? Tom’s Astronomy Blog has another contributor, Marian has joined the site and she has been busy!
I am sooooo pleased with the addition and her fresh writing style.
While this post is a little after the fact, please join me in welcoming Marian aboard!
By the way, I found out yesterday that viewing the blog [...]
Cataloged by Jet Propulsion Lab of the United States National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) under Photo ID: PIA02855.
Welcome to Jupiter, as seen by the Voyager I probe in 1979. Voyager took one image of Jupiter every day from January 6 to February 3, 1979 as it approached the planet. The small, round dark spots [...]
It seems that few people noticed that my site was unavailable over the past week. Perhaps you did and just assumed it was a minor glitch. In a way it was but as well as the website not responding, no email was getting through. Although that made for a refreshingly quiet inbox, some time was spent trying to work out what was causing the problem. It turned out that my domain name had expired but I hadn't had a reminder about it from my (now previous) name registering company. With my bank's latest security 'improvements' I was unable to pay for a renewal until I returned to the UK yesterday. I'm surprised that the DNS type stuff all seems to have updated quite quickly and I'm thankful that nobody took my domain name away during the gap.Thanks to the four people that spotted my website problems and to my current host for sorting out the domain name renewal for me. - taken from Astronomy Blog (www.strudel.org.uk/blog/astro/)
PhysOrg: Holograms you can feel (via GeekPress)
Cracked: 7 acts of nature that science can't explain
Wired: DNA may help build next-gen computer chips
Onion: Author attributes every mystery to 'quantum flux' ...(read more)
Spaceflight Now: U.S.-Russian venture plans orbital flights in 2013
Technology Review: Nuke technologies tested for moon and Mars
N.Y. Times: Scientists say DNA evidence can be faked
Seed Magazine: Opera in the fifth dimension ...(read more)
August 25th Cassini will complete a Titan flyby at 970km (603mi) above the moon’s surface. Cassini will pass over the Huygens landing site.
Credit: NASA/JPL/Space Science Institute,
Titan is the second largest moon in the solar system, after Jupiter’s Ganymede. Often called the planet-like moon, Titan is the only moon known to have a dense atmosphere, and [...]
A reflection nebula in simple terms is light being reflected off a dust cloud from a nearby star so it appears similar to the nebula formed when a star (like our sun) at the end of its life. There is also a nebula called an emission nebula when a cloud of gas is ionized [...]
National Geographic: Plugging into the sun
Habitation Intention: Carnival of Space 116
Scientific American: The origins of everything
The Space Review: Why Mars missions are so hard ..(read more)As solved by Carl Sagan in Cosmos.
Source
The MRO took this exquisite picture of Victoria crater on Mars using the HiRISE camera.
You can click the image above for a full res version, it’s nearly 2 MB, so if you are on dial up it will take some time, BUT the time is worth it. The image as some amazing detail including [...]
Degas, Mariner 10, The Nine (8) Planets, Bill Arnett
http://www.nineplanets.org/
It’s that time again! On September 29, 2009, Messenger will make it’s 3rd Mercury flyby, having traveled more than 3.5 billion miles in over five years. The planned flyby on the 29th will be Messenger’s 6th planetary flyby; two of Venus, two of Mercury, and one of [...]
The Economist: Black-sky thinking
BBC: Science questions baffle parents
PhysOrg: What's killing bees? Many things...
Guardian: How leaves could power the planet
'Nova' on PBS: 'Hunting the Hidden Dimension'
The New Yorker: A guide to summer sun protection ...(read more)
The Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter took this image of a dust devil from above. If you ask me, it’s pretty nice job by the ground team to pick it out.
This was one of first of the pictures returned after the orbiter was brought out of safe mode after four days, when it unexpectedly switched to its [...]
Wow! Check out this view from the LRO of of the crater Tsiolkovskiy located on the far side of the moon.
No, contrary to a some what common belief, the far side of the moon is not always shrouded in darkness.
Here’s the LRO caption:
The farside crater Tsiolkovskiy is one of the most spectacular and unique [...]Astronomy Blog You are : in Astronomy Blog archive Jupiter's Impact An astronomy blog usually but not always based in the UK . Pondering questions such as Is it a space probe or spacecraft Jupiter's Impact On 19th July , amongst all the Apollo 11 anniversary celebrations , amateur astronomer Anthony Wesley from Murrumbateman , Australia imaged a dark patch in the atmosphere of Jupiter On Twitter there was discussion as to whether this might be the impact site of a small comet or asteroid or simply Jovian weather Within a couple of days , astronomers using the NASA Infrared Telescope Facility on the summit of Mauna Kea , had taken infrared images which provided good evidence towards the impact hypothesis . On Wednesday , Gemini North imaged the glowing bruise' in the mid-infrared showing that the spot was much warmer than its surroundings in the upper . atmosphere Closeup view of the new dark spot on Jupiter taken with Hubbles Wide Field Camera 3 on 23 July 2009. : CREDIT NASA , ESA , and H . Hammel Space Science Institute , Boulder , Colorado and the Jupiter Comet Impact Team By Thursday , the Hubble Space Telescope had interrupted the checkout and calibration period following the
I've mentioned my astronomy name lookup service before. It builds on the excellent services of Simbad, NED, SkyBot, Wikisky et al. This evening I hacked together a widget for LookUP. It is now possible to include a search box on your own website and for a user to get results without leaving your site. This is code I hacked together so it may not work (I only tested it in Firefox 3.0.11 on linux). In that respect I have a request dear reader. If you don't mind playing with 'alpha' code, it would be great if you could give it a try and let me know what works and what doesn't. If you can write improvements for it, even better! - taken from Astronomy Blog (www.strudel.org.uk/blog/astro/)
I have the cover feature of July’s Sky At Night Magazine with an article entitled ‘Return to the Moon’, about NASA’s Constellation programme and the plans to send astronauts back to the Moon. In the feature I look at the how the programme is progressing, the various stages in a Constellation lunar mission, as well [...]