The Sky is Waiting.
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Ever want to explore the universe through an astronomer�s eyes?
The reboot of the Cosmos television series has cemented Neil DeGrasse Tyson�s place in the universe as the successor to the late great Carl Sagan. But before he was a science celebrity and a household name, Tyson was a research astrophysicist as well as a tireless science popularizer and the director of New York City�s Hayden Planetarium. [Read more...]
Author Mary Roach has a knack for taking our modern manicured life and looking just underneath its surface for the truly bizarre. Fans of this space will remember our review of her previous space-based opus, Packing for Mars. For her latest adventure, the author takes us from the depths of outer space to the brave new worlds of inner space as we explore the digestive tract, literally from one end to the other. [Read more...]
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Many scientific discoveries often come out of left field.
The history of science (if we learn any of the history of science at all in school) is often depicted as a neat, tidy progression from ignorance to enlightenment. How could Isaac Newton not have formulated his laws of gravity and motion, or Einstein not have stumbled on his Theory of Relativity? It all seems foreordained in hindsight. [Read more...]
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It seems that the further back you go, the less certain we are of facts in our very own history. Stories become more legendary, tales more fantastical. History seems to love a good story and never cares for any of the pesky hard truths that sometimes get in the way. [Read more...]
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We�ve been saddled with an often schizophrenic space initiative.� Programs are launched in one political administration only to get cancelled in another. Comprises build mushrooming projects, as the International Space Station is seen by some as a �camel which is a horse built by consensus.� All of this is occurring in an era of change, with ever-dwindling budgets across the board. This is our ying-yang moment of crisis and opportunity. If the author of this week�s review has his way, we�d finally lay out a true long term vision for manned and unmanned space travel� [Read more...]
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A personal confession; we almost didn�t read this weeks� book, but looking back, we�re glad we did! And no, it wasn�t because it clocked in at over 500+ pages, but because we were a bit skeptical of whether or not it was a good �fit� for the science-themed franchise that is Astroguyz� y�all have come to expect standards from us bloggers, right? True, we review lots of sci-fi, and we did review “that one UFO book“� but I�ve only ever turned down one (unnamed) book, on the grounds that the only good thing I could say about it was that you could use if to play �name that logical fallacy� at your next skeptical gathering� [Read more...]
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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.
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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: Quantum Fuzz
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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...]