Posted on by Ian O'Neill

Space Tourist Richard Garriott Launched on Space Station Vacation…

The Soyuz TMA-13 spacecraft (Expedition 18) launches Michael Fincke, Yury V. Lonchakov and Richard Garriott (AP Photo/NASA)

[/caption]…but the station’s toilet has broken down again.

For $30 million, you can get a ride into space for a 10-day trip on board the International Space Station. To Richard Garriott, this is money well-spent. He got to spend months training for the experience and he will use the adventure to carry out experiments, educational programs and to follow in his father’s footsteps. 25-years earlier, Owen Garriott flew on Space Shuttle Columbia, and before that he served on Skylab. Having successfully launched on board the Soyuz launch vehicle on Sunday, Garriott Jr. is keen to make space travel a family affair, and make some history along the way; he is the first second-generation American astronaut ever to be launched into space. It sounds like an exciting few days await the 47 year old computer video game entrepreneur…

But like any positive story, there’s a flip-side. The International Space Station, far from being The Ritz at the best of times, has been inflicted with a rather annoying inconvenience… the main toilet is out of order, requiring all on board to use the Soyuz en-suite. Although it is doubtful Garriott will get a room credit for the inconvenience, I’m sure the view of the Earth rotating below, the excitement of being involved in the biggest space project ever conceived, and the joy of zero-G will more than make up for the bathroom situation…

At 3:01 AM EDT (0701 GMT) Sunday morning, Richard Garriott blasted off from the Central Asian spaceport of Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan aboard a Soyuz TMA-13 spacecraft. Expedition 18 is being used to ferry two new crewmembers to the ISS. American astronaut Michael Fincke and Russian cosmonaut Yury Lonchakov will keep Garriott company until tomorrow’s (Tuesday) Soyuz docking with the station where the trio will join the existing ISS crewmembers Commander Sergei Volkov, Flight Engineer Oleg Kononenko and astronaut Gregory E. Chamitoff. Volkov and Kononenko will accompany Garriott when he is scheduled to return back to Earth on October 23rd.

The cosmonaut, astronaut and space tourist wave to onlookers before boarding Soyuz (AP Photo)
The cosmonaut, astronaut and space tourist wave to onlookers before boarding Soyuz (AP Photo)

“Today, my dream of following in my father’s footsteps to explore new frontiers is being realized,” Garriott said in a statement shortly after launch in reference to his father, 77 year-old retired NASA scientist-astronaut Owen Garriott. “It’s with honour and appreciation that I launch on my greatest adventure yet, and step into a role assumed by only five private individuals before me.”

Watching his son being launched into orbit, Garriott Sr. supports Richard in all his space-faring dreams. “He wants to charge full speed ahead,” said Owen, who flew to the pioneering Sklab space station in 1973 and flew on shuttle Columbia 10 years later.

Richard Garriott has been preparing for this moment for many months, and his excitement is evident in the post on his website before launch. “I feel well prepared for this flight, and have complete faith in my crew mates, our beautiful rocket, and the huge number of people it takes to launch our Soyuz and operate the ISS,” Garriott said, wanting his friends and family to be there with him. “I wish I could share this experience with each of you, in the way I have had the opportunity to experience it.”

U.S. astronaut Owen Garriott looks at the Russian Soyuz TMA-13 that will carry his son into orbit (AP Photo/Dmitry Lovetsky)
U.S. astronaut Owen Garriott looks at the Russian Soyuz TMA-13 that will carry his son into orbit (AP Photo/Dmitry Lovetsky)

Unfortunately, there will be some uncomfortable days aboard the ISS. On Thursday, the main toilet facility broke down in the Russian Zvezda service module, leaving the crew to use the Soyuz bathroom facilities. The main toilet has been the source of much hassle to the crew and flight controllers; back in June Oleg Kononenko had to carry out a lengthy in-orbit plumbing job to get the gas-liquid separator assembly pump replacement up and running. It would appear a similar problem has struck again, only three months later. Perhaps the crew should ask Kononenko to use his skills once more before the cosmonaut has to return back to Earth with Garriott on October 23rd…

For now, plumbing issues to one side, we look forward to seeing Richard Garriott, the sixth space station tourist, carry out his experiments and observations, relaying all his experiences to the rest of the world who cannot afford the $30 million ticket.

“I will return to our earth in a few weeks, with a vast array of photographs, and a lifetime of new stories,” Garriott wrote in his website message. “I look forward to sharing them with you!”

