Universe Today

A network of time-lapse cameras set up in the Nullarbor Plain desert of Western Australia has allowed researchers to track a fallen meteorite to the ground, and enabled them to determine its original orbit and parent body. The meteorite has a composition different than that of other meteors, leading researchers to believe that it originates from a different parent body than most meteorites that impact Earth. The Desert Fireball Network, a project coordinated by the Imperial College of London, was able to track the meteor when it entered the atmosphere, giving researchers an impact location and information on where it originated. Click to continue…

Filed under: Asteroids, Meteorites | 1 Comment »

Okay, so this may not be important breaking news about astronomy, but it may answer a burning question posed by most people who have watched  or read "2001: A Space Odyssey": that is, why does the computer HAL-9000 sing the song 'Daisy Bell' as the astronaut Dave Bowman takes him apart? Well, Stanley Kubrick and Arthur C. Clarke made HAL's final act in the world this song as a tribute to HAL's great ancestor, the first IBM computer to ever sing. Click below for more on this geeky topic! Click to continue…

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NASA and the European Space Agency (ESA) have officially agreed to combine their efforts in the exploration and study of Mars. The heads of both agencies, NASA administrator Charles Boden and ESA director-general Jean-Jacques Dordain signed an agreement that officially binds the two agencies together for upcoming orbiter and rover missions. Discussions of this cooperation began in December of 2008, and culminated in a meeting in June 2009, out of which came the official agreement signed last week. Click to continue…

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Today would have been Carl Sagan's 75th birthday. His life and work were monumental in astronomy and public outreach, and he had a profound influence on many people. I count myself among those who say they might not be where they are today were it not for Carl Sagan. Reading his books such as "Cosmos" and "Demon Haunted World" broadened my horizons when I needed it most. One of my favorite books of all time is "Pale Blue Dot" which really puts everything in perspective. Above is a video excerpt from the book.

If you choose, there are a few different ways you can remember Sagan and celebrate his life:
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Apollo 13 crew reflects on the mission from David Meerman Scott on Vimeo.

Hear the story of what really happened on Apollo 13 from two of the astronauts who were on board, Jim Lovell and Fred Haise. Lovell provides great detail on the history of the oxygen tank and why it exploded, and both Lovell and Haise have some great stories to share about the flight, movie inaccuracies and more. Thanks to David Meerman Scott from Apollo Artifacts who took this video at the Kennedy Space Center at the Astronaut Scholarship Foundation event on November 6, 2009.

Also on Apollo Artifacts, check out a video of short speech by Neil Armstrong who gave a tribute to the Apollo 12 crew at the flight's 40th anniversary gala on November 7, 2009.

Filed under: Space Flight | 4 Comments »

Our very own resident expert on 2012, Dr. Ian O'Neill will be on a special Discovery Channel show, premiering Sunday evening. I just saw a promo piece on the Discovery Channel, and it looks really great. On TV, they called it Surviving 2012, however online it is titled Apocalypse 2012. On his blog, Astroengine, Ian says that science is the focus on this show, (unlike the idiotic Nostradamus nonsense on another channel). As you probably know, Ian is now the producer over at Discovery Space, (and doing a bang-up job!) but he still posts on UT now and then. His series of articles on 2012 are outstanding, and are some of our most popular articles, so I can't wait to see him debunk the nonsense on television. The Discovery Channel in my area (US Central Time) says 8 pm, but check your own local listing. And if you miss it Sunday night, check for repeat showings later in the week. Go Ian!

Filed under: 2012 | 13 Comments »

Opportunity has come upon another big rock on Mars. But what is it? Another meteorite? A big clump of ejecta from an old impact? There's lots of other debris scattered around this area as well. The rock has been named "Marquette Island," staying with the island theme for the other meteorites Oppy has come across, and the rover may take the "opportunity" to get closer to this rock and check it out, given the sand dunes surrounding it don't provide too much of an obstacle. So maybe next week we'll find out what it is. But in the meantime, enjoy these color and 3-D images (see more below) of the rock via Stu Atkinson from Unmannedspaceflight.com. Check out more great looks at Marquette Island at Stu's blog about Oppy's travels, Road to Endeavour.

