Science
Aurora Borealis over Europe
Another wondrous view of the Aurora Borealis as captured by the crew of the International Space Station. This time as a backdrop to the equally wondrous sight of Ireland and the United Kingdom under night-time conditions [0-18s]. Video via NasaCrewEarthObs. This video was taken by the crew of Expedition 30 on board the International Space Station. The [...] more »
“Vesta is special”
Having arrived at the 530km-wide giant asteroid Vesta in July last year, Nasa’s Dawn Mission scientists have published some of their findings in Science magazine. As the BBC’s spaceman, Jonathan Amos, notes They confirm that Vesta has a layered interior with a metal-rich core, just as Earth, Mars, Venus and Mercury do. Using information about [...] more »
In praise of… The Antikythera Mechanism
I have noted it before [with videos from Nature], but the Antikythera Mechanism is a pretty wondrous object. And, as the Guardian’s ‘in praise of’ editorial points out, ”A BBC4 programme on Thursday night retold the tale.” The Antikythera Mechanism Research Project is worth a look too. Here’s a shorter version of the story And, almost as [...] more »
SDO: Year 2, approaching solar maximum…
Here’s a short video compilation of some stunning views of the Sun in 2012 - as seen by the Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO). And Science at Nasa has a, erm, cheerful message as we approach solar maximum – “Enjoy the show!“ [Once more, with feeling... - Ed] Indeed. more »
O’Reilly leaves Independent Newspapers; O’Brien consolidates as chief shareholder…
Yesterday an Irish dynasty came to a fairly sudden end. Within hours of a mystery buyer taking 2 per cent in Independent Newspapers, Gavin O’Reilly bowed out as Chief Executive of Independent Newspapers. It’s all change at the newspaper group, with Vincent Crowley stepping up to take on the job of Chief Executive but not [...] more »
Discovery’s Final Final Flight
Having completed its final mission last February, yesterday the Space Shuttle Discovery took off from the Kenedy Space Centre for the last time on the way to its final destination – the Smithsonian’s National Air and Space Museum Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center in Chantilly, Virginia. During the flight, piggy-backing on a modified Boeing 747 (Shuttle Carrier Aircraft NASA 905), [...] more »
Riding the Boosters
Stunning images, and enhanced sound, in this video from Nasa of the view from the space shuttle’s solid rocket boosters as they push the shuttle up into orbit, and then fall back down to Earth. Enjoy! As the Guardian’s GrrlScientist says The number in the upper right hand corner is airspeed. The glint of light against the backdrop [...] more »
LHC: “2012 looks set to be a vintage year for particle physics”
As the BBC reports, the Large Hadron Collider [LHC] at Cern is back with stable beams of protons after its winter break, and at a new record collision energy of 8 trillion electron volts. From the BBC report Running the LHC at higher energies makes it more likely that Higgs particles, if they exist, will show [...] more »
Titanic: was it all right when it left here?
Not according to metallurgists Tim Foecke and Jennifer Hooper McCarty whose research has suggested that dodgy Harland and Wolff rivets were at fault for allowing the Titanic’s hull to be ripped apart by the pressure of the iceberg impact. With six of the hull’s chambers exposed to the Atlantic waters, the “unsinkable” ship lasted less [...] more »
“A billion stars revealed”
A stunning image was unveiled last week at the UK-Germany National Astronomy Meeting NAM2012 in Manchester. [All images courtesy of Mike Read (WFAU), UKIDSS/GPS and VVV] The BBC’s Spaceman, Jonathan Amos, helpfully provides this combination image, with a partial zoom-in on the Galactic center. But to really appreciate the scale and detail of the image you [...] more »
“awe, curiosity, wonder, joy, amazement”
After a brief scientific explanation of the phenomena, this video from LittleSDOHMI delivers some wondrous recent views (March 3, 4 and 10) of the Aurora Australis from the International Space Station. With music! [Video credit: NASA ISS/JSC/ Science@NASA] And here are those stunning clips by themselves. [All videos courtesy of the Image Science & Analysis Laboratory, [...] more »
“…and marvel at the solar system in motion”
Here’s a date to mark in your diary [really? - Ed]. On the 5/6 June this year one of the rarest predictable astronomical events will occur – a transit of Venus. [Can't wait... - Ed] Since the invention of the greatest human innovation, the telescope, at the beginning of the 17th century, not by Galileo, [...] more »
