The Smart Phones Strike Back: The STS-132 NASAtweetup!

Astroguyz in uber-nerd mode! (All Photos by Author).

    I got into Twitter about a year ago with some apprehension; did I really want to know (or care?) what someone’s cat did today? Was “micro-blogging” a cop-out to serious writing? After all, a scant decade ago, we barely knew what e-mail was. Here it is a [...]

16.05.10- Gliese 710: A Future Stellar Threat?

Gliese 710 inbound…(Credit: The Sloan Digital Sky Survey).
   Our quiet corner of the local galaxy may be in for a future interloper. A possible solar system side-swipe comes in the form of Gliese 710, an unassuming +10 magnitude orange dwarf star currently 63 light years distant in the constellation Serpens. As we swirl around the [...]

Spotting Space Launches; Prime Sites for Free Viewing.

 (Credit & Copyright: Ben Cooper, launchphotography.com ).
   I’m always surprised how many everyday (i.e. non-space buffs!) I meet that fail to realize that space shots are visible to millions on almost a monthly basis. It’s almost as if the space program is this exotic thing that happens in strange and remote places, far from the eyes [...]

24.04.10-Our Existence: Justified.

 Earth: Safe & Sound?
   The formation of the Earth poses a key dilemma to planetary accretionary theory; namely, why are we here at all? Standard models would say that the Earth and other planets coalesced out of the proto-solar nebula to form. However, spiral density waves within the same nebula should have drawn down orbital [...]

21.04.10-The Puzzle of Blue Stragglers.

 
 Blue Stragglers as seen by Hubble in the cluster NGC6397.
   Astronomers may have recently solved a half a century long mystery of stellar evolution. Since the 1950’s a type of star known as  a blue straggler has stubbornly refused to fit the Hertzsprung-Russell diagram mold. These older stars should be approaching seniority, but instead burn brightly [...]

27.03.10- Modeling Black Holes.

 
   Researchers are calling in the big guns in the quest to understanding black holes. Specifically, scientists at the Rochester Institute of Technology are using time on some of the fastest and most powerful computers in use to model and predict the activity of super massive black holes. But these aren’t your ordinary off the [...]

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