Archive for the 'astronomy' Category

Bad Luck for Kepler

Published on May 15, 2013 in astronomy, planets, science, science and society and space. 0 Comments

Steinn has a nice post about the sudden ending of the Kepler mission, due to a crucial component failure. As he notes:

“Kepler has discovered almost 3,000 planetary candidates, of which about 100 have been confirmed through a variety of techniques, and, statistically, most of the rest are likely to be real planets.

Kepler has not quite found earth like planets in the habitable zone, yet.
It is heartbreakingly close to doing so.”

Sad to see, especially at a time when science is being hurt so badly by continued Continue reading ‘Bad Luck for Kepler’

TED Youth Talk – Hidden Structures of the Universe

Published on April 23, 2013 in art, astronomy, black holes, cosmology, dark energy, dark matter, nature, research, science, science and society, science education, science in the media, sketches, string theory and work. 3 Comments

You might recall that last year I gave a talk at TED Youth, in their second year of short TED talks aimed at cvj_TED_Youth younger audiences. You’ll recall (see e.g. here and here) I made a special set of slides for it, composed from hundreds of my drawings to make it all in graphic novel style, and somehow trying to do (in 7 minutes!!) what the TED people wanted. They wanted an explanation of string theory, but when I learned that telescopesI was the only person in the event talking about physics, I kind of insisted that (in a year when we’d discovered the Higgs boson especially!) I talk more broadly about the broader quest to understand what the world is made of, leaving a brief mention of string magnifytheory at the end as one of the possible next steps being worked on. Well, they’ve now edited it all together and made it into one of the lessons on the TED Ed site, and so you can look at it. Show it to friends, young and old, and remember that it is ok if you don’t get everything that is said… it is meant to invite you to find out more on your own. Also, as you see fit, use the pause button, scroll back, etc… to get the most out of the narrative.

I’m reasonably pleased with the outcome, except for one thing. WHY am I rocking Continue reading ‘TED Youth Talk – Hidden Structures of the Universe’

Known Unknowns Decreased a Bit

Published on March 21, 2013 in astronomy, cosmology, dark energy, dark matter, galaxies, research, science and science in the media. 3 Comments

Well, the day is here. The Planck collaboration has announced a huge amount of results for the consumption of the scientific community and the media today. The Planck satellite looks with unprecedented precision at the very earliest radiation (“cosmic microwave background radiation”, CMB) from the universe when it was very young (a wee, cute 380,000 years old) and helps us deduce many things about what the universe was like then, and what it is like now. Here’s one of the representations of the universe using the new sky mapping Planck did (image courtesy ESA/Planck):

There’s a ton of data, and a raft of papers with analysis and conclusions. And there’s a very nice press release. I recommend looking at it. It is here, and the papers are here. The title of the press release is “Planck reveals an almost perfect Universe”, and some of the excitement is in the “almost” part. A number of anomalies that were hinted at by the previous explorer of the CMB, WMAP, seem to have been confirmed by Planck, and so there are some important things to be understood in order to figure out the origin of the anomalies (if they ultimately turn out to be real physics and not data artefacts). [Update: Andrew Jaffe has two nice posts I recommend. One on the science, and the other on the PR. Jester also has a nice post on the science from a particle physicist's perspective.]

What is the title of my post referring to? Well, the refined measurements have allowed us to update some of the vital statistics of the universe. First, it is a bit older than previous measurements have indicated. The age is now measured as 13.82 billion years. (I’m already updating pages in the draft of my book…) Second, the proportion of ingredients Continue reading ‘Known Unknowns Decreased a Bit’

Tales from the Industry XXXIX – Magnetic Weather?

