• What Would It Be Like To Travel Into A Black Hole?

    Updated: 2012-02-28 23:08:17
    Home Blog Articles Videos About Contact What Would It Be Like to Travel Into a Black Hole Download this video mov 1280x720 472.34MB Black holes are among the simplest objects in the universe . They are simpler than stars , much simpler than planets , and vastly simpler than human beings . Black holes are what is created when matter is compressed into a very small place . They are General Relativity's most extreme prediction . They are commonly created from the violent deaths of stars many times the size of our sun , usually forming from the collapsed core of a supergiant star after it explodes . At the heart of a black hole is a singularity . An infinitesimal point in space where the pull of gravity is infinitely strong and spacetime infinitely curved . At the singularity , space and time

  • Making “Astronomer’s Paradise”

    Updated: 2012-02-28 22:59:35
    Subscribe Today Renew Give a Gift Archives Customer Service Facebook Twitter Newsletter SEARCH Health Medicine Mind Brain Technology Space Human Origins Living World Environment Physics Math Video Photos Podcast RSS I’ll be on The Late Late Show with Craig Ferguson on Wednesday night Making Astronomer’s Paradise” In early February I posted a gorgeous time lapse video of the night sky in Chile called Astronomer’s Paradise One of the astrophotographers who created that video , Christoph Malin , has written an article about what went into making the video and it’s as complex as you might expect . The article discusses equipment , processing , and the location of the shoot , and yikes , what a haul it must have been There are gorgeous pictures posted there too , like this one of a laser being

  • Pump up the galaxy

    Updated: 2012-02-28 14:00:20
    Subscribe Today Renew Give a Gift Archives Customer Service Facebook Twitter Newsletter SEARCH Health Medicine Mind Brain Technology Space Human Origins Living World Environment Physics Math Video Photos Podcast RSS Q BA : The Science of Science Fiction I’ll be on The Late Late Show with Craig Ferguson on Wednesday night Pump up the galaxy This is a galaxy Yup . It is Click to galactinate . This is the dinky Antlia Dwarf Galaxy located in the southern constellation of Antlia , the pump technically called a dwarf elliptical . It’s so faint and sparse that it wasn’t discovered until 1985 and confirmed as being a galaxy in 1997 even though it’s only 4 million light years from Earth not terribly farther than the Andromeda Galaxy , which is so big it’s visible to the naked eye Antlia may be a

  • Andromeda’s Black Hole

    Updated: 2012-02-27 23:09:58
    Hey check this out!!  This is an outstanding bit of work.  Getting a decent image of the Andromeda galaxy has always been kind of a bug-a-boo for me.  It’s very large for one thing and for another it’s so bright … Continue reading →

  • Frosty blue dunes on Mars

    Updated: 2012-02-27 14:00:40
    Subscribe Today Renew Give a Gift Archives Customer Service Facebook Twitter Newsletter SEARCH Health Medicine Mind Brain Technology Space Human Origins Living World Environment Physics Math Video Photos Podcast RSS Special Q BA tonight at 8:00 p.m . EST Zen Pencils and words of wisdom Frosty blue dunes on Mars It’s been a while since I’ve posted a jaw-dropping high-res picture from Mars , so how about this one a gorgeous shot of frost coating dunes on the surface of the Red Planet Oh yes , you want to click that to enaresenate . This picture was taken by the HiRISE camera on board the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter , which takes extremely detailed images of the surface of the planet . It shows wind-driven sand dunes on Mars , rippling in a similar way as on Earth . The sunlight is coming

  • Special Q&BA tonight at 8:00 p.m. EST!

    Updated: 2012-02-26 19:07:21
    . Subscribe Today Renew Give a Gift Archives Customer Service Facebook Twitter Newsletter SEARCH Health Medicine Mind Brain Technology Space Human Origins Living World Environment Physics Math Video Photos Podcast RSS The rocket , the laser , and the northern lights Frosty blue dunes on Mars Special Q BA tonight at 8:00 p.m . EST This weekend I’ve been participating in Dot Con 2012 an online convention celebrating the geek lifestyle see my previous post for moreinfo For my part , tonight I’ll be doing my Q BA live online video chat on Google+ at 20:00 EST 01:00 UTC Since this is part of Dot Con , I’m going with the theme of The Science of Science Fiction a favorite of mine . Got a question about astronomy , time travel , rockets , aliens , whatever from something you saw on a TV show or

