The deserts of Promontory, Utah came alive with fire as NASA and Alliant Techsystems (ATK) tested the Development Motor-2 (DM-2). The five-segment, first-stage of the Ares rocket was activated at 9:27 a.m. MDT on Aug. 31. The still morning air surrendered its silence to the sound of unleashed technological thunder. The surrounding countryside was bathed in the colors of flame as a huge plume of hot exhaust and smoke shot out the back of the solid motor. However, ATK was racking up another successful test – to a system with a future in doubt. Click to continue…

I'm just doing some final packing and then the wife and I will be flying out to Atlanta to participate in Dragon*Con 2010. This is a gigantic science fiction convention, and we try to represent Astronomy Cast there every year. We're going to be doing the first ever live show of Astronomy Cast where Pamela and I will actually be together in the same room. Epic!

So if you're going to be attending Dragon*Con and want to hang out, I should be lurking around the science/skeptic area.

Here's my schedule so far, but I suspect I'll be strong-armed into several other panels.

Title: Mystery of Hanny's Voorwerp
Time: Fri 10:00 pm Location: Crystal Ballroom – Hilton (Length: 1)
Description: Who's Hanny? What's a Voorwerp? How's Hubble involved? See the World Release of the webcomic that explains it all & the 1st Hubble images.

Title: The 2010 Parsec Awards
Time: Sat 04:00 pm Location: Regency V – Hyatt (Length: 2.5)
Description: The Parsec Award is available for original Sci-Fi & Fantasy & Speculative Fiction within the new frontiers of Portable Media.

Title: Astronomy Cast Live!
Time: Sun 01:00 pm Location: 204 – Hilton (Length: 1)
Description: Take a facts-based journey through the cosmos with Dr. Pamela Gay and Fraser Cain

It’s time once again for another Where In The Universe Challenge. Name where in the Universe this image was taken and give yourself extra points if you can name the telescope or spacecraft responsible for the image. Post your guesses in the comments section, and check back on later at this same post to find the answer. To make this challenge fun for everyone, please don’t include links or extensive explanations with your answer. Good luck!

Image of the Tarantula Nebula (NGC 2070) by Joseph Brimacombe.

Racing is rarely the term that comes to mind when one considers astronomy. However, many events are a race to reach stability before a system flies apart or implodes. The formation of stars from gigantic interstellar clouds is just such a race in which stars struggle to form before the cloud is dispersed. Although a rough estimation of the requirements for collapse are discussed in introductory astrophysics classes (See: Jeans Mass Criterion) this formulation leaves out several elements that come into play in the real universe. Unfortunately for astronomers, these effects can be subtle but significant but untangling them is the subject of a recent paper uploaded to the arXiv preprint server. Click to continue…

If you didn’t have the chance to see Brian Cox’s series “Wonders of the Solar System” which aired on the BBC earlier this year and the Science Channel in August, we’ve got some good news for you: it comes out on DVD and Blu-ray in the US on September 7. But there’s even better news for readers of Universe Today: We have five – count ‘em – five copies to give away, courtesy of the BBC and Bender Helper Impact marketing agency. “Wonders” is an extraordinary look at our world and solar system, and is rich with breathtaking images beamed back from the fleet of probes, rovers and telescopes currently in space, and is a “must-see” for any space and astronomy enthusiast.

To enter the contest, send an email to info@universetoday.com with “Wonders DVD” in the subject line. Deadline for entry is Wednesday, September 8 at 12 pm PDT. Winners will have their choice of “Wonders” on DVD or Blu-ray.
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The idea of the “Theory of Everything” is enticing – that we could somehow explain all that is. String theory has been proposed since the 1960’s as a way to reconcile quantum mechanics and general relativity into such an explanation. However, the biggest criticism of String Theory is that it isn't testable. But now, a research team led by scientists from the Imperial College London unexpectedly discovered that that string theory also seems to predict the behavior of entangled quantum particles. As this prediction can be tested in the laboratory, the researchers say they can now test string theory.
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ICESat. Image courtesy Ball Aerospace.

NASA’s Ice, Cloud, and land Elevation (ICESat) mission is now on ice, so to speak, or perhaps we should say, it ultimately became an inferno. The satellite was intentionally deorbited and burned up in the atmosphere on August 30, after completing a very productive seven-year scientific stint in orbit. And talk about the ultimate high-stakes, high-adventure, hands-on student project: students at the University of Colorado Boulder conducted the final maneuvers to send the spacecraft to its fiery death.
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The six SJ-06 series satellites in Earth orbit. Credit: The Space Review

Data from the US military shows that two Chinese satellites likely performed multiple rendezvous 600 kilometers above Earth this summer, and may have even bumped into each other. The rendezvous have taken place over the past several months, between two Chinese "Shi Jian" (Practice) spacecraft, SJ-06F and SJ-12, that are officially listed as science satellites.
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Hurricane Earl (lower left), Tropical Storm Fiona located to Earl's east, and Tropical Storm Danielle far in the Northern Atlantic. Credit: NASA/GOES Project

My father had a favorite adage when life was hectic: "There's lots of commotion in the ocean." That saying was never more true than the current situation in the busy Atlantic Ocean. The GOES-13 satellite captured this image earlier today (Tuesday Aug. 31) and visible are three areas of tropical commotion. The large and powerful Hurricane Earl (lower left) is passing Puerto Rico, Tropical Storm Fiona located to Earl's east, and Tropical Storm Danielle far in the Northern Atlantic. Below is footage taken by the International Space Station of the action.
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Keck II image of the young extrasolar planet HR 8799 b, seen as the point source in center of image.Credit: Brendan Bowler and Michael Liu, IfA/Hawaii

Back in 2008, the first multi-planet system of extrasolar planets was imaged, and further study of the planets in this very young system is yielding some puzzling results. Astronomers using the Keck Observatory have been able to obtain the spectrum of one planet, HR 8799 b, revealing the temperature, chemical composition, and atmospheric properties of the planet. The planet’s atmosphere is unlike that of any previously studied extrasolar planet, and it appears the planet is extremely cloudy, and also quite hot, even though it is very far from its host star.

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