Oh, and rumor has it that the extrication process may have begun to free the Spirit rover. Latest images show she has moved every so slightly. More as it becomes available….
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Astronomers looking to pinpoint when the reionozation of the Universe took place have found some of the earliest galaxies about 800 million years after the Big Bang. 22 early galaxies were found using a method that looks for far-away redshifting sources that disappear or "drop-out" at a specific wavelength. The age of one galaxy was confirmed by a characteristic neutral hydrogen signature at 787 million years after the Big Bang. The finding is the first age-confirmation of a so-called dropout galaxy at that distant time and pinpoints when the reionization epoch likely began.
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Filed under: Cosmology | 14 Comments »

Update #2, 5:30 pm: NASA has now said that after further analysis, the space debris they have been tracking no longer poses any concern or threat to the ISS. Everyone can rest easy tonight! The piece of debris was only 5 cm long, and will not pass within the "pizza box" zone around the station (0.75 x 25 x 25 kilometers) that calls for an alert.

A hard-to-track piece of space junk may come within a half a kilometer of the International Space Station later today, and NASA managers are considering asking the crew to board the docked Soyuz capsules as a precaution. The time of closest approach is at 10:48 p.m. EST, and the object was detected too late for the station to do an evasive maneuver. Depending on the outcome of additional tracking data analysis, the crew may be awakened later and directed to go into the Soyuz vehicles around 10:30 pm or given the option to sleep in Soyuz tonight. NASA says they don't believe the crew is at risk, but precautions are prudent in dealing with space debris.
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Astronomers have been searching for the mysterious Planet X for hundreds of years. It was the search for a theoretical planet beyond Uranus that turned up Neptune, and then again for Pluto. And even now there are some astronomers who think there's a more distant planet out there. Oh, and there are a bunch of pseudoscience cranks trying to freak people out about the end of the world. Don't worry, we'll make time for them too, but first let's start with some real science.

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Planet X show notes and transcript.

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Imagine an object with the mass of the Sun, crushed down to the size of Manhattan. Now set that object spinning hundreds of times a second, blasting out powerful beams of radiation like a lighthouse. That's a pulsar, one of the most exotic objects in the Universe.

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Pulsars show notes and transcript.

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Yes, this headline appears to be true. A bird dropping a piece of bread onto outdoor machinery has been blamed for a technical fault at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) this week which saw significant overheating on parts of the accelerator. The LHC was not operational at the time of the incident, but the spike produced so much heat that had the beam been on, automatic safety detectors would have shut down the machine. This would put the LHC out of action for a few days while it was restarted, but there would be no repeat of the catastrophic damage suffered last September. That's when an electrical connection in the circuit itself failed violently, causing a massive liquid-helium leak and subsequent damage along hundreds of meters of magnets.

Hmm. The idea of a time-traveling Higgs boson coming back to prevent its own discovery is seeming less and less far fetched!
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Filed under: Physics | 22 Comments »

JAXA, the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency has released all the data from the Kaguya mission to the public. One of the ways to view the data is through a very nifty 3-D virtual brower. It only is available in Japanese for now (English version by the end of November, they say) so it is a little difficult to navigate, but once you figure it out, prepare yourself for loads of fun. First, you need Java. Then…
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Filed under: Moon | 3 Comments »

A new kind of supernova. Credit: Tony Piro

Astronomers have identified a type of supernova that appears to be a type predicted in theory but never actually observed before. Two years ago Lars Bildsten from UC Santa Barbara and his colleagues predicted a new type of supernova in distant galaxies which they dubbed the “.Ia” (point one a) mechanism, involving a helium detonation on a white dwarf, ejecting a small envelope of material. This theoretical explosion would be fainter than most other supernovae and its brightness would rise and fall in only a few weeks. Dovi Poznanski from Berkeley went back and looked at seven-year-old observations and found this unusual kind of supernova. Poznanski and colleagues say supernova 2002bj belongs in its own category, as its spectra suggest that it evolved extremely fast and produced an unusual combination of elements.
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Filed under: Astronomy | 3 Comments »

From the left: Klaus Beuermann (group leader), Jens Diese (back,teacher), and the high-school students Joshua Zachmann (front), Alexander-Maria Ploch (back), Sang Paik (front). JD, JZ, and AMP are from the Max-Planck-Gymnasium, SP is from the Felix-Klein-Gymnasium.

High school students from Germany have now done what many scientists strive for: had their research work published by a science journal. The Astronomy & Astrophysics science journal published a paper co-authored by three students who observed the light variations of the faint (19th magnitude) cataclysmic variable EK Ursae Majoris (EK UMa) over two months. Led by astronomer Klaus Beuermann from the University of Göttingen, and the students' high school physics teacher, the team made use of a remotely-controlled 1.2-meter telescope in Texas. Astronomy & Astrophysics says the team "presents an accurate, long-term ephemeris," and that "they participated in all the steps of a real research program, from initial observations to the publication process, and the result they obtained bears scientific significance."
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Filed under: Astronomy | 5 Comments »