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17 November 2010
Hayabusa Returns First Asteroid Sample
Earlier this week, the Japanese space agency (JAXA) announced that the sample container from the Hayabusa probe that returned to earth in June did indeed contain dust grains from the asteroid Itokawa. This makes Hayabusa the first sample return from the surface of an object beyond the moon, and is a great success for JAXA after a mission plagued with problems.
14 November 2010
Book Review: The Road
I’ve been on a bit of a post-apocalyptic kick this year. It all started when I got Fallout 3 last Christmas, and once I finished that game I moved on to reading some of the classics of the genre like On the Beach and I am Legend and The Stand. There’s something oddly fascinating about seeing characters face the end of the world, and to me it’s even more interesting …
9 November 2010
The ‘Mystery Missile’ was an Airplane Contrail
Folks, what we have here is a failure to think critically. Or at all. I know it’s much more fun to just point at the sky and grunt and screech like startled apes, but honestly, we should be better than that. It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to realize that the “mystery missile” was an airplane contrail.
8 November 2010
Could Rockets Cause Global Warming?
A few weeks ago, on the same day as the runway dedication at New Mexico’s “Spaceport America“, the AGU journal Geophysical Research Letters published a paper suggesting that soot from commercial rocket launches could cause significant climate change. Based on the results of climate modeling, the authors found that 1000 launches per year would have the same influence as all of the subsonic air traffic in the world combined. Talk …
7 November 2010
Mars Science Laboratory Instruments: APXS
A long time ago, I started doing a series of posts about the instruments on Mars Science Laboratory, but I only got through the cameras before I got distracted by something shiny on the internet and forgot to finish the series. So, let’s remedy that, starting with APXS. APXS stands for alpha particle x-ray spectrometer, meaning that this instrument bombards its target with helium nuclei (alpha particles) and x-rays, causing …
4 November 2010
First EPOXI Images!
The flyby of Hartley 2 was a success and the first images are coming down! Check them out at the EPOXI site. In the highest-res images so far you can see that the comet has a distinct peanut-like shape and is very smooth around the narrow point.
Comet Flyby Today!
Today we get to see a new comet! Ok, so the comet is actually quite old, and we’ve known about it since 1986, but this will be the first time we see the surface. The EPOXI mission will be swinging by the comet Hartley 2 in about an hour and a half, snapping high-resolution pictures and collecting other information all the way. If you haven’t heard of the EPOXI mission …
2 November 2010
Vote
If you’re an eligible US citizen, please go and exercise your right to vote today! Don’t know where to vote? The internets can help you! just use this handy Google maps tool. A bit of searching on the internet, especially your local newspapers, can yield plenty of good information such as interviews with candidates so you can make an informed decision.
1 November 2010
Planets Like Grains of Sand
The other day I came across a press release announcing that nearly one in four sun-like stars could have planets as small as Earth. That’s pretty awesome! But I though it was especially interesting how they came up with this number. Current technology can’t quite see an Earth-sized planet around a sun-like star, so how do you count things that you can’t see? Well, you count everything else and then extrapolate.
28 October 2010
Bradbury on Martian Moonrise
A friend of mine sent me this Ray Bradbury quote: A few years back, one dreadful boy ran up to me and said, “Mr. Bradbury?” “Yes?” I said. “That book of yours, The Martian Chronicles?” he said. “Yes,” I said. “On page 92 where you have the moons of Mars rising in the east?” “Yeah,” I said. “Nah,” he said. So I hit him. I’ll be damned if I’ll be …