Published on February 20, 2013 in astronomy, black holes, education, Los Angeles, planets, science, science in the media and work. 0 Comments

Today (Tuesday) saw me up at 6:30am to prepare for an 8:00am call time for a shoot on a special episode of – wait for it – Deadliest Space Weather. It is original programming for the Weather channel, and before you dismiss it because of the title, it turns out that it is not a bad idea for exploring various scientific concepts. The first season ended a few weeks ago. I’d not realized it was airing until recently, and actually those recent demos I told you about were used in examinations of planetary conditions on Venus and on Mars. (Two separate episodes.) The idea seems to be to consider what it would be like on earth if the conditions were like those on Venus, or consider what what happen if you went outdoors on Mars.

So you might think it is silly, but if done well, it is actually an opportunity to
explain some science to an audience who might not have been the usual science audience…in which case I’m happy to be on board! In addition to spectacularly showing what happens when sugar and sulphuric acid meet, I got to show how to boil Continue reading ‘Tales from the Industry XXXIX – Magnetic Weather?’

Telescopes

Published on November 10, 2012 in astronomy, design, education, Los Angeles, science, sketches and work. 3 Comments Tags: .

Back home in the office/studio working on slides for the TEDYouth talk. Spent altogether too much time on telescopes today. Way too much. I estimate that this Continue reading ‘Telescopes’

Subway Guy

Published on October 17, 2012 in astronomy, craft, Los Angeles, planets, science and words. 0 Comments

It has been quite the busy period the last few days, so much so that one is tempted (but not overwhelmingly) to neglect to take note of wonderful things like the discovery of a planet in the Alpha Centauri system, or the awesomeness of my group of students in my graduate electromagnetism class who all did quite well in the midterm I set them. But I took Continue reading ‘Subway Guy’

Nostalgia for the Light

Published on August 15, 2012 in astronomy, film, movies and science and society. 1 Comment

Have you heard about the film “Nostalgia for the Light“, by Patricio Guzmán? As you know, one of my main cares in the business of communicating science broadly is having it be mixed up nicely with the rest of the culture (not making it a lecture all the time). This helps reach broader audiences, for a start. In a sense, this looks like a film that is doing that. It seems it was released in 2010, but is appearing on some big screens for the first time this year, in some places. I’ve not seen it, but it is soemthing I intend to see, based on the synopsis alone. I thought I’d mention it to you.

The summary from the Guardian film site says “Drama in which a group of Chilean astronomers’ search for the origins of life is contrasted with local womens’ efforts to find the bodies of loved ones killed by the Pinochet regime.”

There’s a trailer here: Continue reading ‘Nostalgia for the Light’

Looking Around

Published on August 10, 2012 in planets, science and space. 0 Comments

You’ve no doubt heard about some of the images coming from the newly landed Curiosity device on the Martian surface. Above is a 360 degree panorama (from NASA/JPL) assembled from lots of smaller images, showing its surroundings in the Continue reading ‘Looking Around’

She Stuck the Landing!

Published on August 5, 2012 in planets and science. 1 Comment

Well, that was exciting! Congratulations to the teams on the Curiosity mission! Look out for some great science to come from this laboratory!

-cvj

Curious about Curiosity?

Published on August 1, 2012 in planets, science and space. 0 Comments

So, if like many people, you are excited about the (late) weekend landing of Curiosity (the roving Mars Science Laboratory) on Mars, and/or if you want to know more, Kenneth Chang has an article in the New York Times all about it here. (Image right is an artist’s impression done for NASA/JPL.) The sequence of operations that have to go right for Curiosity to, er, stick the landing* is quite amazing, and so let’s all wish them good luck. Have a Continue reading ‘Curious about Curiosity?’

A Slightly Better View!

Published on June 7, 2012 in astronomy and space. 1 Comment

I’m guessing that most of you who took pictures during the venus transit on Tuesday (see my modest effort here) did not get something quite as good as the one above. Wow. It is by the JAXA/NASA Hinode craft that is in orbit.

From the NASA site: Continue reading ‘A Slightly Better View!’

