Space

Space Launch Mass Drivers And Von Neumann Machines: Science Meets Science Fiction

The notion of gun-propelled launch goes back to Jules Verne. Such Mass Drivers have been envisioned in numerous Sci Fi tales, including "Earthlight", by Arthur C. Clarke, Robert A. Heinlein's "The Moon is a Harsh Mistress" and &qu ...

Article - David Brin - Mar 21 2012 - 2:30pm

Why Dark Matter isn't what we thought it was

Although for at least 10 years, since the WMAP satellite first measured the amounts of dark matter in the universe, scientists have known the recipe for the universe (4.5% Matter,22.5% Dark Matter, 73% Dark Energy) but really didn't have a clue as to ...

Blog Post - Barry Adams - Mar 27 2012 - 9:28am

First Results From Deep Radio Survey Of The Hubble Deep Field

The region around the Hubble Deep Field (HDF), originally captured by the Hubble Space Telescope (HST) in the mid 1990s, led to the discovery of numerous galaxies billions of light years distant and provided direct visual evidence of the evolution of the U ...

Article - News Staff - Mar 28 2012 - 10:30pm

The Hubble Legacy Archive For You

The Hubble Legacy Archive is now open for you to browse! Thousands of unscrutinized images of the sky as pictured by the Hubble Space Telescope are there for you to browse, reprocess, analyze. They even challenge you to find hidden treasures, and submit th ...

Blog Post - Tommaso Dorigo - Mar 29 2012 - 7:39am

The Universe Was Kind Of A Wild Child

SCUBA-2, the most powerful camera ever developed for observing light at ‘sub-mm’ wavelengths (light that has a wavelength 1000 times longer than we can see with our eyes),  has begun a revolutionary new study of cosmic star-formation history. ...

Article - News Staff - Mar 29 2012 - 6:44pm

Tornadoes On The Sun

Solar tornadoes several times as wide as the Earth can be generated in the solar atmosphere and one such solar tornado was discovered using the Atmospheric Imaging Assembly telescope on board the Solar Dynamic Observatory (SDO) satellite. The Atmospheric I ...

Article - News Staff - Mar 30 2012 - 4:00am

Celebrating Space! Solar Tornadoes, Exoplanets & Micro-Black Holes

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Article - David Brin - Apr 5 2012 - 1:26pm

MOSFIRE: UCLA Builds A Time Machine

A new five-ton instrument that goes by the name MOSFIRE (Multi-Object Spectrometer for Infra-Red Exploration) has been installed in the Keck I Telescope at the W.M. Keck Observatory atop Mauna Kea in Hawaii.  MOSFIRE gathers light in infrared wavelengths — ...

Article - News Staff - Apr 12 2012 - 9:24am

Fomalhaut: Earth-Sized Planets Only 25 Light Years Away?

A new observatory,  the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA), is still under construction but it has already given astronomers a major breakthrough in understanding a nearby planetary system and provided valuable clues about how such systems ...

Article - News Staff - Apr 12 2012 - 8:26pm

Sandstorms In Spaaaaace

Astronomers believe they have found the answer to the mystery of a powerful ‘superwind’ which causes the death of stars. Stars like our own Sun end their lives with a ‘superwind’ 100 million times stronger than the solar wind, which occurs over a period of ...

Article - News Staff - Apr 14 2012 - 3:00am