Articles in the Category: Astronomy
NASA Probe to Explore Jupiter
When the Juno spacecraft blasts off this August, it will embark on a mission to understand the origin and evolution of our largest planetary neighbor, Jupiter.
Scientists believe that Jupiter and the sun may be formed by the same heavy elements. So NASA is sending a solar-powered probe to determine...
Posted by Michael Bradbury in Astronomy, Backyard Science, Citizen science, SciArt, Scientainment, Space, Video on 05 12th, 2011 | 1 Comment
Shooting Stars
Seattle marketing director Nick Risinger quit his job to travel the world in search of the perfect picture of the night sky. The 29-year-old amateur astronomer took a year and traveled from the southwestern U.S. to South Africa, taking thousands of digital color photos of all billions of stars in both...
Posted by Michael Bradbury in Astrobiology, Astronomy, Podcast, Space, Video on 04 5th, 2011 | No Comments
Curiosity Joins Opportunity and Spirit on Mars
NASA engineers in California are working around the clock to put the finishing touches on the new Mars mega-rover before shipping it off to Florida for launch later this year. Wearing his clean suit, AP’s John Mone got an inside look at the vehicle named Curiosity.
After launch to the red planet...
Posted by Michael Bradbury in Astronomy, Discoveries, Physics and Chemistry, Podcast, Space, Video on 03 31st, 2011 | No Comments
Mercury Comes into View
After a six-and-a-half-year and 93-million-mile journey the Messenger spacecraft has reached its target — Mercury, the planet closest to the sun.
After a tricky maneuver to use gravitational force to enter into the fast-spinning orbit of Mercury the probe began sending back the clearest and closest...
NASAs Valentine’s Day Fling with a Comet
Scientists say they have seen evidence of a manmade crater in images of comet Tempel 1 taken during a Valentine’s Day flyby. The crater was created by another NASA craft that visited Tempel 1 in 2005. Scientists found signs of scarring left by the Deep Impact mission.
This is the second time NASA...
Posted by Michael Bradbury in Astronomy, Computer Science, Engineering, Space, Video on 02 8th, 2011 | No Comments
CubeSats to Fill the Sky
What weighs less than three pounds, fits into a shoe box and can fly around the Earth? The answer is, a CubeSat. These are the newest generation of satellites that will help NASA conduct educational and science missions in low-Earth orbit.
NASA has selected 20 of these nanosatellites to fly as auxiliary...
The Sun Comes into Full View
During winter most people feel lucky to see the sun. But even when it’s out and blazing across a crisp landscape we are only seeing the half that is pointed toward Earth. Even with high-powered, Earth-based telescopes we only see half of our star’s story at a given time.
Now for the first...
NASA Finds New Planets
An orbiting NASA telescope is finding whole new worlds of possibilities in the search for alien life, spotting more than 50 potential planets that appear to be in the habitable zone.
One star has at least six planets orbiting it in what astronomers say is the most densely packed cluster of planets they...
Posted by Michael Bradbury in Astronomy, Backyard Science, Physics and Chemistry, Space, Video on 01 25th, 2011 | No Comments
Northern Lights Forecast is Bright
The Aurora Borealis is a cosmological phenomenon that originates 93 million miles away — on the sun. When solar winds carrying plasma come into contact with Earth’s magnetic shield a spectacular light show becomes visible.
Generally best seen in the higher latitudes of the U.S. and Canada...
Posted by Michael Bradbury in Astronomy, Discoveries, Physics and Chemistry, SciArt, Space, Video on 01 24th, 2011 | No Comments
New Mexico Star Retires to Smithsonian
Call it the astronomer helper. Since 1998, the giant digital camera that has been the heart of the Sloan Digital Sky Survey has done many things. It has helped identify over half a billion new astronomical objects to study. Now the camera that captured the largest color image of sky is ready to retire.
That...
Cross Star Lovers Battle over 13th Sign
News that the stars have shifted alignment, astrologically speaking, is leaving Horoscope readers atwitter. Many are hearing that their sign might have changed and there is even a neglected 13th constellation. This is not news, however. Astronomers (and anyone who has taken an astronomy class) will...
Posted by Michael Bradbury in Astronomy, Backyard Science, Space, Video on 01 13th, 2011 | No Comments
Meteor Flash Scares Southern States
Although it may have looked impressive to people in Arkansas, scientists say that Tuesday’s meteor sighting wasn’t anything out of the ordinary. A bright flash of light in the night sky panicked people in seven southern states, from Oklahoma to Florida. They all reported seeing a bright...