In Transit

Published on June 5, 2012 in astronomy and space. 4 Comments

I set up some simple 10×50 binoculars on my tripod, and after a tiny bit of fiddling, out pops the transit in progress from the other end, projected on to the back of an envelope! (The envelope was helpfully held still by a friend so that I could take the photo.) (Click for larger view.) Continue reading ‘In Transit’

Don’t Forget the Transit of Venus!

Published on June 4, 2012 in astronomy, Los Angeles and science. 0 Comments

Hot on the heels of the annular eclipse of a few weeks ago, we’ve another giant body passing in front of the sun tomorrow. Venus! This time the giant body (roughly the same size as the earth…just a bit smaller) is much further away from us, and so is dwarfed by the sun. It’ll be a tiny dot on the disc of the sun that takes several hours to pass across. This’ll give you plenty of time to look. (In the US, for example, it’ll start at about 6:06pm EST and about 3:06pm PST…) You won’t get another chance (at least, not from earth…) until 2117, so have a go!

In fact, you’ll be doing something that is vital for modern astronomy right now – observing the effects of a planet on the light of its parent star as seen from afar. This is the principal method for detecting planets moving around distant stars, the “extra-solar” planets you hear so much about in the news from time to time. Here, we’re seeing it happening for a familiar planet around a familiar star. Although both objects are quite familiar, this transit is still worthwhile to study, since it helps planet hunters learn more about how such processes can help deduce things about the planet doing the transit. So study it many will, I’m sure.

You can just look at it for fun, but remember to be careful. Do not look directly at Continue reading ‘Don’t Forget the Transit of Venus!’

Shadow Dancing

Published on May 23, 2012 in astronomy and Los Angeles. 0 Comments

My modest contribution to the photos of the eclipse from Sunday. Modest indeed… Continue reading ‘Shadow Dancing’

Solar Eclipse!

Published on May 19, 2012 in astronomy and Los Angeles. 0 Comments

Don’t forget the annular solar eclipse on Sunday! You get get all the detail about it at the NASA eclipse site here. According to the site:

“An annular eclipse will be visible from a 240 to 300 kilometre-wide track that traverses eastern Asia, the northern Pacific Ocean and the western United States. A partial eclipse is seen within the much broader path of the Moon’s penumbral shadow, that includes much of Asia, the Pacific and the western 2/3 of North America”…

I’ve put a snap of the graphic they provided on the right for decoration, so you can go to the site for more detail and explanation. This includes precise times for your city, and so on and so forth. Be sure to exercise the usual precautions in viewing (do not look directly at the sun with your eyes, and certainly don’t look at it through any optical instruments… project the eclipse onto something else… there are many sources that can tell you more about that…)

Enjoy!

-cvj

Happy Birthday Hubble!

Published on April 24, 2012 in astronomy, science and space. 0 Comments

It is the 22nd Anniversary of the launch of the Hubble space telescope today! As you know, this instrument has produced a wealth of scientific information over the years, as well as lots of wonderful pictures for everyone that broadened and deepened our sense of wonder about this remarkable universe we find ourselves in. The Hubble site is here.

Phil Plait has re-posted his 2010 post “Ten Things You Don’t Know About Hubble”, Continue reading ‘Happy Birthday Hubble!’

Lunar Eclipse!

Published on December 9, 2011 in astronomy and Los Angeles. 0 Comments

For those out here in the West of the continent, there’ll be a lovely lunar eclipse tomorrow morning (I should have mentioned it before but it somehow missed my attention). It will be at its peak about dawn (about 6:00am), and so if you are an early riser, it should be a nice sight to greet you – especially since it is expected to be somewhat red in hue. Of course, look for the moon in the West, near to setting. Since it will be close to the horizon, it will look quite large as well.

The eclipse will actually be visible right across the Pacific too, and into Asia Continue reading ‘Lunar Eclipse!’