  • This Week @ NASA

    Updated: 2012-02-26 17:50:17
    The Kennedy Space Center hosted several events to celebrate 50 years of Americans in orbit. John Glenn, the first to achieve the goal, made his three-orbit flight in Friendship 7 on February 20, 1962. Three months later, fellow Mercury astronaut … Continue reading →

  • The rocket, the laser, and the northern lights

    Updated: 2012-02-26 14:00:53
    , , Subscribe Today Renew Give a Gift Archives Customer Service Facebook Twitter Newsletter SEARCH Health Medicine Mind Brain Technology Space Human Origins Living World Environment Physics Math Video Photos Podcast RSS See Venus in broad daylight today Special Q BA tonight at 8:00 p.m . EST The rocket , the laser , and the northern lights Some pictures just have it all . Like , say , a rocket and a laser and an aurora OK , that’s awesome All it needs is a rampaging T-Rex to be the greatest single picture ever taken . Click to enalfvénate . So what you’re seeing here is a wide-angle lens time exposure of a rocket launch on February 18, 2012, from Fairbanks Alaska at the Poker Flat Research Range . The aurorae are obvious enough they’re the green glow in the sky . The bright streak is the

  • Vesta’s Cornelia Crater

    Updated: 2012-02-25 00:49:13
      Cool picture and busy too. Got me daydreaming about how slow something would slide down a crater wall on Vesta. I guess I’ll have to see if I can figure it out to some approximation of accurate. Maybe later, … Continue reading →

  • Dot Con 2012!

    Updated: 2012-02-24 18:25:44
    Subscribe Today Renew Give a Gift Archives Customer Service Facebook Twitter Newsletter SEARCH Health Medicine Mind Brain Technology Space Human Origins Living World Environment Physics Math Video Photos Podcast RSS Satellite tumblr A boy and his dog Dot Con 2012 Dot Con 2012 starts today Yay Oh drat I hear you thinking . Another con I can’t go to Well , I have some good news : you can go to this one , because it’s online So unless someone printed out this blog post and handed it to you on a piece of paper , Dot Con 2012 is something you can do . And I’m a part of it Dot Con is a celebration of nerdy things , and we’ve got a fun lineup of nerdy stuff planned for the : weekend My pal Josh Cagan will be talking with a bunch of Hollywood types who will regale us with stories of being a geek

  • Mimas Under the Rings

    Updated: 2012-02-22 23:06:21
      Here’s a Cassini image of the Saturn moon Mimas taken on December 21, 2011.  Mimas is a small moon only 246 miles (396 km) in diameter. I really like this view, if you click the one above to get … Continue reading →

  • Hubble Reveals a New Class of Extrasolar Planet

    Updated: 2012-02-22 20:29:32
    Now that’s hot and steamy… –Ben ======================== NASA’s Hubble Reveals a New Class of Extrasolar Planet Observations by NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope have come up with a new class of planet, a waterworld enshrouded by a thick, steamy atmosphere. It’s smaller than Uranus but larger than Earth. Zachory Berta of the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics [...]

  • Super-Earth exoplanet likely to be a waterworld

    Updated: 2012-02-21 20:06:54
    Subscribe Today Renew Give a Gift Archives Customer Service Facebook Twitter Newsletter SEARCH Health Medicine Mind Brain Technology Space Human Origins Living World Environment Physics Math Video Photos Podcast RSS Moon bites multicolor Sun from space The two tails of Comet Garradd Super-Earth exoplanet likely to be a waterworld As we find more and more planets orbiting other stars , we keep finding ones that are weirder and weirder . Enter GJ 1214b while much more massive than the Earth , it’s apparently mostly water Click to enhydronate this artists's illustration . The planet orbiting the star GJ 1214 at 40 light years from Earth was actually discovered in 2009 by the MEarth project which is looking for Earth-like planets around , cool , dim red dwarf stars . This is fertile ground for

  • Moon bites multicolor Sun… from space!