The Serpent Dust Devil of Mars
[We're not in Kansas anymore! - Ed] Indeed. Here’s a great little video from JPLNews on the 800m-tall dust devil they spotted on Mars in this wondrous image acquired, on Feb 16 2012, by the High Resolution Imaging Science Experiment (HiRISE) camera on NASA’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter. [Image Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/Univ. of Arizona] more »
The Universe at a glance…
Well, several glances actually… As spotted by the Guardian blog’s Tom McCarthy, NASA has released a new atlas and catalog of the entire infrared sky “showing more than a half billion stars, galaxies and other objects captured by the Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer (WISE) mission.” And an impressive view it is. [Image Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/UCLA] [...] more »
“We are completely compatible with the speed of light that we learn at school”
Jim “I will eat my boxer shorts on live TV” Al-Khalili can probably put the ketchup down now. The somewhat excitable BBC science report notes that the Icarus group at the Gran Sasso underground laboratory in Italy have published the results of a new experiment testing the speed of neutrinos. And guess what? They’re not faster-than-light. [They never [...] more »
“anthropomorphising the results from flies is difficult to suppress…”
I’m sure there’s no significance at all in the timing of this story… As the somewhat excitable BBC science report’s headline has it – “Sex-starved fruit flies turn to drink” In an article in Science, researchers suggest that alcohol stimulates the flies’ brains as a “reward” in a similar way to sexual conquest. The work points [...] more »
Tour of the Moon
Via NasaExplorer here’s a nice short narrated tour of the Moon, using images from the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter, focusing in on some particular sites of interest. [Video credit: NASA/Goddard Space Flight Center]. more »
Odyssey Marine surrenders ‘Black Swan’ treasure to Spain
It looks as if the 5 year legal battle between US company Odyssey Marine Exploration and the Spanish government over the ‘Black Swan’ treasure is finally coming to an end. As I mentioned previously Browsing through the Odyssey Marine press archive brings an update on their previous big find. Also mentioned in my earlier post [...] more »
Faster-than-light neutrinos? Not so fast…
The Telegraph’s Tom Chivers might be a little premature with his “I told you so“, but the reality is that theoretical physicist Jim “I will eat my boxer shorts on live TV” Al-Khalili can probably put the ketchup down. As the historically “somewhat excited” BBC report, “Faster-than-light neutrinos could be down to bad wiring“. Needless to say, the [...] more »
Lake Vostok: “Admit it, it sounds just like a thousand horror-movie setups.”
That was the Professor’s not entirely inaccurate comment this time last year, when a Russian team came up just short in their attempt to reach Lake Vostok - the largest sub-glacial freshwater lake on Earth. The project to drill down to the lake, which covers 16 square kilometres and has been sealed under approximately 3,750m of ice in the Antarctic [...] more »
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Total Politics: Top 20 NI Blogs…
Fair play to Iain, he managed to get over 2,200 people voting in his poll for the top Northern Irish blogs this year… We (just, I imagine) retained our top spot, with Splintered coming straight in at number 2, no doubt his pet subject du jour will have garnered him a lot of fans… I’ve [...] read our review »
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Debating the Churches’ Role in the Peace in Northern Ireland
This morning’s Sunday Sequence featured a substantial debate (about 35 minutes into the recorded programme) on a new book,Religion, Civil Society and Peace in Northern Ireland (Oxford University Press 2011), written by sociologists John Brewer, Gareth Higgins and Francis Teeney. The debate was framed in an opening vignette by presenter William Crawley in uncompromising terms, [...] read our review » -
“It was a trivial problem that… occurs every year”
Just your average family gathering at Christmas, with a bit of an argument about the seating cleaning arrangements… Scuffles have broken out between rival groups of Greek Orthodox and Armenian clerics over a turf war in Bethlehem’s Church of the Nativity. Bemused tourists looked on as about 100 priests fought with brooms while cleaning the [...] read our review »
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