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16 October 2008
DPS 2008 Day Five: Icy and Not-so-Icy Moons
Today was the final day of the DPS meeting here at Cornell, but the sessions were still very interesting. They served to remind me just how little we know about the outer solar system. Also, remember you can go and watch all the sessions yourself! I believe the plan is to transfer all the videos to a more permanent location soon, so I will keep you posted. The first few …
14 October 2008
DPS 2008 Day Three: More Titan, More Exoplanets
This morning I spent my time in the Titan Subsurface and Interior sessions, and I’m glad I did because there were some cool talks. There were a couple that showed possible evidence for cryovolcanism (that is, “volcanoes” where the “lava” is actually water freezing to become ice). One talk by Rosaly Lopes showed radar images of locations called Hotei Arcus and Western Xanadu, and suggested that the lobate features that …
12 October 2008
DPS 2008 Day 2: Rings, Titan, Comets, Orbits
Today I didn’t go to most of the first round of presentations. They were about Titan’s upper atmosphere, asteroids, and the theory and dynamics of rings. Not really the stuff that gets me excited. I did catch the last talk in the rings session. It was showcasing a new program used to simulate ring particles, including the ability to make the particles stick together if they collide slowly. Apperntly some …
10 October 2008
Space-X Launch Video
Check out this video of the succesful Space-X launch, set to music. I especially like the glowing hot rocket nozzle.
9 October 2008
Dark matter around Earth?
Dark matter is one of those mysterious physics problems that, while really awesome in theory, almost never seems to have applications back here in the solar system. However, a new theory claims that dark matter might be lurking just overhead. A new study (Adler, J. Phys. A) has come out that sets an upper limit on the amount of dark matter between Earth and the orbit of the moon: 1500 …
8 October 2008
25km Enceladus Flyby!
Tomorrow the Cassini spacecraft will fly within 25 km of the surface of Enceladus. Yes, you read that right. Twenty five kilometers. Not 2500, not 250. Holy crap. I’ll let you read about all the details over at the Planetary Society blog. I just wanted to call attention to how freakin’ amazing it is to be able to command a spacecraft that is currently ~1,525,300,000 km away from Earth and …
Quite the Overhead Projector
Last night McCain called the projector at the Adler Planetarium, the first planetarium in the western hemisphere, an “overhead projector” and criticized Obama for seeking money for it. He is also on record as previously calling planetaria “foolishness”. Read more about it at Cosmic Variance and Universe Today. Update: the Adler planetarium has issued a statement about McCain’s remark, and Bad Astronomy (and many others) weigh in.
7 October 2008
More Astro-Art!
Lynn Adrich, Pilgrimage: Through the Wormhole 2008 installation in progress Right on the heels of my post about Planets as Art, a press release from JPL is announcing a new exhibit in Pasadena that is the result of collaboration between the Spitzer space telescope team and the Pasadena Art Center College of Design. From the press release: For thousands of years, people have used art to explore ideas that humble, …
Mercury Flyby #2 Images
The first close-up images from MESSENGER’s second Mercury flyby were posted today and they’re spectacular! Here’s a link to the images, and a nice summary over at Bad Astronomy. The most striking thing about this first image is the totally awesome planet encircling ejecta rays! These are formed in large impacts when the debris gets blasted out of the crater in coherent jets. Rays are common, expecially on airless bodies, …
6 October 2008
Mercury Flyby!
The MESSENGER probe flew by Mercury for the second time last night, coming only 200 km from the planet’s surface. Since MESSENGER is so close to the sun, NASA engineers had to compensate for the fact that the intense sunlight produces a force on the spacecraft. In essence, MESSENGER was acting like a small solar sail! The picture shown above was taken yesterday during the approach, but I’ll post the …
