The Sky is Waiting.
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“Your droids,” says the unnamed bartender in a famous sci-fi flick, “they’ll have to wait outside.”
Perhaps, cyber-discrimination is a pressing social issue in a “galaxy, far, far away…” But what if those protagonists ever manage to turn in table on humanity? [Read more...]
+19th magnitude white dwarf WD 1202-024. (SDSS)
Wanna see a wacky planetary system? A recent discovery by MIT, Harvard/Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics and Bishop’s University researchers was announced at the 200th AAS meeting in Austin, Texas and made the news rounds last week, but I don’t think folks really got a good grasp on just how strange a binary system WD 1202-024 really is. [Read more...]
Liftoff for BulgariaSat-1.
Credit: SpaceX
Ready for some Fourth of July fireworks? Elon Musk’s SpaceX has really been racking ‘em up recently, with two launches from either coast last weekend, one each from Vandenberg AFB in California and another from Florida’s Kennedy Space Center with BulgariaSat-1. It’s almost starting to seem routine now. And we’ve got another launch coming up this weekend for a perfect trifecta on Wednesday, July 5th, as a SpaceX Falcon-9 rocket hoists Intelsat-35e into geosynchronous orbit. Part of Intelsat’s “Epic” constellation of satellites, Intelsat-35e will provide mobile and video communications across Africa, Europe, the Atlantic region and the Americas. [Read more...]
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Headed to the August 21st total solar eclipse? You could do well to listen to those who have stood in the shadow of the Moon before. Like many other umbraphiles (those who chase after eclipses), we’ll be headed northward to greet the Moon’s shadow two short lunations from now as it races across the contiguous United States from coast-to-coast for the first time in nearly a century.
This will be the first total solar eclipse for us, and the celestial spectacle is sure to mint a whole new generation of eclipse chasers… but what is totality really like? Dr. Kate Russo’s Being in the Shadow gives us a glimpse of how the November 13th, 2012 eclipse unfolded through the testimonies of several individuals who share their experiences leading up to, during and after the eclipse. These aren’t astronomers, scientists or even veteran eclipse chasers: rather, these are all eclipse neophytes who, for one reason or another, decided to witness the event. These testimonies offer a unique perspective on the eclipse. They also give you a sense of what so many other eclipse chasers reiterate: it’s hard to describe the eclipse experience, a “false dawn” at midday where reality turns on its head.
These stories also underscore two key facets of a total solar eclipse that are sure to come into play this August: 1. getting into the path of totality is a must for the true experience. We saw the 1994 annular solar eclipse from the shores of Lake Erie, and can attest that a 99% eclipsed Sun is still pretty darned bright. And 2. While all safety precautions need to be undertaken during the partial phases of a solar eclipse, you can indeed look at totality (the solar corona is about twice as bright as a Full Moon). Often, the public gets bombarded with “don’t look at the Sun” messages leading up to an eclipse, to the point that people hide inside and shutter their windows. But if you fail to see the ethereal glow of totality, you’re missing the key climax of a total solar eclipse.
Being in the Shadow is an essential read leading up to the Great American Eclipse. I’d also recommend Dr. Russo’s Total Addiction. And us? We’ll be waiting for the shadow of the Moon in Columbia, South Carolina on August 21st, a fine display of hubris owing the the possibility of clouds on a summer afternoon, we know… hey, we’ll have our trusty Fiat handy, ready to dash down (or up) the path as needed on eclipse day. And then just seven short years later April 8th, 2024, the United States gets another total solar eclipse crossing from the southwest to the northeast, right over my hometown of Presque Isle, Maine… where will you be?
- Also: Read our free e-book 101 Astronomical Events for 2017, for a tale of eclipses, Edison’s Chickens and more.
- Check out 12 Great Eclipses in History via www.listosaur.com
- Eclipse… science fiction? Check out our original tales: Exeligmos, The Syzygy Gambit and Peak Season.
A rocket at the ready. (NASA/Wallops).
Live on the mid-U.S. Eastern Seaboard? Wanna see a rocket launch? We’ve go one for you, coming live from NASA’s Wallops flight facility tonight. We’ve actually been chasing this one for about a week now and conditions need to be just right for it to happen. We’re talking about a sub-orbital flight of a Terrier-improved Malamute rocket. The mission is a short up and down flight, meant to test new ampoule dispensers aboard. This will shoot out chemical tracers high in the Earth’s tenuous upper atmosphere, creating a brief false aurora for researchers to track the movements of air currents high up. [Read more...]
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What’s it like to live in a technological bubble?
We recently finished one of the best science fiction books we’ve read thus far this year, and wanted to share it with you in time to make your summer reading list. We’re talking about Wilders: Project Earth Book One by Brenda Cooper, out next week on June 13th from Pyr Books.
Fans of science fiction author Brenda Cooper and this space will recall our reviews of her previous books, The Diamond Deep, The Creative Fire, Spear of Light and Edge of Dark. [Read more...]