Sources: NASA, Space.com

Posted on by Nancy Atkinson

The Universe Is Not Expanding Uniformly

Partial map of the Local Group of galaxies. Credit: Planet Quest

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A few weeks ago, researchers announced the discovery of a “dark flow” of invisible matter tugging at distant galaxy clusters at the edge of the universe. Now comes more evidence of unseen and unknown forces in the cosmos, but this time its closer to home. A group of researchers have discovered that our particular part of the Universe — out to a distance of 400 million light years — is not expanding uniformly in all directions as expected. To be exact, the expansion is faster in one half of the sky than in the other. “It’s as if, in addition to the expansion, our ‘neighbourhood’ in the Universe has an extra kick in a certain direction,” says Mike Hudson from the University of Waterloo in Ontario, Canada. “We expected the expansion to become more uniform on increasingly larger scales, but that’s not what we found.” If confirmed, their findings will result in a new understanding of the origin of structure in the universe and possible revisions to the standard cosmological model.

Hudson and two other scientists have been conducting research on large-scale cosmic flows and the general expansion of the universe. This expansion increases the distances between galaxies steadily with time, and is called the Hubble flow. Deviations of the velocity of galaxies from the overall Hubble flow is called the “peculiar velocity.” By examining the peculiar velocities of clusters and superclusters scientists can obtain estimates of local mass concentrations that may be responsible for causing any deviations from the Hubble flow.

In particular, these researchers were attempting to address a longstanding question about the origin of the approximately 600 km/s peculiar velocity of the Local Group of galaxies, with respect to the Cosmic Microwave Background.

Using several different surveys they discovered that about 50% of the Local Group’s motion is faster than anticipated. To produce this motion, they believe there must be large unseen and unknown structures in the universe. They write, “The large value of the residual motion implies that there are significant velocities generated by very-large scale structures,” and the structures lie beyond the Local Group.

Brian McNamara, a University Research Chair in UW’s department of physics and astronomy, says Hudson is finding that much of the matter in the nearby universe moves as an ensemble with a surprisingly high speed. “If the work he and others are doing is confirmed, it will require a major revision in the way we think the universe came into being and how it evolved.”

Hudson and his colleagues have submitted a paper to the Royal Astronomical Society, and a preprint version is available here.

Sources: arXiv, University of Waterloo

Posted on by Ian O'Neill

Frozen Mars North Pole Ice Patterns Observed by HiRISE

Translucent ice and sand dunes in North Polar Region (NASA/JPL/University of Arizona)

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As the Phoenix Mars lander will agree, it’s cold near Mars’ North Pole. Phoenix is currently seeing the winter frost encroach on its location, bright patches of ice appearing on the rocks surrounding it. Another sure sign of winter at this high latitude is the loss of light; soon day will turn to night, forcing Phoenix to enter a Sun-deprived coma. But as one Mars mission draws to a close, other missions continue their diligent watch over the planet 24/7. One such mission is NASA’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO), using its High Resolution Imaging Science Experiment (or HiRISE for short) to pick out the tiny surface features on the Red Planet from around 320 km (200 miles) above.

As winter sets in on the Martian northern hemisphere, HiRISE continues to capture some stunning images of the translucent icy surface…

Mars dune detail showing the southwesterly dominant wind direction (NASA/JPL/HiRISE)
Mars dune detail showing the southwesterly dominant wind direction (NASA/JPL/HiRISE)
These images were acquired at the end of August by HiRISE, and it is evident there was plenty of ice on the surface of this northern region. The MRO was making a pass over a geographical latitude of 77° when these pictures were taken, capturing the complex cracking of translucent surface ice, contrasting with the dark sand of a vast number of barchan dunes, a feature we often observe on Earth as well as on Mars. Phoenix landed at 68° latitude, a little further south than these HiRISE images, but it can be seen there is a lot more ice for that time of the year only 10° further north of Phoenix’s location (after all, no surface frost was observed by the lander in August).

It is thought that the bright areas of ice in the image above comes from surface frost deposited the previous year, but the polar temperatures remained so cold throughout the Martian summer that the frost didn’t sublimate into the thin atmosphere. So, the surface ice remained throughout the year, gradually undergoing physical changes, creating a polygonal texture when viewed from orbit. The texture was probably down to temperature variations, stressing and cracking the ice.

» See the full resolution region imaged by HiRISE (very long 512×12649px .jpg image)…

Looking at the detail of the sand dunes, it becomes apparent that the dunes are still active despite the icy surroundings. The streaks of loose sand appear to indicate a dominant southwesterly wind direction.

