Space
Three Years of SDO Data – Narrated
Tweet If you enjoyed the recent video from Nasa’s Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO) - “Three years in three minutes” – but would have liked more of an explanation of what was going on with our own local star… here it is again! This time, though, extended, and narrated by NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center heliophysicist Alex [...] more »
“A major difference between the hurricanes is that the one on Saturn is much bigger…”
Tweet As I mentioned previously, Saturn doesn’t get the love some of our other gas giants do. [All hail our friend and lord, Jupiter! Keeping Ogdy at bay… - Ed] Indeed… [new link] But, with the help of Cassini, Saturn does provide some wondrous images. In some of its first sunlit images of Saturn’s north pole, Cassini has looked [...] more »
Solar Dynamics Observatory: Three years in three minutes
Tweet What it says on the tin. Three years after First Light, Nasa’s Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO) has released three stunning minutes of images compiled during its virtually unbroken coverage of the sun’s rise toward solar maximum. Enjoy! [Video from NasaExplorer on YouTube. Credit: NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center/SDO] As they note in the associated text [...] more »
Comet 2013 A1: Rendezvous with Mars…
Tweet Here’s something to think about whilst waiting to see if Comet ISON will fizzle, or sizzle. The latest Science at Nasa video looks at the trajectory, and consequences for Mars missions, of Comet 2013 A1 (Siding Spring). Discovered as recently as 3 January this year, this Oort cloud object will pass “extraordinarily close” to the planet Mars [...] more »
The ALMA Inauguration
Tweet As the BBC reported on Wednesday, having opened its eyes in 2011, and with 57 of its 66 antennas now ready to receive data on the Chajnantor Plateau in the Atacama desert, Chile, the Atacama Large Millimetre/Sub-millimetre Array (ALMA) was officially inaugurated on March 13. Here’s the associated ESOcast 55: The ALMA Inauguration. Credit: ALMA (ESO/NAOJ/NRAO). Editing: [...] more »
“It was a meteor strike–the most powerful since the Tunguska event of 1908″
Tweet ScienceAtNasa has a sobering video on the latest information about the visitation by the god Ogdy unexpected meteor strike in the Chelyabinsk region of Russia on 15 February. Video credit: ScienceAtNasa. From the accompanying ScienceAtNasa press release The Russian meteor’s infrasound signal was was the strongest ever detected by the CTBTO network. The furthest station to record the sub-audible sound [...] more »
“President Vladimir Putin said he thanked God no big fragments had fallen in populated areas.”
Tweet As I mentioned previously, asteroid 2012 DA14 is due to make its close encounter with Earth later this evening. Meanwhile, earlier today several hundred people in the Chelyabinsk region of Russia were injured during a visitation by the god Ogdy by debris caused by the unexpected appearance of a relatively large meteor. It’s reported that a crater 6m (20ft) [...] more »
“Will Comet ISON fizzle … or sizzle?”
Tweet Science at Nasa has a great assessment of the potential for Comet C/2012 S1 (ISON) to become the ‘Comet of the Century’. Worth watching. Just remember – “comets are like cats: they have tails, and do whatever they want to do.” But as the Science at Nasa assessment notes “Comet ISON is probably at least twice [...] more »
“comets are like cats: they have tails, and do whatever they want to do”
Tweet In the BBC’s science news preview of 2013, reporter Jason Palmer highlights a couple of astronomical events worth keeping an eye out for. In mid-February we will get another reminder we live in a (potentially) violent cosmos – asteroid 2012 DA14 will make a harmless but attention-grabbing pass near the Earth, at a distance just a [...] more »
Further Up Yonder
Tweet Stunning views of the Earth accompany this seasonal message from the crew of the International Space Station. more »
“In Saturn’s Shadow” – redux
Tweet Saturn doesn’t get the love some of our other gas giants do. [All hail our friend and lord, Jupiter! Keeping Ogdy at bay… - Ed] Indeed. But, with the help of Cassini, Saturn does provide some wondrous images. [Image Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/Space Science Institute]. From the image’s associated text NASA’s Cassini spacecraft has delivered a glorious view of [...] more »
Titan’s Nile River Valley
Tweet Fascinating image from Nasa’s Cassini probe at Saturn, where we’ve previously watched the weather on Titan. [Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/ASI.] North is to the right in this view. From the JPLnews press release “Titan is the only place we’ve found besides Earth that has a liquid in continuous movement on its surface,” said Steve Wall, [...] more »
Black Marble Earth
Tweet As the BBC’s Spaceman, Jonathan Amos, notes This [above] spectacular night-time view of Earth is called Black Marble. It has been assembled from a series of cloud-free images acquired by one of the most capable satellites in the sky today – the Suomi spacecraft. Here is the associated, wondrous, video from Nasa Explorer This view of [...] more »
“damn, what a sky…” – redux
Tweet [Image credit: ESO/Y. Beletsky] Another stunning time-lapse video of the wondrous night sky above the European Southern Observatory’s Very Large Telescope [VLT] array on top of Cerro Paranal in Chile’s Atacama Desert. This time presented as ESO Cast 50: Chile Chill 1. [Marvel at the solar system in motion... - Ed] Or, indeed, the galaxy. Stay with it [...] more »
Ever had a #DigitalLunch: Why not take a leap into a new space?