Google Glimpses

Published on June 15, 2011 in astronomy, Los Angeles and science. 4 Comments

Well, don’t forget the total lunar eclipse tonight! It is already starting… Apparently it will be the longest one for over ten years. It won’t be visible in North America, however, but google has provided a way to make sure you get your, er, lunatic desires to see the moon in earth shadow. For a start, there’s another excellent google doodle on their front page today (snapshot right) that allows you to slide the shadow over the moon to your heart’s desire. Furthermore, there’s a live feed of the eclipse on their YouTube channel, here.

Enjoy!

-cvj

Go Visit JPL!

Published on May 14, 2011 in astronomy, fun, Los Angeles, planets, science, science and society and science education. 0 Comments

This weekend is the JPL Open House! You might recall from my visits there in the past (or, at least, my reports on them – see e.g. here) that it is a fun and informative time. I recommend it. It runs from 9:00am to 5:00pm today and tomorrow, and you can go along to see what’s up with various JPL/NASA missions, hear about future missions, learn the science and technology behind various equipment and the various science goals, and much more.

See the website here for more information.

Here’s a video I made two years ago (including a Mars Rover roving over children!!!):



I hope I can go today, but I’ve got rather a lot on, including trying to find some time Continue reading ‘Go Visit JPL!’

Kepler’s Eggs

Published on March 29, 2011 in astronomy, planets and science. 2 Comments

keplersunsplanets_rowe_smallThe exo-planet hunting craft Kepler has found 1235 candidate planets orbiting other suns so far. The APOD site has a lovely composition by Jason Rowe showing representations of all of those suns with the spots on them that represent the planet transiting in front of them (that’s how they are found by Kepler). They are all nicely Continue reading ‘Kepler’s Eggs’

Major Moon-Milk Opportunity!

Published on March 18, 2011 in astronomy, books, literature, Los Angeles and work. 3 Comments

Tomorrow’s full moon is going to be the closest to us in 18 years, apparently. It’s called a supermoon by some, and no doubt some will try to link it to many major events here on earth, both natural and man-made (if you’ll forgive the distinction). I won’t do a long post about this issue, but instead refer you to Phil, who is excellent on the science of this and related subjects.

What I will say instead is that all commentators seem to have missed that this is the best opportunity in years to gather moon-milk! Get out your ladders and buckets and go for it!

What am I talking about? At my last birthday I was given* a lovely collection of stories by Italo Calvino, and the first one is entitled “The Distance of the Moon”. It begins with a description of the fact that a long time ago the moon orbited much closer to the earth, as you may know, and then weaves a delightful story from there. The story involves reminiscences, by the narrator Qfwfq, about those good old days when the moon came so close that once a month (yes, I know) the earth’s inhabitants would take boats out onto the sea to the where the moon came close and climb up a ladder to its surface to gather the much-desired substance known as moon-milk. A lovely extract follows:

Continue reading ‘Major Moon-Milk Opportunity!’

Heroic

Published on February 11, 2011 in art, astronomy, craft, Los Angeles, science and society, sketches and work. 9 Comments

character_a_inkedStruggling for a post title, I went for a slight critique of the work I did on the character you’ve seen earlier*. She’s been grabbed from a panel showing her looking for a seat in a cafe where a conversation (about a physics issue) is to continue.

It is a large panel showing the layout of the cafe with all the people sitting and reading and talking and so forth, and she’s one of several small figures in it, so it is probably not that big a deal that she has somewhat heroic proportions here as compared to her more ordinary proportions in other panels.

Heroic here refers to the various choices of proportions you can give to figures, usually based on how many heads tall they are. You might have heard of people talking about how many heads tall a figure should be.

Well, there really is no “should be”, and different practitioners use different Continue reading ‘Heroic’

To Explore Strange New Worlds…

Published on February 3, 2011 in astronomy, planets and science. 1 Comment

So you’ve probably heard the news, but just in case I thought I’d mention it here. The Kepler observatory, up there in orbit keeping an eye on things for us, has found a bumper crop of planets orbiting a sun-like star a mere 2000 or so light years away. It is amazing what you can see if you look closely. Every now and again the star’s brightness dips ever so slightly, and that tells you something has passed in front of it – another planet. Or in this case, once you’ve analyzed the pattern of dips, as the team of astronomers did, six planets!