    Updated: 2012-02-21 17:30:50
    Subscribe Today Renew Give a Gift Archives Customer Service Facebook Twitter Newsletter SEARCH Health Medicine Mind Brain Technology Space Human Origins Living World Environment Physics Math Video Photos Podcast RSS Breaking news : Heartland leaker is scientist Peter Gleick , says documents are all real Super-Earth exoplanet likely to be a waterworld Moon bites multicolor Sun from space Earlier today , the Solar Dynamics Observatory had a front seat to a pretty nifty event : a partial eclipse of the Sun . For about 100 minutes , from its orbital viewpoint SDO saw the Moon pass in front of the Sun , partially blocking it . SDO semi-fictional mascot Camilla Corona created a really cool video of the event using footage from different wavelengths edited : together The false color images show

  • Time lapse: Epic Skies

    Updated: 2012-02-20 14:00:09
    : Subscribe Today Renew Give a Gift Archives Customer Service Facebook Twitter Newsletter SEARCH Health Medicine Mind Brain Technology Space Human Origins Living World Environment Physics Math Video Photos Podcast RSS A planet where men evolved from apes Breaking news : Heartland leaker is scientist Peter Gleick , says documents are all real Time lapse : Epic Skies Photographer Tony Rowell sent me a link to a time lapse video he made of the American southwest . It’s all really very pretty , but honestly , the part that got me was the amazing lenticular cloud at the very beginning . You just have to see it to believe it Spectacular , no Lenticular , or lens-shaped , clouds form near mountains , where the rising air condenses to form the clouds , and the wind gives them their shape . I see

  • ESA’s Swarm Mission

    Updated: 2012-02-19 19:56:02
    ESA is launching the Swarm mission later this year to study the Earth’s magnetic field. Source

  • A planet where men evolved from apes?

    Updated: 2012-02-19 14:00:23
    Subscribe Today Renew Give a Gift Archives Customer Service Facebook Twitter Newsletter SEARCH Health Medicine Mind Brain Technology Space Human Origins Living World Environment Physics Math Video Photos Podcast RSS International Hollywood Star Registry Time lapse : Epic Skies A planet where men evolved from apes The next time some creationist starts talking smack about evolution being impossible and that humans aren’t animals and they’re not descended from apes , show them this : picture I was browsing uploaded pictures in the 500px app and this came up I added the white box and fuzzed out the other thumbnails . Sometimes , coincidence is pretty . funny Share February 19th , 2012 7:00 AM Tags : apes creationism humans by Phil Plait in Antiscience Debunking Humor Piece of mind Religion

  • International Hollywood Star Registry

    Updated: 2012-02-18 14:07:06
    Subscribe Today Renew Give a Gift Archives Customer Service Facebook Twitter Newsletter SEARCH Health Medicine Mind Brain Technology Space Human Origins Living World Environment Physics Math Video Photos Podcast RSS Q BA : How does a gravity slingshot work A planet where men evolved from apes International Hollywood Star Registry I am not exactly a fan of those companies that claim to sell stars . Given that the biggest , the International Star Registry , was issued a violation by the New York City Department of Consumer Affairs for using deceptive practices you might just be able to figure out why . They mislead people into thinking they were actually buying official star names , when the truth is those folks were really just throwing money down the drain . You’d be better off printing

  • Black hole survives a galaxy wreck

    Updated: 2012-02-15 18:50:54
    Astronomers have reconstructed what they think is a galactic crash scene, with a rare breed of black hole left behind amid a dwarf galaxy's wreckage.

  • WFIRST Cold Wave

    Updated: 2012-02-15 06:53:34
    Saluton Mondo. Awfully sorry about the gap in service. Busy and all that. Anyway. So here I am in Sunny Pasadena. Last time I was here it was, like, a hundred degrees or something. This time its overcast and cold ! The locals are apologising and wearing double jumpers. But it seems appropriate because I [...]

  • Klu Klux Klan style Hooded Astronomers Jacket

    Updated: 2012-01-23 22:17:30
    I don’t think I have mentioned before that I’ve got an astronomers jacket made in the USA by a firm called Dark Skies Apparel. It is brilliant, and probably one of the most useful astronomy “accessories” I have purchased. Made out of thick black cotton material (totally light-proof), it is deliberately oversized to go over your normal [...]

  • Playing with the Moon

    Updated: 2012-01-16 01:21:35
    Astronomy Blog You are : in Astronomy Blog archive Particle Battleships An astronomy blog usually but not always based in the UK . Pondering questions such as What is in an exoplanet name Particle Battleships All the buzz in physics today is around results from CERN Have they found a hint of a Higgs particle , have they found a hint of no Higgs particle It is difficult to tell on a very broken-up webcast but , from what I can gather , there may be a hint of something with an energy of 126 GeV with a level of confidence that doesn't let them claim a discovery yet Earlier , John Humphreys on the Today programme seemed to suggest that if nothing was found today the whole exercise ATLAS CMS had been a waste of time . This view he may have been playing devil's advocate misunderstands how

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