Source: HiRISE

Posted on by Tammy Plotner

The Vixen ED100SF Refractor – Superb Optical Quality

So here we go. There’s a knock on the door and a big box arrives. It’s either a coffin for a short, skinny person or I’ve got another telescope on my hands. I wrestled it up on my dining room table, carefully cut the packing tape and revealed the shiny aluminum case that lay beneath the brown cardboard layer with the word Vixen stamped on the outside. Vixen? Haven’t we met somewhere before in another life?

For those of you who know me, you know I’m not much of a refractor person, although I own several. The reason isn’t because I don’t like refractors, it’s because I’m primarily a faint galaxy and comet hunter and to get the aperture I need I simply can’t afford a refractor that size. However, I am also not adverse to being a sometimes “optical connoisseur” and there have been times in my life that I’ve been talked into doing things that I probably had no business doing…. and that’s how I first got introduced to Vixen refractors. To make a long story short, a friend of mine in California coerced me into purchasing an old 4″ Vixen refractor for him from a total (spooky) stranger just because he happened to live in Ohio and I’m the one that ended up footing the bill, packing this anitque across country in a self-made case fashioned from PVC pipe and loving it to death.

And now there’s another one here.

Of course, my first experience with a circa 1980 Vixen refractor certainly didn’t prepare me for today’s modern optics. When I unlatched the clean, neat aluminum case that comes standard with the Vixen – ED100SF I was blown away with the fit and finish of the product itself. Who doesn’t love a brand new telescope with a perfect white finish and all the trimmings packed neatly inside custom foam? Everything looks good, right down to the scope rings and Crayford focuser – but the bottom line isn’t looks – it’s performance. In the long run, I had some serious issues with yesteryear’s Vixen refractor and what I want to know is how today’s Vixen performs.

One of the first things you need to realize is the Vixen ED100SF isn’t a complete telescope. While most of you probably are aware of what an optical tube assembly is, I want to be fair and point out to others that it is only the telescope body with the focuser and mounting rings. In order to keep costs down, optical tube assemblies are offered to those who already have several mounts, tripods and finderscopes – along with a wide variety of eyepieces. This allows folks like me (and many of you) to afford telescopes like the Vixen refractor by making use of things we already have. In this case, the Vixen ED100SF needs to be mounted on something capable of supporting at least 14 pounds, and I happen to have several equatorial mounts capable of filling the bill – along with many different styles of finderscopes and eyepieces to use.

Now that we’re set up, are we ready to check out those optics?

As I said, once upon a time I had issues with Vixen optics – very specifically with chromatic aberration. This is also a reason why I am a reflector person. I do not like color fringing. You give me purple and I’ll tell you you’re giving me poo. Sure. Once upon a time, they tried to correct chromatic aberration by increasing the focal length. This made for great magnification powers and also made for terribly long telescopes. But, purple images or not, I loved that old Vixen… Would the new one behave the same?

The answer is no. Thanks to today’s extra low dispersion glass with its little element of flourite, there simply isn’t any unwanted color in the image. Now when I look at something, the only purple haze I get is if I’m listening to Jimi Hendrix on the ipod. All of those red, green, and blue wavelengths are coming right together in perfect, crisp focus and the image is absolutely razor sharp. Where once I might have called something a little bit “muzzy”, there is only perfection. And it isn’t even a stellar image!

The real test of the Vixen ED100SF comes with a perfect airy disk around Vega. Go ahead, do Epsilon! It’s perfect and clean. Go ahead and do a more difficult one, like Gamma Andromeda – because you’ll see there’s three stars there instead of just two. Put your backside down on my observing chair here and watch Jupiter for awhile. Again, even though I am not much of a refractor person or a planetary observer – I could really get to liking views like this! When a galiean moon comes out of eclipse and you can pick out what looks to be a hair-fine line of black between Jupiter’s limb and the satellite’s limb? What can you say besides “Wow!” The Crayford focuser is as smooth as glass and the optical quality of the telescope remains through every eyepiece I put in it. Wait a week and watch the Moon. No false colors there. Just deep dark craters and perfect definition.

On deep sky performance, I can only be honest. Here, the Vixen ED100SF only performs like a 4″ telescope. It doesn’t resolve globular clusters or galaxies any better than a similar sized reflector telescope. However, I must be fair and say that I am not an astrophotographer. I can only imagine that the high quality images that I was getting in planetary and double star performance would carry through equally should you wish to image deep sky with this baby. Since the color correction is absolutely outstanding, I can only imagine what would happen if it were combined with the correct filters and timed exposures to pick out HII regions in those distant galaxies I so admire. On open clusters, the Vixen ED100SF also gave precision performance. Objects like NGC 7790 were virtual pinpoints and that’s a nice thing to see in any telescope. In side by side comparisons with a Genesis refractor and a Takahashi, I could see no difference in optical performance visually.