These are not earths, although the headlines all over the news sure try to grab you in Continue reading ‘To Explore Strange New Worlds…’

The Project – 1

Published on December 10, 2010 in academia, art, astronomy, books, fun, humour, literature, Los Angeles, personal, research, science, science and society, science education, science in the media, words and work. 10 Comments

It is midnight and I really should get to sleep in order to wake up and work some more on editing the final exam for my class so that it can go to the printer by noon. But I’ve got several pokes from people clamouring to find out what The Project actually is, and I promised yesterday I’d start to spill the beans. Thanks for the interest! I think I’d better get at least some of it out there or I’ll have an angry mob by morning! So here goes. I will drag out the draft I sketched yesterday and beat it into shape:

So, as you may have guessed, The Project, which I’ve been mentioning here since a post way back in February, is a writing project, but it is somewhat different from what you might expect. The bottom line is that I hope that at some point into future you will be able to purchase a copy of your own, and that you will find it instructive, exciting, and enjoyable. At least.

Yes, it is a book about science. However… Well, here’s the thing. Over many years, people (friends, colleagues, potential agents and publishers, blog readers, etc) have been asking me when I am going to write my book. You know, the popular-level book that every academic who is interested in the public understanding of their field (as you know I am from reading this blog) is expected will write at some point. To be honest, I have given it some thought over the years, and it has been something I figured I might do at some point. In fact, several different ideas have occurred to me over the years, and I may well implement some of them at some point.

But a major thought began to enter my mind well over ten years ago. In my field, there is a rather narrow range of models for the shape of such books, usually involving about 80% of it being a series of chapters covering all the standard introductory material (some relativity, some quantum mechanics, and so forth) for the lay reader, before culminating in a chapter or two of what the researcher really wants to tell them about: some aspect of their research. This is a fine model, and it is great that people continue to write such books, and I will no doubt use that model one day, but to be honest, I don’t think there is any urgency for me to add to the canon yet another one of those books. Moreover, if you line examples of that type of book up against each other, you see that the Continue reading ‘The Project – 1′

I, For One, Welcome Our New Arsenic-Replacing-Phosphorus-In-DNA Overlords

Published on December 2, 2010 in astronomy, biology, science, science fiction, science in the media and space. 3 Comments

mono_lakeYeah! This is just the sort of thing I’d hoped that we (human beings) would find soon, in order to strengthen the idea that in looking for forms of life elsewhere, we be not just open to the idea that the basic chemistry for that life may be very different from what we are used to on earth (easier said than done), but that it is maybe even probable that this is what we could find first. Now, given the news today (announced by Felisa Wolfe-Simon and her team in a NASA press conference today and reported on in a paper to appear in Science) we know that it is not just a theoretical construction, but already a reality right here on earth. The researchers have identified a life form with a striking difference. The bacterium (which lives in Mono Lake – see NASA image above right) has DNA (and some other important complex molecules) with a major difference from all other forms we know. phosphorus has been replaced by arsenic!

periodic_tableThis works, by the way, because arsenic is in the same chemical family as phosphorus, being directly below it in the periodic table. Note that this is exactly the sort of thing that has been speculated about a lot in the classic days of science/speculative fiction concerned with alien life, remember? :- Silicon based life forms instead of the Carbon based ones that we know and love on earth. Silicon is again in the same column as Continue reading ‘I, For One, Welcome Our New Arsenic-Replacing-Phosphorus-In-DNA Overlords’

Passing Star People

Published on November 5, 2010 in astronomy, cosmology, dark matter, galaxies, Los Angeles, music, science and work. 1 Comment

