04.11.09:Did Ancient Comets give Earth its Seas?

Comets continue to be at the center of controversy concerning the early Earth and life. If you’ve been following our recent reports as of late, you know that opinions run the gamut, from ancient cometary impacts being relatively rare, to comets being crucial to life as we known it. Now, researchers at the Niels Bohr [...]

22.10.09: Thank Relativity that We’re Here!

The next time you’re studying the Lorentz equation or are forced to account for Relativity on your Buzzard Ramjet trip to Sirius, thank Einstein that we’re here at all! Scientists Jacques Laskar and Mickael Gastineau at the Paris Observatory have been modeling orbital dynamics in our solar system and have come up with some “disturbing” [...]

17.10.09: Pondering the Possible Fate of the Earth.

Colossus-The Forbin Project: a Sci-Fi classic that kicked off the talks!

What’s the future of humanity and life on Earth? Will we have a good multi-billion year run until our Sun swells into a red giant boiling away our atmosphere, or will we first do the job of snuffing ourselves out? Earlier this year, some of [...]

14.10.09: The Earth-Moon System as viewed by HiRISE.

The image above floated through our tweet-o-sphere yesterday, thus prompting today’s news post. HiRISE, NASA’s High Resolution Imaging Science Experiment aboard the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter(MRO) is the spacecraft that you’re probably not following, but should be. In orbit about the Red Planet since early 2006, its been transmitting some pretty mind blowing images, all definitely [...]

12.10.09: NASA Battles Bacteria in Space.

Astronauts have been growing Salmonella bacterium in orbit, and the results have been astounding. Missions STS-115 and 123 to the International Space Station performed the experiments, showing that the bacterium were up to 7 times more virulent when grown in zero-g than on Earth. The likely culprit; fluid shear, which mimics the environment found in [...]

Astro Event of the Week; November 10th-16th; The Launch of STS-126.

The Crew of STS-126. (Credit: NASA).
   One of the very few remaining shuttle launches will be occurring this week; STS-126  is scheduled to launch on November 14th at 7:55 P.M. EST (yes, another spectacular night launch!) and dock with the ISS on Day 3.

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