At one time the Vixen ED100SF cost in excess of $1200, making it not the type of telescope for everyone. But now, prices have come to $799. Still, not the type of telescope for everyone, but definitely within the range of those interested in superb optical quality. Vixen has definitely come a long way over the years and like that Vixen telescope I delivered to a man in California so long ago…

I don’t want to give it back.

The Vixen ED100SF Refractor was kindly provided for this review by Oceanside Photo and Telescope. Our many thanks for the use of this very fine telescope!

Posted on by Ian O'Neill

Why is Venus Express Looking for Life on Earth?

Earth atmospheric molecules detected by Venus Express (ESA)

[/caption]If you are an astronomer looking for a habitable exoplanet orbiting a far-off star, what do you look for? We know from personal experience that we need oxygen and water to live on Earth, so this is a good place to start; look for exoplanets with the spectroscopic signature of O2 and H2O. But this isn’t enough. Venus has oxygen and water in its atmosphere too, so if we only used these two indicators as a measure for habitability, we would be sorely disappointed to find a water and oxygen-rich Venus-like world which has little chance of supporting life (as we know it).

In an effort to understand what a “habitable planet” looks like from afar, European Space Agency (ESA) scientists have decided to do a bit of retrospective astronomy. Venus Express, currently in orbit around Venus, is being used to look back at the blue dot we call home to help us understand what a real habitable planet looks like…

Venus Express (sister ship of ESA’s Mars Express) was launched in November 2005 to begin its seven month journey to Venus. As the spacecraft left Earth orbit, it turned around to take a picture of the blue globe with its Visible and Infrared Thermal Imaging Spectrometer (VIRTIS), but the significance of this quick observation wasn’t realised until a year after Venus Express had entered Venusian orbit. Could the robotic craft be used to watch the Earth from afar?

Giuseppe Piccioni, Venus Express VIRTIS Co-Principal Investigator, in Italy, has been heading a sustained campaign of Earth observations using the VIRTIS instrument orbiting a planet 0.3 AU closer to the Sun. Although Venus has often been referred to as “Earth’s sister planet” the difference couldn’t be more stark. With atmospheric pressures some hundred times that of the Earth, with a choking cocktail of poisonous gases and high surface temperatures, Venus is hardly conducive for life. Earth, on the other hand, has a bountiful ecosystem where life has thrived for over three billion years. However, Piccioni is aware that if viewed from a distance, both Earth and Venus contain some of the basic ingredients for life; how can we be sure distant exoplanets are more Earth-like or more Venus-like? After all, planet habitability doesn’t seem to depend on just oxygen and water.

“We see water and molecular oxygen in Earth’s atmosphere, but Venus also shows these signatures. So looking at these molecules is not enough,” says Piccioni. So, in an attempt to seek out other forms of life, the Italian astronomer is looking toward Earth to pick out more subtle signals for the presence of life on alien worlds.

Earth’s oxygen and water as detected by Venus Express (ESA)
Earth’s oxygen and water as detected by Venus Express. The simulated images of Earth are to show which side of the planet was facing Venus at the time; in actuality Earth would appear as a one-pixel dot (ESA)
Venus Express can observe Earth about three times a month, and over the last two years, VIRTIS has captured 40 terrestrial images for analysis. The light captured from these Earth observations cover spectral wavelengths from visible through to near-infrared, but when viewed from Venus, the Earth appears only as a small dot, no bigger than a single pixel in Venus Express’ cameras. Far from being a hindrance, this small dot will help future exoplanet hunters.

Although there are no surface features, this small dot still holds a lot of information. By splitting the light observed into its component wavelengths, the composition of the terrestrial atmosphere can be analysed. Therefore, spectroscopic signals from plant life could be detected for example. “Green plants are bright in the near infrared,” said David Grinspoon, a Venus Express Interdisciplinary Scientist from the Denver Museum of Nature & Science, Colorado, who suggested the programme of sustained Earth observation. “We want to know what can we discern about the Earth’s habitability based on such observations. Whatever we learn about Earth, we can then apply to the study of other worlds,” he added.