John Williams in RehearsalYou might not know the name Maurice Murphy, but I am certain that you are likely to know – and maybe even be very familiar with – his work. His is the principal trumpet playing the lead themes in very many films with music by John Williams. I have for a long time been very impressed with how so many of those themes trip so easily off the tongue (physical or mental) and seem to fit together so well (just hum the Star Wars theme, and then follow it by the Superman theme, then the Indiana Jones theme, and so on). A lot of this is due to the fact that Williams (like most good composers) is a master at recycling and modifying, creating a cluster of much loved (deservedly) themes that accompany some of our favourite movie-going memories, but I now think that the other reason is that you’re hearing them all played by the same voice! That voice is the playing of Maurice Murphy, the truly wonderful trumpeter who Williams would specifically request to play the lead on recordings of his film music. Murphy died recently, and you can dig a bit more about him and explore what I’ve been telling you further by going to the London Symphony Orchestra’s site devoted to him Continue reading ‘Passing Star People’

Perseids Galore!

Published on August 12, 2010 in astronomy, fun and Los Angeles. 2 Comments

perseidmap_stripThe Perseid meteors are reported to be really good viewing this year.

As I said a few years ago in anticipation of a similar nice Perseid meteor shower:

Concerned that you don’t know enough astronomy? No idea in any amount of detail where these constellations are? Don’t worry! Basically, all you really have to do is find a place where the sky is reasonably dark, look [North] East, and wait. As your eyes acclimatise to the dark, and with a bit of luck, you’ll see some, and zero in on where to look.

There’s more at the NASA news site, from which I borrowed the image above. The peak is around these few nights (12th August or so) and there’s no moon, so if you’ve got some dark (ish) skies and a bit of patience, you should see some. Yes, this includes viewers in cities. Don’t be pessimistic. You might be able to find patches of dark enough sky, especially if you can go near to an edge of the city, or a park, and look away from the bulk of the lights. It does not have to be perfect viewing Continue reading ‘Perseids Galore!’

National Academy

Published on July 28, 2010 in astronomy, science, science and society, science education and work. 6 Comments

As part of a report on a study (or several studies) I was writing last week (because evidently I can’t find enough things to keep me from making progress on the Project), I was including some data on the geographic distribution of members of the National Academy of Sciences within the US. The focus was on Physics, Astronomy, and Applied Physical Sciences. It was rather interesting, binned by state, especially if you grab the columns and tell Numbers to throw up a graph of it all. The concentrations are striking. I wondered whether the concentrations were simply following population, at least roughly, and so I went elsewhere and grabbed the population numbers for each state and ran that into a chart as well. I’ll leave you to draw your own conclusions as to the results. I find them interesting. Look at California, Texas, and Florida, for example.

nas_geography_cvj

You can look at the membership data (and slice them to your liking) here.

-cvj

Bad Universe

Published on July 24, 2010 in astronomy, science and television. 0 Comments

Phil Plait of Bad Astronomy has announced what his super secret project has been. It’s a new science TV show for the Discovery Channel! It is called “Phil Plait’s Bad Universe”, and I imagine it’ll be a lot of fun and quite informative. There’s a trailer and some of his thoughts about the show here. I could not work out when it is going to air, so keep your eyes peeled*.

Enjoy!

-cvj

Continue reading ‘Bad Universe’

Planck Matters

Published on June 14, 2010 in astronomy, cosmology, dark energy, dark matter, galaxies, Los Angeles, science and work. 2 Comments

You can read a bit about the work of my colleague Elena Pierpaoli and her postdocs and students in this article in one of USC’s in-house publications. It focuses on the Planck observatory (image right from NASA/ESA), which we’ve discussed here before. (Recall the launch?) There’s a lot of exciting physics about the very young universe to be discovered as more data from the mission get gathered and analyzed.

Enjoy the article!

-cvj

Venus at Midday!

