Science – Page 10 – Slugger O'Toole

Deep Impact to Flyby Hartley 2

Pete Baker on November 4, 2010, 2:56 pm

| Readers 16

As I mentioned last month, Nasa’s Deep Impact probe was redirected towards comet 103P/Hartley at the start of 2008 as part of the EPOXI mission – see post from the time. The image top was taken by the EPOXI mission on Nov. 2, 2010 from a distance of 2.3 million kilometers (1.4 million miles). [Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/UMD] And, as the BBC report notes, Deep Impact should be flying within 700km of the comet just about now [1402 GMT]. Live coverage on Nasa TV. …

Clearing the cosmic fog

Pete Baker on October 21, 2010, 8:13 pm

| Readers 13

As the BBC noted, astronomers using ESO’s Very Large Telescope [VLT] have confirmed that galaxy UDFy-38135539, one of several candidates identified in the Hubble Ultra Deep Field (UDF) image of the Fornax Constellation acquired with the telescope’s new Wide Field Camera 3 last year, is the most distant galaxy ever detected. [Image credit: NASA, ESA, G. Illingworth (UCO/Lick Observatory and University of California, Santa Cruz) and the HUDF09 Team] Spectroscopic analysis of data collected during a 16 hour observation using the VLT identified a red shift …

“on the timescales involved in this event, we’re really catching it in the moment of happening”

Pete Baker on October 13, 2010, 10:09 pm

| Readers 13

When the comet-like asteroid P/2010 A2 was identified as a suspected asteroid-asteroid collision in January this year it was the first such collision caught “in the act”. Images Credit: NASA, ESA, and D. Jewitt (UCLA). As the BBC notes, subsequent observations by the Hubble Space Telescope and the Rosetta probe suggest that the collision probably occurred in early 2009. Here’s a sequence of Hubble observations from January to May 2010, with scale. As the associated text explains The asteroid debris, dubbed P/2010 A2, appears to be …

“It’s in the ‘sweet spot’, the Goldilocks Zone…”

Pete Baker on October 1, 2010, 10:17 pm

| Readers 8

If no-one picks up the phone at Gliese 581d, perhaps someone will be at home on the newly discovered Gliese 581g… aka the “Goldilocks” planet. Or, indeed, one of the other exo-planets in the, apparently, increasingly populated Gliese 581 system. But I tend to agree with the quotes in the level-headed Tom Chivers blog at the Daily Telegraph Dr Lewis Dartnell, a UCL astrobiologist who specialises in the possibility of microbial life on Mars, says that it’s “undeniably very, very exciting”, but it’s …

Good heavens! You’re the science minister…

Pete Baker on September 19, 2010, 4:19 pm

| Readers 11

At least Edwin Poots was only the culture minister… The Fianna Fáil junior minister “with special responsibility for science”, Conor Lenihan, may believe the party has been “very damaged”, but he’s also got reason to thank his lucky stars for the recent controversy about Brian Cowen’s under par interview. At the start of the week the Irish government’s Minister for Science had been due to officially launch an anti-evolution book, “The Origin of Specious Nonsense” [Link? – Ed] You can google it yourself. …

Deep Impact Spies Comet Target

Pete Baker on September 9, 2010, 3:17 pm

| Readers 5

Nasa’s Deep Impact probe was redirected towards comet 103P/Hartley at the start of 2008 as part of the EPOXI mission – see post from the time. On Sunday 5th September the probe opened its eyes and took the first of more than 64,000 images its expected to take of Comet Hartley 2 [Image credit: NASA/JPL/UM]. On 4th November Deep Impact [EPOXI] will fly within 700km of the comet, which might at some point become visible to the naked eye. It will spend 21 …

“Their creation does not require the intervention of some supernatural being or god.”

Pete Baker on September 3, 2010, 4:24 pm

| Readers 18

Will Crawley’s response to the wide-spread reports of Stephen Hawking’s dissing of god was to head for the teleological ‘gap’. On the other hand The Guardian‘s science blogger, Jon Butterworth took time out from writing up an experiment at the Large Hadron Collider to have a rational, and reasonable, conversation on Channel4 News with a theologian. And he points to this excellent New Scientist article on the kerfuffle As Hawking’s long-suffering assistant dealt with a deluge of enquiries from journalists from around the world, …

The spicules of Sol

Pete Baker on August 31, 2010, 5:03 pm

| Readers 6

Another wondrous view of our own modest star from the Solar Dynamics Observatory [SDO]. Here’s what the SDO channel says Spicules pop up from the Sun constantly. These dynamics jets are smaller features of the Sun that are commonly ignored. However, with the detailed close-up that SDO can provide, we can see these much more clearly than ever before. Over a few hours observation of the northern pole area of the Sun in extreme ultraviolet light (Aug. 3, 2010), we can …

Let’s be careful out there!

Pete Baker on August 30, 2010, 4:24 pm

| Readers 4

Here’s a fun video to consider, via Spaceweather.com. It shows the map of the solar system updating from 1980 to present as more asteroids are discovered. As Spaceweather notes Warning: Feelings of claustrophobia have been reported among some viewers. It’s crowded out there! New discoveries appear in white. Final colour indicates how close the asteroid comes to the inner solar system – Earth crossers in red, Earth approachers (perihelion less than 1.3AU) in yellow, and all others in green. Orbital elements from database …

“Higgs, Higgs, glorious Higgs…”

Pete Baker on August 26, 2010, 1:30 pm

| Readers 3

A little bit of culture, and science, from the CERN choir via CERNTV. It’s no Large Hadron Collider rap… ANYhoo… Enjoy! Pete Baker

Jupiter does it again!

