Space

Pluto Takes Back 9th Biggest Solar Object Title

In a Nature paper published Oct. 26 by Sicardy et al from the Universite Pierre et Marie Curie in Paris, Pluto was promoted to the ninth largest body orbiting the Sun. Its evil dwarf doppelganger Eris, though very similar in size, was found to be slightly ...

Blog Post - Bobby Knight - Oct 29 2011 - 5:17pm

Gravitational Lensing: Hubble Sees The Disk Around A Black Hole

 Black holes are invisible but the forces they unleash cause some of the brightest phenomena in the Universe; quasars. The gravitational lensing effect of stars in a distant galaxy and the Hubble Space Telescope have teamed up to observe a quasar accretion ...

Article - News Staff - Nov 4 2011 - 3:00am

Yu55, Elenin and Nibiru: The Holy Trinity

Next Tuesday Nov. 8th at midnight GMT is a big day (or night) for space enthusiasts. The famous asteroid Yu55 takes its walk down the runway, as depicted here: http://neo.jpl.nasa.gov/images/2005_YU55_approach_movie.gif. It will reach a visual brightness o ...

Blog Post - Bobby Knight - Jul 4 2012 - 6:28pm

Shadow of the moon- Waves, Tidal as well as Aerial

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Blog Post - Akshit Kumar - Nov 5 2011 - 6:57am

Seeing Armageddon In A Grain Of Sand

It is approaching fast. And it is big. The next NEO (Near-Earth Object) encounter that is. This Tuesday, a 400 m (1,300 ft) diameter rock, known as 2005 YU55, will pass by earth at a distance that is from astronomical perspective truly minuscule: 0.00217 A ...

Article - Johannes Koelman - Nov 7 2011 - 1:44am

Discovery: Pristine Primordial Gas 12 Billion Years Old

Scientists have found pristine clouds of the primordial gas that formed just after the Big Bang and it matches the composition made by predictions, which adds to direct evidence in support of the modern cosmological explanation for the origins of elements ...

Article - News Staff - Nov 10 2011 - 3:43pm

Sorry Mayans, Killer Solar Flares Impossible In 2012

The last few years have seen a real spike in end-of-the-world conspiracy theories.  Why?  More asteroids, more flares, more earthquakes?  No, just more Internet to talk about them, which gives bored news media something to talk about and bored science site ...

Article - Hank Campbell - Nov 11 2011 - 11:19am

Open Notebook Astronomy

Is the author of 'open notebook astronomy' an idiot?  Over at 365DOA, there is a full article on open notebook astronomy.  What is open notebook?  Making your data and your work visible, rather than only presenting the subset you find personally ...

Article - Alex "Sandy" Antunes - Nov 11 2011 - 4:45pm

A Cosmic Particle Accelerator And Earth's Bow Shock

Cosmic particle accelerators may be more efficient than previously thought, according to a discovery which has revealed the initial stages of acceleration for the first time. In space, large magnetic fields guide cosmic rays across the Universe at almost t ...

Article - News Staff - Nov 16 2011 - 3:48pm

Habitable Zone- G5 Star Planet Kepler 22b Is A Warm Super-Earth

Queue the 'life on other planets' media buzz.   NASA's Kepler Mission has discovered the first super-Earth orbiting in the habitable zone of a star similar to our Sun. ...

Article - News Staff - Dec 6 2011 - 3:20pm