Published on May 16, 2010 in astronomy, Los Angeles, planets and science. 6 Comments

[Update: That really hurt. Hard on the neck. And could not even find the moon... I think there's left over moisture haze high up. :( ]

I just learned from Phil’s Bad Astronomy blog that apparently there’s a great opportunity to see Venus right in the middle of the day, and today is rather optimum for it. I’m going to try and see if it works. At about 1:00pm (sorry those of you for whom the sun has already gone way past that), look for the sun and then the thin crescent moon will be about three fist-widths to the left of that (if in the Northern hemisphere – right otherwise). Venus will be visible just to the right of that crescent. Phil has a diagram up on his site, here. This is all supposed to be possible with the naked eye, and I imagine you can help things a lot by holding your palm up against the sun to stop the brightness from that direction, and then waiting a bit for your eyes to relax into the viewing of the area of the sky I mentioned. Phil also mentioned binoculars. I’d seriously suggest trying without them, if you can, since accidentally looking at the sun with them is something I want to strongly urge you to avoid. (If you must use them, put something like a building or a large tree trunk in front of the sun and don’t change your footing…)

Good luck! I’m going to try in a couple of hours. Let me know how it works out for you, if you like!

-cvj

Far Far Away…

Published on April 27, 2010 in astronomy, science and space. 2 Comments

carina

A wonderful, wonderful new image from Hubble, in the week of its 20th year anniversary*. (There is a nice NPR story on the anniversary here. Also, did you see the Continue reading ‘Far Far Away…’

Sun Spotting

Published on April 21, 2010 in astronomy and science. 1 Comment
(From NASA:) A full-disk multiwavelength extreme ultraviolet image of the sun taken by SDO on March 30, 2010. False colors trace different gas temperatures. Reds are relatively cool (about 60,000 Kelvin, or 107,540 F); blues and greens are hotter (greater than 1 million Kelvin, or 1,799,540 F). Credit: NASA

(From NASA:) A full-disk multiwavelength extreme ultraviolet image of the sun taken by SDO on March 30, 2010. False colors trace different gas temperatures. Reds are relatively cool (about 60,000 Kelvin, or 107,540 F); blues and greens are hotter (greater than 1 million Kelvin, or 1,799,540 F). Credit: NASA

You may recall that recently NASA launched a new craft, the Solar Dynamics Observatory, to explore the science of the sun by making measurements of unprecedented resolution. Well, images have been released from it for the first time and they are truly spectacular! The one above is featured prominently in the extensive Continue reading ‘Sun Spotting’

Babies!

Published on April 14, 2010 in astronomy, science and space. 0 Comments Tags: .

hobys_rosette_05 This is a wonderful infrared image (please click on it for lovely larger view) of a region of star formation called the Rosette Nebula.

It comes from the Herschel space observatory, which was launched (along with the Planck observer) by the European Space Agency (ESA) almost a year ago, you may recall.

From the ESA website, here’s a bit more about what this is:

Continue reading ‘Babies!’

Mount Wilson Open For Business!

Published on April 13, 2010 in astronomy, Los Angeles, science and science and society. 2 Comments Tags: .

Good News Everyone!

flames near mount wilson seen from atwaterYou may recall the terrible fires of last year in the San Gabriel mountains, and the scare about whether the Mount Wilson facility might have been overrun by flames. There were Tolkienesque scenes of flaming mountains, dramatic battles on mountaintops, and so forth. No Balrogs were involved (a far as I know), but it was nail-biting enough for many.

One of the fallouts (fallsout?) of this was that the public access to the Observatory needed to be suspended. This included the ability to reserve access to the famous 60 inch telescope for your own use for an evening, an activity that I have highly recommended (from first hand experience) here on the blog.

Well, I can happily announce (I heard this from my friend Shelley Bonus who works Continue reading ‘Mount Wilson Open For Business!’

Occult Activity Tonight!

