This is the lovely composite Hubble space telescope picture that is going around, showing the debris of a supernova – a star’s explosion. This is Cassiopeia A, and the explosion happened in 1680 AD, our time. See HST’s website for more on this , and discussion on the Bad Astronomy … Click to continue reading this post
[Updated, see below.] You’ll recall the news I reported about a number of members of the astronomy and planetary science community asking people to sign a petition to get the IAU to reconsider their Prague decision to accept the planetary definition that resulted in the “Pluto demotion”. See this link … Click to continue reading this post
I learned from an article in New Scientist by David Shiga that there have been recently found four more small satellite galaxies of our Milky Way galaxy. The satellites are dwarf galaxies a few hundred to a few thousand light years across. The tiny galaxies are thought to be the … Click to continue reading this post
…And from serious protests of the previous post to humourous (fictional!) ones. Go check out the Worth1000 photoshop competition on the subject, linked here. Some of them are great! Here’s one I liked: Creator’s caption: “Don’t argue with him, the man’s a genius.” -cvj
So despite the announcement yesterday, reliable sources tell me that some members of the astronomy community are hoping that there is still maybe a small window of opportunity for Pluto. Some members of the community are preparing a petition which protests the IAU planet definition! They don’t agree with the … Click to continue reading this post
I learned a new term from a producer at a television studio the other day (in a context I do not know if I’m allowed to blog about yet): “Spinach TV”. I love it. This is a term expressing the idea of television programming that is supposed to be “good … Click to continue reading this post
If, like I am, you’re tired of people getting ensnared by the nonsense in the “What the Bleep…” movie, and asking you to explain it….(I scared myself just now by looking at the technorati tags for What the Bleep and Bleep…yikes)… please please help out Jennifer Saylor, a blogger who … Click to continue reading this post
So you’ll recall that when we thought we had twelve planets we started trying to think of new mnemonics to help people remember the planets’ ordering. For example, from Yvette: My Very Educated Mother Can’t Justify Someone Using New Planetary Conventions… oh no, they haven’t named the last one yet!!! … Click to continue reading this post
Ok… Let’s try this again shall we? It’s official! There are eight planets in our solar system. The vote has taken place. Last week’s proposals have been rejected. Pluto has been demoted, apparently. They were voting on the following (I got this here): 1) A planet1 is a celestial body … Click to continue reading this post
The saga continues. Nobody yet knows how many planets we have. There has been fierce argument at the International Astronomical Union. As a result, the definitions of last week have been revised. “Pluton” has been discarded as a term (partly because of the clash with a geological term, a clash … Click to continue reading this post
Apparently the hole in the ozone layer above Antartica is stabilizing. Some of you will remember the late 80s, when the hole was discussed a lot in the popular press. It was a huge problem. The hole we made meant that we were losing our protection from the sun’s ultraviolet … Click to continue reading this post
Some days I’m optimistic, and I think we’ll change our behaviour in time. We’ll be able to stop destroying our environment quite so recklessly. We’ll stop our dependence on oil and other fossil fuels. We’ll stop fighting ridiculous wars over such fuels…. etc. Other days, stuff like this happens, and … Click to continue reading this post
Well, the press conference I told you about has happened! This is so exciting! There’s new and very direct proof from observations of the Bullet Cluster with the Chandra X-ray Observatory that Dark Matter really exists. So the need to make modifications to how gravity works on large scales in … Click to continue reading this post
Aaron Bergman has written an extensive review of Peter Woit’s attack-book on string theory. I’ll let you read the thoughtfully written 11-page pdf document linked there. I think that Aaron deserves some sort of medal or other award for making the effort. Peter responded here. Note from the title that … Click to continue reading this post
Below (nearer the end of this post) is the description of the “Uncertainty” event (Thursday 31st August, 7:00pm, USC’s Annenberg auditorium; much more here) part of USC’s Visions and Voices program I told you about in the previous post. These are, as I said, events that build upon the Categorically … Click to continue reading this post
