NASA’s New Video, Voiced by Optimus Prime

Okay, NASA’s really just showing off with this video. They dug up every piece of amazing archival footage and had it narrated by Optimus Prime (Peter Cullen). Tell me this doesn’t make you want to fly off into space and explore the unknown. I wonder how much exploring they’re going to be doing with their recently slashed budgets?

Interview with Mike Brown

In case you missed it, here’s our interview with Caltech astronomer Mike Brown. Mike and his team discovered Eris and many other large objects in the Kuiper Belt. We talked about Pluto and Eris, of course, but also about Mike’s other favorite objects in the Solar System like Europa and Titan.

Space Timelapse: Temporal Distortion by Randy Halverson

Randy Halverson has released a new timelapse video of the night sky shot at the White River in central South Dakota during September and October 2011. There are also some shots from Arches National Park in Utah, and Canyon of the Ancients area of Colorado during June 2011.

And if you’re really interested in Randy’s timelapse videos, you can purchase an extended cut version here.

Virtual Star Party – Feb. 8, 2012

Here was the virtual star party that we held last night on Google+. We’ve actually been holding 1-2 of these star parties every week as we figure out the best way to organize and coordinate all the telescopes streaming into the Hangout. I don’t normally post them all on Universe Today, but last night was particularly special, with amazing views of the Rosette Nebula approximately one hour into the broadcast. A big thanks to Gary Gonella for sharing his telescope view with us.

If you’re interested in watching future livestreamed telescope virtual star parties, make sure you circle me on Google+.

Astronomy Cast, Ep. 250: Precision

Wow… 250 episodes.

Accuracy, precision and reproducibility. These are the foundations of science that make our progress possible. How do these play into a scientist’s daily activities? And just how precise can we get with our measurements?

You can watch us record Astronomy Cast live every Monday at 12:00 pm PDT (3:00 pm EDT, 2000 GMT). Make sure you circle Fraser on Google+ to see it show up in the feed. You can also see it live over on our YouTube channel.

If you’d like to be notified of all our live events, sign up for our notification email at Cosmoquest. You can check out our calendar here.

Astronomy Cast Ep. 249: Schrödinger’s Cat

You’ve probably all heard of Schrödinger’s Cat, that bizarre thought experiment designed by Erwin Schrödinger to show how the strange predictions of quantum theory could impact the real world. No cats will be harmed in the making of this episode, maybe.

You can watch us record Astronomy Cast live every Monday at 12:00 pm PDT (3:00 pm EDT, 2000 GMT). Make sure you circle Fraser on Google+ to see it show up in the feed. You can also see it live over on our YouTube channel.

If you’d like to be notified of all our live events, sign up for our notification email at Cosmoquest. You can check out our calendar here.