On the Beach…
(photo by author)
Astronomy isn’t the first thing you think of when you consider spending the day at the beach.
We recently moved our Astroguyz mobile HQ to Pass-a-Grille Beach, a small community in Saint Petersburg, Florida. A small spit of land jutting out into the Gulf of Mexico, Historic Pass-a-Grille has thus far resisted the encroaching sea and the creeping Florida gentrification that has plagued much of the state and Tampa Bay in particular… yes, you can still find lazy, quiet corners of beach, even in the looming shadow of the twin cities of Tampa/St Pete. [Read more...]
The inaugural flight of the Electron Rocket.
Credit: Rocket Lab USA
There’s a new player in the space launch business in town. No, we’re not talking about SpaceX, or even Blue Origin or Orbital Sciences or the numerous myriad of other private start-ups hoping to make it into space.
We’re talking about Rocket Labs USA, whose innovative Electron rocket made a brief sub-orbital flight earlier this week, from the very first privately-owned space port Mahia Peninsula Launch Complex 1 located on the eastern tip of the north island of New Zealand earlier this week. [Read more...]
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What would you do with a Clone Army? Long the dream of many a would be supervillain, just such a possibility is the central plot in this week’s science fiction review.
We’re talking about Starbase: Human, book seven in the Anniversary Day saga by Kristine Kathryn Rusch, out in May 2015 by WMG Publishing. Yes, it’s one of the final books in our review backlog, but we long ago vowed to finish off the entire Anniversary Day saga. [Read more...]
A mind-bending stamp.
Credit: USPS.
Ready for the Great American Eclipse? If you’re like us, you’ve been planning on where you’ll be meeting totality on August 21st, 2017 for going on a decade now. It’s the big ticket celestial show of 2017 for sure, maybe the decade (we’re assuming, of course, that a killer comet or alien invasion isn’t on tap for our unsuspecting planet in 2018 through 2020).
Just last month, the U.S. Postal Service got in on the act, with the announcement of a release of a Forever Stamp commemorating the total solar eclipse on June 20th. The first-day-of-issue ceremony takes place at the Art Museum in Laramie, Wyoming, which lies on the eclipse path of totality. Ceremony participants will catch a rare spectacle of June 20th, as a sunbeam meets a silver dollar embedded in the museum floor, an event which only occurs during the June summer solstice. We’ll note if they carry the event live.
And check out this amazing video simulation of the Moon’s umbral shadow gliding across the contiguous United States on August 21st from west to east courtesy of umbraphile Michael Zeiler:
Fly over the Great American Eclipse from Michael Zeiler on Vimeo.
The eclipse stamps are printed using thermochromic ink, and will change from totality to an image of a Full Moon when heated, say, by the owner’s thumb, then revert to the eclipsed Sun once again upon cooling. The photo depicts the total solar eclipse snapped from Libya on March 29th, 2006 by Fred Espenak.
Here’s a cool idea; mail a letter/postcard to yourself or a friend on August 21st, 2017 for a one of a kind “postal cover” postmarked with the date of the eclipse… maybe this could become a tradition for eclipse-chasers on subsequent expeditions.
This will be an eclipse for the ages for sure… be sure to pre-order your USPS Eclipse Stamps now, they’re sure to sell out quick!
A Sith Lord (?) at the eyepiece.
So, did you survive May the 4th? Yeah, much like Talk Like a Pirate Day, “May the 4th Be With You” is now on its way to crass commercialization. And while there are nerdier days out there to celebrate such as Pi Day (March 14th) or Towel Day (May 25th) commemorating Douglas Adams Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, May 4th, has become a time for fans to expound on all things Star Wars. [Read more...]
A successful static fire test on Tuesday.
Credit: Space X
Ready for a Sunday morning rocket launch? We’ve got ‘em, as SpaceX is set to round out the month of April with the launch of its Falcon 9 rocket from the Kennedy Space Center with NROL-76 for the National Reconnaissance Office. [Read more...]
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Feeling lost in the world of quantum physics? It has been said that only a few human brains on the planet truly understand the bizarre world on the quantum scale. It is true that it involves a fair amount of “mathiness” to even grasp much more than the basic predictions of quantum physics. [Read more...]
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(release date: May 16th, 2017)
Note: the 2017 Nebula Awards ceremony is held this year on May 20th in Pittsburgh, PA.
What’s up in sci-fi? Every year, all of science fiction-dom holds their collective breath for that most prestigious of Awards: the Nebulas. Along with the Hugo Awards, the Nebulas (Nebulae?) feature the very best of the best for the genre. First awarded in 1965, a historical list of the Nebula Awards reads like a Who’s Who of science fiction, and includes such now iconic classics as Larry Niven’s Ringworld (1970) and Frank Herbert’s Dune (1965) as past winners. [Read more...]
Avast: a great daytime comet.
Photo by author; from the Greenwich Observatory collection.