Published on April 5, 2010 in astronomy, Los Angeles and science. 6 Comments

rws_zetaophocc1Oh yes. Occult. Exciting right? Those of us in LA and some other areas (apparently points in Nevada, Idaho, and Western Montana, and the cities of Calgary and Edmonton) will see have the chance to see something quite remarkable if we stay up until 03:34 Pacific time (i.e., early morning April 6th). I learned this from Phil’s blog. You can find out more from Sky and Telescope (that’s their figure on the right). The event is this. If you stare at the star ζ (Zeta) Ophiuchi, which is visible to the naked eye, it will go dim for about eight seconds. Why, because an asteroid (824 Anastasia) will pass directly in front of it. You can’t see the asteroid directly, since it is too small and too dim, but nevertheless its presence between you and the distant star will be enough to make it go dim for a bit. Isn’t that wonderful? Have a go!

This remarkable effect (called occultation – hence the sneaky blog post title: the key root meaning here is “hidden”), while it might seem rather mundane in some ways (although you’re seeing the effect of an asteroid with your own eyes!) is extremely powerful in astronomy. It is a great way, for example, of detecting planets orbiting other stars! You’re familiar with occultations already actually. When the moon moves Continue reading ‘Occult Activity Tonight!’

New LHC Physics Phase Begins!

Published on March 30, 2010 in dark matter, science, string theory and work. 3 Comments

cern-first-physicsWell, here we go. It has been a little over 20 years since I’ve been actively working in this field and have been hearing about the promise of this machine, the Large Hadron Collider (LHC), and now it is really here, working, and colliding protons at an energy much higher than any previous experiment, promising us to a glimpse of new aspects of how the universe works. It is not guaranteed, of course, but there’s a great deal of hope, and so much of what we know strongly suggests that there’s going to be some exciting things to learn. See the list of related posts below for several bits of background on the LHC, or go to CERN’s website. [Image above right -click for larger view- is a CERN-supplied montage of data/images from the various experiments at the LHC. Caption: 7 TeV collision events seen today by the LHC's four major experiments (clockwise from top-left: ALICE, ATLAS, CMS, LHCb).]

Two of the things foremost in people’s minds are on one hand the Higgs (the particle or particles that ultimately give masses to the elementary particles that make up the Continue reading ‘New LHC Physics Phase Begins!’

A Spring Flower

Published on March 26, 2010 in astronomy, flowers, Los Angeles and science. 0 Comments

wise2010-008-med It is Springtime, and it is not unheard of for me to have pictures of flowers, often from my garden, up on the blog (see here). This time, I have a picture of a flower from a different garden. It is the one you can see by looking up. If you look up with the right equipment, you can even see new growth (just like you can in Springtime gardens). In this case, the equipment is WISE (the spacecraft launched in December, recall) with its ability to survey the sky in the infrared part of the spectrum, and the new growth is a cluster of new stars, called the Berkeley 59 cluster. Looks a bit like a rosebud, Continue reading ‘A Spring Flower’

Meteorite Men!

Published on January 27, 2010 in astronomy, science, science in the media, space, technology and television. 0 Comments

meteorite_men Did you watch Meteorite Men last week? If not, you can probably catch a repeat. It is a new series, airing 9pm ET/PT Wednesday nights, on the Science Channel about two guys who search for meteorites. Check your local listings for times. (Photo cheekily snapped from their site. Copyright aerolite meteorites.)

I learned about it from Bob Melisso, my producer/filmmaker friend (and occasional collaborator: see here, here and here) who made the pilot and is the supervising producer for the series. From the website:
Continue reading ‘Meteorite Men!’

Eye on the Sky

Published on January 8, 2010 in astronomy, Los Angeles, planets and science. 0 Comments

WISE First LightAmy Mainzer has shared and discussed the first released picture from the WISE project that was launched (you’ll recall) not so long ago. It looks marvellous. Press release here.

By the way, I hope you’re following Amy’s blog to learn more about the mission now it is in full swing. She’s giving you a window into the science as it breaks and the excitement of doing the science itself, seeing a project come together Continue reading ‘Eye on the Sky’