17.06.10: Living with Solar Cycle #24.

 
     As our local star gets underway into solar cycle #24, all eyes, orbiting and ground based, are keeping a close watch. The very concept of space weather is coming very much into vogue, and the activity over the next several year span may test the underpinnings of our technological civilization like never before. This [...]

26.05.10: SDO and the Coronal Rain.

  
   NASA’s Solar Dynamics Observatory continues to astound. Launched earlier this year, SDO is already providing insight into key solar mysteries. One long standing mystery has been the action of what’s termed “coronal rain.” This long documented phenomenon is caused by super heated blobs of plasma in-falling back to the fiery surface of the Sun. [...]

Death by Superflare?

A close runner-up in the pantheon of cosmic catastrophes is a killer flare courtesy of our Sun. While this may not be as lethal as a giant space rock, its also much more likely over the span of our short lifetimes. But what is the exact potential hazard posed by this threat? What has happened [...]

March 2009 News & Notes.

 

Herschel, LeVerrier, Tombaugh, and…ReMeFra? (Credit: Leiden University).
Student exoplanet confirmed! Three students of Leiden University of the Netherlands are now the proud parents of a recently discovered exoplanet. And what a weird world it is; OGLE-Tr-L9b (OK, I know…we need better names!) orbits its fast spinning parent star in 2.5 Earth days at only 0.03 AU.

Top Astronomy Events in 2009.

A 2002 Penumbral. Photo by Author.

The International year of Astronomy presents several outstanding viewing opportunities for 2009. Here is the Astroguyz short list of highlights for the year. These are our personal +12 best, must see events; we thought that rather than laundry list moons phases and solstices, we would narrow in on [...]