Exoplanet hunters are finding more and more alien worlds orbiting stars many light years away, it is only a matter of time before we have the technological ability to image the one-pixel spot of an Earth-like world. By understanding how our habitable planet looks from Venus, we can begin to understand whether these exoplanets are indeed “Earth-like” in every sense of the word…

Source: ESA

Here’s an article about the famous blue dot image of Earth.

Posted on by Nancy Atkinson

Dust Could Point Out Earth-like Exoplanets

Zodiacal light can be seen in the sky before sunrise or after sunset. Credit: Yuri Beletsky/ESO Paranal

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The current exoplanet count — the number of planets astronomers have found orbiting other stars –stands at 312. That’s a lot of planets. But not a single one of them can be classified as Earth-like. We just don’t have the ability to detect planets that small yet. But it might help if we knew exactly where to look. New research using supercomputer simulations of dusty disks around sun-like stars show that planets nearly as small as Mars can create patterns in the dust that future telescopes may be able to detect. The research points to a new avenue in the search for habitable planets. “It may be a while before we can directly image earth-like planets around other stars but, before then, we’ll be able to detect the ornate and beautiful rings they carve in interplanetary dust,” says Christopher Stark, the study’s lead researcher at the University of Maryland, College Park.

Working with Marc Kuchner at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md., Stark modeled how 25,000 dust particles responded to the presence of a single planet — ranging from the mass of Mars to five times Earth’s — orbiting a sun-like star. Using NASA’s Thunderhead supercomputer at Goddard, the scientists ran 120 different simulations that varied the size of the dust particles and the planet’s mass and orbital distance.

“Our models use ten times as many particles as previous simulations. This allows us to study the contrast and shapes of ring structures,” Kuchner adds. From this data, the researchers mapped the density, brightness, and heat signature resulting from each set of parameters.

“It isn’t widely appreciated that planetary systems — including our own — contain lots of dust,” Stark adds. “We’re going to put that dust to work for us.”

Much of the dust in our solar system forms inward of Jupiter’s orbit, as comets crumble near the sun and asteroids of all sizes collide. The dust reflects sunlight and sometimes can be seen as a wedge-shaped sky glow — called the zodiacal light — before sunrise or after sunset.

Dust rings. Credit: NASA/Christopher Stark, GSFC
Dust rings. Credit: NASA/Christopher Stark, GSFC

The computer models account for the dust’s response to gravity and other forces, including the star’s light. Starlight exerts a slight drag on small particles that makes them lose orbital energy and drift closer to the star.

“The particles spiral inward and then become temporarily trapped in resonances with the planet,” Kuchner explains. A resonance occurs whenever a particle’s orbital period is a small-number ratio — such as two-thirds or five-sixths — of the planet’s.

For example, if a dust particle makes three orbits around its star every time the planet completes one, the particle repeatedly will feel an extra gravitational tug at the same point in its orbit. For a time, this extra nudge can offset the drag force from starlight and the dust can settle into subtle ring-like structures.

“The particles spiral in toward the star, get trapped in one resonance, fall out of it, spiral in some more, become trapped in another resonance, and so on,” Kuchner says. Accounting for the complex interplay of forces on tens of thousands of particles required the mathematical horsepower of a supercomputer.

Some scientists note that the presence of large amounts of dust could present an obstacle to directly imaging earthlike planets. Future space missions — such as NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope, now under construction and scheduled for launch in 2013, and the proposed Terrestrial Planet Finder — will study nearby stars with dusty disks. The models created by Stark and Kuchner give astronomers a preview of dust structures that signal the presence of otherwise hidden worlds.

“Our catalog will help others infer a planet’s mass and orbital distance, as well as the dominant particle sizes in the rings,” Stark says.

Stark and Kuchner published their results in the October 10 issue of The Astrophysical Journal. Stark has made his atlas of exo-zodiacal dust simulations available online.

Source: Goddard Space Flight Center

Posted on by Fraser Cain

Far Side of the Moon

Question: What is the far side of the Moon?

Answer: Did you ever notice that the Moon always looks the same? Sure, it waxes and wanes from a new moon to a full moon, but the bright and dark patches on the Moon always look the same. In fact, these features are so familiar that people call it the Man in the Moon.

This is because the Moon always points the same face towards the Earth. The Moon does actually rotate on its axis, it’s just that the amount of time it takes to make a complete orbit around the Earth matches the amount of time it takes to complete one rotation. In both cases, this is 27.3 days.

So, when you hear people refer to the far side of the Moon, they’re talking about the part of the Moon that always faces away from the Earth. Until we sent spacecraft into orbit around the Moon to take pictures, nobody on Earth had ever seen what the far side of the Moon looks like.

