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20 May 2008
Superflare!
Image credit: Casey Reed/NASA Apparently the tiny little red dwarf star EV Lacertae has quite a temper. On April 25, astronomers detected that this little dim star underwent a colossal flare and became brighter than the sun. Bad Astronomy has the full story, but I felt the need to share this mostly because of the absolutely awesome artist’s rendition of the flare above. I’ve seen a lot of space artwork, …
18 May 2008
New York Geology: Day 2
In an earlier post, I shared some pictures and interpretations from the first day of a two-day whirlwind tour of New York geology. Now without further ado is day 2! Our first stop on Day two was Stark’s Knob, a tall outcrop of basaltic rock jutting out of the middle of an otherwise unremarkable bit of New York countryside. The basalt is in the form of rounded blobs or “pillows”, …
14 May 2008
New York Geology Trip: Day 1
Over the weekend I went on a joint Astronomy/Geology department field trip to visit some cool geologic sites in eastern New York state. As a planetary scientist, it is good to sometimes go out and actually, you know, study an actual planet. I will do my best to describe some of the sights here, but I’m afraid my field geology skills are lacking so I won’t nearly do the locations …
5 May 2008
One Way to Save On Gas
This morning, as I was skimming headlines at CNN, I saw a link to a TIME magazine list of 10 ways to save on gas. First of all, there were only 9 suggestions in the list and most of them were silly. For example: wearing different shoes while you drive. And second of all, they miss the most important one. Therefore, I feel it is my duty to inform people …
30 April 2008
DARPA is Working on What?!
Arthur C. Clarke was a brilliant man and was known for coming up with ideas that were not only astounding, but also plausible in the near future. He was one of the first to propose communications satellites in geostationary orbits. He also invented the concept of a space elevator that would lift cargo from the surface of a planet all the way out to space. People are now actively working …