Turns out, finding fuzzballs isn’t easy. If you’re like us, you’ve been spending many a morning hunting for two faint periodic comets: 45P/Honda-Markov-Padušáková and 41P/Tuttle-Giacobini-Kresŕk. Yes, they’re both making close passes in 2017 as many a website have exclaimed, but they’re also both tiny and faint binocular objects from dark sky sites at the very best. Still, everyone from our repair guy to our landlord to random folks on social media have asked us how to see these intrinsically faint comets. [Read more...]
Going, going…
Credit Stellarium
What a difference a few 100 meters can make. On the night of March 5th, 2017, the waxing crescent Moon occulted the bright star Aldebaran. This event was well placed for North American viewers… heck, it even occurred over the weekend on a Saturday night, to boot. We even managed to dodge social obligations to briefly duck outside with our trusty 15x 45 image-stablized binoculars to watch Aldebaran wink out behind the dark limb of the Moon. [Read more...]
Operation Teapot.
Credit: LLNL
It was the worst of times. If you’re over 40, you remember the good old/bad old days of the Cold War as a kid, and the sort of inevitable feeling that the world would end in a nuclear cataclysm. And though that existential threat still exists, the fear of the Evil Soviet Empire has largely been replaced with terrorism, climate change and an uneasy, unknown future.
We got a fascinating glimpse back into those early days of the Cold War recently, when physicists at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory brought some of these old films of early atomic testing back to light. 210 atmospheric nuclear tests were conducted by the U.S. between 1945 and 1962, and about 10,000 films were made using high speed cameras shooting from various vantage points.
They’re both stark and eerie to watch. Researchers soon realized as they dug into the vaults and began digitizing these films that much of what was recorded was either misidentified or had never been scientifically analyzed. About 6,500 of the films have been located, 4,200 have been digitized and 750 have been declassified to date. The LLNL has begun posting them up to their YouTube website for public viewing.
The United States ceased nuclear testing in 1992. The films were beginning to degrade, and researchers realized that the window of opportunity to digitally archive these films for posterity was soon closing.
And as a new wave of nationalism seems to sweep the planet and we now sit just 2 ˝ minutes to midnight, its worth watching these films both as a reminder of the promise and peril that wielding the power of the atom provides to the fate a future of humanity.
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Pictured is a Delta IV rocket launch from Cape Canaveral on November 21st, 2010. The image is a 20 second exposure taken at dusk, shot from about 100 miles west of the launch site. The launch placed a classified payload in orbit for the United States Air Force.
Difficult but not impossible to catch against the dawn or dusk sky, spotting an extreme crescent moon can be a challenge. The slender crescent pictured was shot 30 minutes before sunrise when the Moon was less than 20 hours away from New. A true feat of visual athletics to catch, a good pair of binoculars or a well aimed wide field telescopic view can help with the hunt.
The Sun is our nearest star, and goes through an 11-year cycle of activity. This image was taken via a properly filtered telescope, and shows the Sun as it appeared during its last maximum peak in 2003. This was during solar cycle #23, a period during which the Sun hurled several large flares Earthward. The next solar cycle is due to peak around 2013-14.
Located in the belt of the constellation Orion, Messier 42, also known as the Orion Nebula is one of the finest deep sky objects in the northern hemisphere sky. Just visible as a faint smudge to the naked eye on a clear dark night, the Orion Nebula is a sure star party favorite, as it shows tendrils of gas contrasted with bright stars. M42 is a large stellar nursery, a star forming region about 1,000 light years distant.
Orbiting the planet in Low Earth Orbit (LEO) every 90 minutes, many people fail to realize that you can see the International Space Station (ISS) from most of the planet on a near-weekly basis. In fact, the ISS has been known to make up to four visible passes over the same location in one night. The image pictured is from the Fourth of July, 2011 and is a 20 second exposure of a bright ISS pass.
Next to the Sun, the two brightest objects in the sky are the Moon and the planet Venus. In fact, when Venus is favorably placed next to the Moon, it might just be possible to spot the two in the daytime. Another intriguing effect known as earthshine or ashen light is also seen in the image on the night side of the Moon; this is caused by sunlight reflected back off of the Earth towards our only satellite.
A mosaic of three images taken during the total lunar eclipse of December 21st, 2010. The eclipse occurred the same day as the winter solstice. The curve and size of the Earth’s shadow is apparent in the image.
Review: The Forgotten Genius of Oliver Heaviside
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Quick: who was the father of modern electrical theory? Talk about the early age of electricity and names such as Thomas Edison, James Maxwell and Nikola Tesla come to mind… all of these pioneers deserve their due, sure, but chances are, you have never heard of Oliver Heaviside.
The Forgotten Genius of Oliver Heaviside: A Maverick of Electrical Science by Basil Mahon seeks to change that, and presents the life story of the man who’s life work gave birth to modern electrical engineering. [Read more...]