Tweet This week’s #DigitalLunch ‘jumps off’ from where on Herr Baumgartner’s sensational (in more ‘senses’ than one) leap into space lands… If you want to come along or just watch from your desktop (we don’t quite expect the 8 million Felix got, a few dozen would do us at this stage), you’ll be very welcome. [...] more »
“We stared at this patch of sky for about 22 days…”
Tweet As the BBC’s spaceman, Jonathan Amos, notes, the Hubble Space Telescope team have released an updated version of their stunning Ultra Deep Field image – the eXtreme Deep Field (XDF) – and they have seen further than ever. [Image credit: NASA, ESA, G. Illingworth, D. Magee, and P. Oesch (University of California, Santa Cruz), R. Bouwens (Leiden University), and [...] more »
Endeavour’s Final Final Flight
Tweet Nasa’s fifth and final Space Shuttle, Endeavour, following in the footsteps of Discovery, undertook a farewell fly-over yesterday atop a modified 747 Shuttle Carrier Aircraft over numerous west coast landmarks including the shuttle’s future home, the California Science Center. Here it is flying over the Reliant Stadium and the Astrodome in Houston [Image credit: Nasa]. As the JPL [...] more »
Jupiter swallows an asteroid – redux
Tweet As Space Weather notes Around the world, amateur astronomers have been scanning the cloudtops of Jupiter for signs of debris from an explosion witnessed by Dan Peterson and George Hall on Sept. 10th. So far the cloud layer is blank. “Several observers have now obtained excellent images on the second and third rotations after [...] more »
“Thrust is engaged, and we are now climbing away from Vesta atop a blue-green pillar of xenon ions”
Tweet Having arrived at the 530km-wide giant asteroid Vesta in July 2011, in May this year Nasa’s Dawn Mission scientists published some of their findings. Now Dawn’s ready to head out on the next leg of its journey - Destination [the even larger protoplanet (dwarf planet)] Ceres, ETA 2015. From the JPL press release “Thrust is engaged, and we are [...] more »
“This is an area on Mount Sharp where Curiosity will go”
Tweet More wondrous images from Nasa’s mobile Mars Science Laboratory (MSL), the 900kg rover Curiosity, now safely on the Martian surface in Gale Crater. And it’s only warming up its instruments. Here’s a panaroma of the landing site and the prime mission target, Mount Sharp. Focusing in on Mount Sharp… [Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS] But the images that [...] more »
-
Books
-
What Ireland did right (and what it needs to do)…
Tweet It is difficult to believe now that one country recently sent 19 delegations to Ireland to study how well our economy was managed. The revelation that our model of economic management featured positively in political and economic discussion in countries including Estonia, Greece and Scotland may also come as a surprise. As we survey [...] read our review »
-
Kevin Myers’ ‘Watching the Door’: Book Review
Tweet This reads as if a mad picaresque tale. Myers as first a reporter for RTÉ and then as a freelance journalist with no real experience, finds himself wandering into savagery as he hastens north as the Troubles explode. A soldier dies next to him; he witnesses an IRA ambush; he sees children shot to [...] read our review »
-
Spare us a phoney row about racism, we’ve got enough on
Tweet A silly media row about racism just had to figure in the riots’ post mortem. Was the Tudor history expert David Starkey racist on Newsnight when he said: The whites have become black. A particular sort of violent, destructive, nihilistic, gangster culture has become the fashion. And black and white, boy and girl, operate [...] read our review »
-