You are browsing the archive for Ryan Anderson.
8 March 2011
Planetary Decadal Survey
Last night Steve Squyres unveiled the results of the Planetary Science Decadal Survey. The decadal is a massive document used to chart the course of planetary science for the next ten years, and it drew a huge crowd here at the conference. This decadal was different from previous ones because it specifically was tasked with coming up with a list of missions that would be achievable with the funding available …
28 February 2011
Spectacular Lava Lake Photos
Here’s a little something to keep you occupied while I try to do All The Things this week. The Big Picture has a spectacular series of photos of the world’s largest lava lake in Nyiragongo Crater in Africa. Enjoy!
Not dead yet
Hello loyal readers. Sorry I’ve been AWOL lately, but things have been slightly crazy. I have been frantically working on wrapping up a paper and last week I was out at Los Alamos National Lab last week collecting some last-minute data (a.k.a. zapping some more rocks) for the paper. This week I get to (somehow) finish it and make a poster about the results which I will present next week …
15 February 2011
Latest Stardust NExT Images
Images are still trickling down from the successful flyby of comet Tempel 1 last night. Here is the latest image: You can start to see some details in this one! I was amused to see that the NASA website listing the new images claims that this was taken from a distance of 587.8 trillion miles away! If something looks wrong about that number to you, you’re right. That’s equivalent to …
Waiting for Tempel 1
It sounds like it might be a little while longer before we get nice high-res images from last night’s flyby of comet Tempel 1. As usual, Emily at the Planetary Society blog has the scoop: The good news is that they have all their images, and according to Stardust’s navigation team, they all have the comet centered in the field of view. The bad news is that for reasons as …
14 February 2011
Stardust NExT’s Date with a Comet
Apparently NASA has a rule that the comet Tempel 1 can only be visited on holidays. Back in 2005, on the 4th of July, the Deep Impact spacecraft flew by Tempel 1 and smashed an 816 pound copper bullet into the comet. And now this Valentine’s Day the Stardust spacecraft is taking a look at the aftermath.
5 February 2011
Five Awesome Things about the James Webb Space Telescope
Today I received an email from my adviser containing this – dare I say – awesome video about the James Webb Space Telescope. It also has a surprisingly well-put answer to the age-old question of “Why spend money on NASA when we have so many problems here on earth?” The answer: To make the world a better place you not only have to decrease the suck, you also have to increase the awesome.
3 February 2011
Planets, Planets Everywhere!
For there is a single general space, a single vast immensity which we may freely call Void; in it are innumerable globes like this one on which we live and grow. – Giordano Bruno, 1584 It’s looking more and more like Bruno was right. Yesterday the Kepler Space Telescope released its second batch of data, revealing an astounding 1235 new exoplanet candidates! For the uninitiated, Kepler is a space telescope …
31 January 2011
Fighting the Woo
Carl Sagan brings his fully armed Spaceship of the Imagination to bear on the Astrology Battleship, and Tim Minchin gives the most hilarious and eloquent rant on alt-medicine and pseudoscience I have ever heard.
28 January 2011
Remembering Challenger
Today marks the 25th anniversary of the Challenger shuttle explosion. I was too young to remember the disaster, but it has had a lasting effect on our space program, and I certainly remember the Columbia disaster which occurred when I was an undergraduate. It’s tempting when these sorts of things happen to say that space exploration is too dangerous and too hard and that we should turn back. But that’s exactly the wrong response.