Pete Baker on August 23, 2010, 12:23 pm

| Readers 7

Via SpaceWeather. Amateur astronomer Masayuki Tachikawa of Kumamoto city, Japan, has recorded another fireball on Jupiter – confirmed by other observations. Like the last time, there doesn’t appear to be any impact scar in the atmosphere. Here’s the short video showing the impact. That’s one less potentially dangerous object for us to worry about. All hail our friend and lord, Jupiter! Keeping Ogdy at bay… For now. Pete Baker

“The Moon is not a dead body”

Pete Baker on August 22, 2010, 4:33 pm

| Readers 4

The Moon is shrinking! Or, at least, it has shrunk. That’s the conclusion from images obtained by Nasa’s Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter. This video from the NASAexplorer channel explains. Pete Baker

Vesta awaits!

Pete Baker on August 19, 2010, 11:40 pm

| Readers 3

Nasa previews the Dawn mission’s visitation with the asteroid Vesta, due next year as noted here, with a video presentation narrated by Leonard Nimoy – as opposed to the previously noted video narrated by William Shatner. Whether the encounter will be as stunning as that of the Rosetta probe was remains to be seen… The Dawn mission website is here. More Dawn related videos and interviews here. Pete Baker

Solar Dynamics Observatory: Interacting regions

Pete Baker on August 11, 2010, 10:12 pm

| Readers 7

More stunning footage from the Solar Dynamics Observatory [SDO]. From the SDO video summary Two pairs of active regions observed in extreme ultraviolet light show the dynamic magnetic interplay between them (Aug. 3-4, 2010). Energetic plasma is drawn to the magnetic field lines above active regions and forms the highly structured coronal loops. Connecting lines can also be seen reaching across between for the two widely separated active regions seen in profile to the left. Pete Baker

If all else fails, hit it with a hammer…

Pete Baker on August 8, 2010, 3:04 pm

| Readers 14

Or, as I was tempted to title this post, “Floating in a tin can…” ANYhoo… Having eventually fixed the toilet in the US segment, last weekend [31 July] the crew of the International Space Station were forced to reduce power, and suspend scientific experiments, when half their cooling system suddenly shut down. Trouble arose on Saturday night when one of the two ammonia-fed cooling loops shut down, triggering alarms throughout the ISS. The two ammonia lines ensure that all the station’s electronic …

ESO’s VLT provides first 3-D image of supernova remnant

Pete Baker on August 5, 2010, 4:31 pm

| Readers 308

As the BBC notes, having already observed the most massive star ever discovered ESO’s Very Large Telescope array [VLT] in Chile has now provided the first 3-D image of a supernova remnant. The first video is an artist’s impression of the material around recently exploded star, known as Supernova 1987A [SN 1987A]. Credit ESO/L. Calçada. From the ESO press release Unlike the Sun, which will die rather quietly, massive stars arriving at the end of their brief life explode as supernovae, hurling out …

“if you’re willing to put aside the conspiracy theories for a moment we will move on”

Pete Baker on July 30, 2010, 12:39 pm

| Readers 9

The publication of the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s State of the Climate in 2009 report, with analysis by the Met Office, prompts the Daily Telegraph‘s Tom Chivers to produce the most sensible piece I’ve seen for some time on the subject. As Dan Gardner says in his wonderful book Risk: the science and politics of fear, to which I will be returning, the phrase “very likely” is about as strong as scientific language gets, and a 95 per cent confidence level …

“that damned elusive particle…”

Pete Baker on July 24, 2010, 4:07 pm

| Readers 8

Earlier this week there was unfounded speculation that the Tevatron particle collider at Fermilab had already discovered the Higgs boson. But if their funding is continued, and it probably will be, they could still take that particular prize ahead of the Large Hadron Collider at Cern. Understandably in the circumstances, all scientific eyes have been on the International Conference on High Energy Physics (ICHEP) in Paris this weekend. The Guardian’s Science Blog’s Jon Butterworth is there In the final session of the …

Of giant, and more modest, stars

Pete Baker on July 21, 2010, 4:10 pm

| Readers 9

The discovery of the most massive star ever observed makes the BBC’s, and other’s, headlines. Identified by astronomers using a combination of new observations on ESO’s Very Large Telescope facility in Chile and data gathered previously with the Hubble Space Telescope, R136a1 has a mass about 265 times that of our own Sun. Image credits ESO/P. Crowther/C.J. Evans. It’s sited in a cluster known as RMC 136a, in the Large Magellanic Cloud, 165,000 light-years away. From the BBC report Many objects in the very first population of stars to shine …

“One small step for [a] man…”

Pete Baker on July 20, 2010, 10:39 pm

| Readers 3

Last year saw the 40th anniversary of the launch of Apollo 11. Four days later, on 20th July 1969, Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin walked on the Moon. And, as the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter discovered, the evidence is still there. The BBC have some clips online, including this fascinating interview with Neil Armstrong from The Sky at Night in 1970. And, looking forward, the BBC’s Spaceman blog has a post on a potential compromise over President Obama’s proposed new policy for Nasa, the Nasa …