But why does this happen? Over the few billions years since its formation, the Moon has become tidally locked with the Earth. In the distant past, the Moon had different rotation and orbital speeds, and it showed all of its sides to our planet. But the gravity of the Earth tugged at the irregular shapes on the Moon, causing it to slow its rotation down until it was exactly the same length as its orbit.

The Earth, on the other hand, has so much mass that the force of gravity from the Moon pulling on Earth can’t overcome its rotational speed. The Moon does create the tides, though, and causes the ground to rise and fall – it’s just such a small amount that you can’t feel it.

Sometimes people mistakenly call this the dark side of the Moon. But there is no dark side of the Moon. Think about it, when we’re seeing a new moon, that’s because the familiar part that we can always see is in shadow. But at that point, the far side will be bathed in sunlight.

Posted on by Nancy Atkinson

Mars Science Laboratory: Still Alive, For Now

The Mars Science Laboratory. Credit: JPL

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The Mars Science Laboratory, the next generation of Mars rovers slated to head to Mars in 2009, is still alive, for the time being. The car-sized rover designed to look for life on Mars is over budget and behind schedule due to technical problems, and NASA officials met today to discuss their options. Potentially, Congress could pull the plug on the mission if cost overruns go too high. NASA Administrator Mike Griffin and Science Associate Administrator Ed Weiler were briefed, and met with mission managers in attempt to work out a potential solution. In a press briefing today, Doug McCuistion, director of the Mars Exploration Program at NASA headquarters said the rover’s progress will be assessed again in January, but the mission will need more money. “This is a really important scientific mission,” McCuistion said. “This is truly the push into the next decade for the Mars program and for the discovery for the potential for life on other planets…I fully believe that Congress will support us as we go forward on this because they recognize the importance of the mission as well.”

The panel of NASA officials at the briefing wouldn’t say where the money will come from or exactly how much will be needed to keep the rover on schedule and provide the engineers the resources they need to overcome the technical problems. But NASA will seek additional money from Congress and/or realign funds from other missions.

“If we’re going to launch in 2009 or 2011 additional budget resources are going to be necessary. The sources of that we cannot release until we get approval from the Office of Management and Budget and Congress,” said McCuistion.

Costs for MSL have already gone from the initial $1.5 billion to $1.9 billion. Launch is scheduled sometime between Sept. 15 and Oct. 15, 2009, but could be delayed until 2011 if the problems take more time to be resolved. Earth and Mars come closest to each other approximately every 26 months, providing favorable launch windows.

Problems with parachutes, actuators and other materials have delayed construction of the rover, and currently the contractors are working multiple shifts to make up for lost time. Mission managers hope tests of the rover can begin in November or December.

MSL will be three times as heavy and twice the width of the Mars Exploration Rovers (MERs) that landed in 2004, and will be able to travel twice as far. It will carry ten advanced scientific instruments and cameras. It will make the first precise landing and a predetermined site, using a guided entry system and a soft-landing system called the Sky Crane.

Source: NASA News Audio

Posted on by Fraser Cain

Carnival of Space #74

This week the Carnival of Space moves to Kentucky Space. This week we’ve got naked singularities, a tour of the Orion Spur, and images of Saturn’s moon Phoebe.

Click here to read the Carnival of Space #74

And if you’re interested in looking back, here’s an archive to all the past carnivals of space. If you’ve got a space-related blog, you should really join the carnival. Just email an entry to [email protected], and the next host will link to it. It will help get awareness out there about your writing, help you meet others in the space community – and community is what blogging is all about. And if you really want to help out, let me know if you can be a host, and I’ll schedule you into the calendar.

Finally, if you run a space-related blog, please post a link to the Carnival of Space. Help us get the word out.

Posted on by Astronomy Cast

Podcast: Alignment with the Galactic Plane, Destruction from Venus, and the Death of the Solar System

Artist impression of a galaxy.

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Another week, another roundup of your questions. This week listeners asked: are we all going to die in 2012 when the solar system passes through the galactic plane? Did Venus make the Moon? And what will extraterrestrials see when the Sun is dead and gone? And there’s even more. If you’ve got a question for the Astronomy Cast team, please email it in to [email protected] and we’ll try to tackle it for a future show.

Click here to download the episode.

Or subscribe to: astronomycast.com/podcast.xml with your podcatching software.

Alignment with the Galactic Plane, Destruction from Venus, and the Death of the Solar System – Transcript and show notes.