7 January 2010
Milky Way's Dark Matter Shaped Like a Squashed Beachball
Yep, yet another Universe Today article. Go check it out, and leave your comments there!
6 January 2010
Pulsar "Clocks" Will Help Find Gravity Waves
How do you detect a ripple in space-time itself? Go check out my article at Universe Today for the answer*. *Yes, technically the answer is also in the title of this post, but you should check out the Universe Today article for a little more detail.
5 January 2010
Putative "recent" lakes on Mars
I have a new article up at Universe Today about the discovery of possible lakes on Mars as recently as 3 billion years ago. I’m skeptical of the conclusion because there are a lot of uncertainties in crater age-dating on Mars, and the whole argument hangs on the discovery of small channels between pits that are supposedly due to flowing water, but it’s interesting nonetheless. Stay tuned, I have more …
30 December 2009
Merry Christmas from Mars!
Emily Lakdawalla over at the planetary society blog posted this cute poem from Unmannedspaceflight that I just had to share. If you want to hear a recording, head over to her blog. by Astro0 (with apologies to Clement Clarke Moore or possibly Henry Livingston Jr.) Twas the night before Christmas, when all through the stars Not a creature was stirring, not even on Mars. The rovers were driven by drivers …
22 December 2009
AGU 2009: Day 4 – Enceladus and Exoplanets
Thursday at AGU started with a tough choice. At 8 am there was a talk about methane on Mars, and a special lecture about the water plumes on Enceladus, and plate tectonics on Venus! In the end I decided to go to the Enceladus lecture, given by Sue Kieffer. She explained that there are two primary models for how the Enceladus plumes form. The first is dubbed the “cold faithful” …
21 December 2009
Avatar Review
Avatar was spectacular. I always worry when a movie gets as much hype as Avatar did that in the end it will not live up to expectations, but Avatar delivers. It is probably the most beautiful movie I’ve ever seen and one of the best sci-fi movies in recent memory. And even better, it is not a sequel or a remake or based on a comic book or novel. It …
20 December 2009
AGU 2009: Day 3 – Astrobiology and Society
Wednesday was full of particularly interesting stuff: in between the Venus and moon talks there was also the Sagan lecture and an afternoon session about astrobiology and its implications in society. The Sagan lecture was given by Tori Hoehler, a scientist at NASA Ames. He discussed the fundamental thermodynamics behind life, and showed that even if alien life relies on completely different molecules, there are basic requirements, such as the …
AGU 2009 – Day 3: Venus and the Moon
I’m splitting day 3 into two posts because there were so many interesting sessions. Stay tuned for the second post about astrobiology and society. But for now, Venus and the moon! I started the day off at the Venus session. One of the first talks I heard was by Cedric Gillman about the history of water on Venus. He suggested a very thick primordial H2O atmosphere with a surface pressure …
More AGU Posts Coming Soon
Apologies for the delay on posting about AGU. During the conference I had woefully little time to actually sit down and turn my chicken-scratch notes into something approaching coherence. I did a big chunk of that on my red-eye flight home and I’ll be posting them later today. So, stay tuned!
17 December 2009
AGU 2009 – Day 2
I started off day 2 of AGU at a couple of lunar talks showing off data from the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter. Unfortunately, I missed the early sessions about the high-res cameras, but the bright side was that I learned abount some instruments I was less familiar with. First was the Lunar Orbital Laser Altimeter – LOLA. A similar instrument on Mars Global Surveyor, MOLA, revolutionized our view of Mars. The …