Posted by Michael Bradbury in Astronomy, Discoveries, Featured Articles, Physics and Chemistry, Space, Video on 01 12th, 2011 | No Comments
Thunderstorms Make Antimatter as Well as Noise
A high-powered, space-based particle detector has found the first evidence of antimatter being produced naturally on Earth — in thunderstorms. We generally think of antimatter as cosmic rays that are produced by the sun or during a nuclear reaction. But it is used commonly in medical brain scans....
Posted by Michael Bradbury in Astronomy, Physics and Chemistry, Science & Religion, Space on 01 6th, 2011 | No Comments
God Was Behind the Big Bang, Says Pope
Though he has no scientific evidence and hasn’t published on the subject, Pope Benedict XVI had an epiphany on the feast of Epiphany, the Catholic day celebrating the arrival of the Three Kings to the birthplace of Jesus. During the mass in honor of the day, the Pope said that God was responsible...
Posted by Michael Bradbury in Animals, Anthropology, Astronomy, Biology, Discoveries, Diseases, Earthquake, Environment, Genomics, Geology, Health and Medicine, Horizon Oil Spill, Marine Science, New Species, Oceanography, Physics and Chemistry, Space on 12 31st, 2010 | No Comments
2010 Science Roundup
On the last day of 2010, the final day of the last year in the first decade of the 21st Century, we bid farewell to another year. Let’s take a look back over the last 12 months through the eyes of science.
First, physicist Dr. Michio Kaku looks back over the natural disasters that rocked the world...
Posted by Michael Bradbury in Astrobiology, Astronomy, Citizen science, Featured Articles, Space, Video on 12 17th, 2010 | No Comments
Citizen Science Hits Outer Space in Search of New Planets
NASA’s Kepler mission positioned a powerful telescope outside Earth’s atmosphere last year to begin taking pictures of a section of space known to house about 200,000 stars. For Yale astronomers this presents an incredible opportunity — to discover which of those stars have planets...
Posted by Michael Bradbury in Astrobiology, Astronomy, Discoveries, Space, Video on 12 15th, 2010 | No Comments
NASA Finds Ice Volcano on Saturn Moon
A NASA probe orbiting Saturn has spotted what scientists think is a giant ice volcano on one of its moons, Titan. Astronomers believe they have discovered a cryovolcano — a volcano that expels water and ammonia or methanol instead of molten rock.
For years astronomers felt that if any sort of...
Hawaiian Planet Hunters Peer into Space
A celebrated team of planet hunters were back peering into the cosmos only two months after announcing to the world they had discovered the most earth-like planet to date. Called the “Goldilocks” planet because it’s not too hot or too cold but rather just right, Gliese 581g has sparked...
Posted by Michael Bradbury in Astronomy, Discoveries, Physics and Chemistry, Politics, SciClips, Space on 09 8th, 2010 | 2 Comments
Budget Cuts Smash Big Science Hopes
Budget Cuts Smash Big Science Hopes
By: Michael C. Bradbury
LHC Machine in tunnel at CERN, photo by Maximilien Brice
Deep beneath the Franco-Swiss border, the Large Hadron Collider is smashing atoms in hopes of recreating the moments just following the big bang. And, in the process scientists are learning...
New Planets on the Horizon
Pluto may be out a full-fledged member of the planet pack, but NASA officials said they’ve discovered two new planets for the first time outside our solar system.
The two new worlds circling a nearby star are hot and gassy so incapable of sustaining life as we know it. While the discovery isn’t...
Posted by Michael Bradbury in Astronomy, Citizen science, Computer Science, Discoveries, Space, Video on 08 13th, 2010 | No Comments
Citizen Scis Make Big Astronomical Discovery Using Computer Down Time
Citizen scientists Chris and Helen Colvin from Ames, Iowa, and Daniel Gebhardt from Mainz, Germany participate in Einstein@Home, a distributed computing program that involves a quarter of a million volunteers worldwide.
They donated their idle computer time to analyze data gathered by the world’s...
Solar Tsunami Shoots Plasma at Earth
Solar eruptions send gases directly toward earth but scientists say they pose no direct threat to us.
But for science, it was quite a spectacular cosmic display. On August 1, a large sunspot created a coronal mass ejection from the northern hemisphere of the sun. This discharge of gas and particles...
Russian Supply Capsule Misses International Space Station
An unmanned Russian space capsule carrying supplies to the International Space Station failed in a docking attempt. As a result, NASA says the Progress vehicle continued on its trajectory and glided safely past the space station.
At the time of the communication loss, the vehicle was approximately...
