Walkabout - Astronomy

That’s 154 to you and me

Source: Hubblesite.org

On this date 22 years ago, the Hubble Space Telescope was borne into space on Shuttle Discovery, the one that recently did its last flyby over DC (well, okay, it had help) before delivery to the Udvar-Hazy center. The Hubble will be retired soon, and while this is viewed with some [...]

Too cool, part twelve: Won’t fit in the bag

Courtesy of NASA’s Astronomy Photo of the Day, I present one of the most interesting examples of unintuitive physics: the curvature of spacetime to produce a gravitational lens. The ring that you see here is not the shock wave from a supernova affecting the surrounding gases, as I first thought, but actually a blue [...]

Book Review: Big Bang

This was a book that, I admit, wasn’t on my reading list, but when I came across a copy I began reading it out of interest. It is a credit to the author that I stayed with it, and chose to throw it into the review lineup.

Big Bang by Simon Singh is named [...]

Frustrations, part seven: Still not clean

I actually got out last night for the Leonids meteor shower, braving the cold like a dedicated nature photographer… well, okay, to a small extent, anyway. I was unable to travel very far, so it meant trying to find a darker sky spot in an area not particularly known for it. The cities aren’t [...]

We get what we pay for

This is something that’s been bugging me for a while, and while I started on a post some months back, I never finished it. I need to, especially in response to a new article. More below.

Let’s say you have heard of a new species of fish in Lake Tanganyika, and your job entails [...]

Pluto’s posse

I’m not following the latest breaking astronomical websites like I used to, so this news is a little old to those that do. But recently, astronomers confirmed that Pluto has another moon, bringing its total to four (counting Charon, known since 1978, and Nix and Hydra discovered in 2005.) For the time being, this [...]

35 years ago, Viking 1 shakes hands with Mars

On this date in 1976, the NASA Viking 1 lander touched down on the surface of Mars, becoming the first manmade object to contact that planet. The US space program, until that time dealing largely with the moon missions, satellites, and Skylab, had now extended its reach phenomenally.

Now, I’m going to put a [...]

But how? Part two: Designed just for us

This continues a new trend that I began here, where the concepts that support a religious (or at least, in this case, deistic) worldview receive critical examination. The topic of discussion this time around is the Anthropic Principle, or (sticking to the way it is normally wielded) “things are too perfectly suited to life [...]

Half a century

Fifty years ago today, Yuri Gagarin became the first human to travel into space, as well as the first to orbit the planet, beginning what is widely considered the Space Age of human development and accomplishments. For the first time, we left the planet and set foot among the stars.

Well, okay, that’s being [...]

Too cool, part nine: A star is born

As wintertime drifts away here in the northern hemisphere, we’ll lose the opportunity to see the most recognizable constellation on earth in the universe by human standards still visible in the evening sky: Orion. Shown here, but technically not in its entirety (there are more stars making up the bow and such, out of [...]

That’s 154 to you and me

Too cool, part twelve: Won’t fit in the bag

Book Review: Big Bang

Frustrations, part seven: Still not clean

We get what we pay for

Pluto’s posse

35 years ago, Viking 1 shakes hands with Mars

But how? Part two: Designed just for us

Half a century

Too cool, part nine: A star is born

Categories

Search posts

Archives

A year ago, more or less

And two

Blogroll

Within This Site

Tip Jar

Random Quote