11 July 2010
Rosetta flies by Lutetia
You do know about ESA’s Rosetta probe don’t you? This european mission to the comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko (say that three times fast!) launched in 2004 and has one of the most convoluted mission timelines I’ve seen. Here’s a graphical version, followed by a list of key events. You can also click the image to read the text better. First Earth flyby (March 4, 2005) Mars flyby (February 25, 2007) Second Earth …
5 July 2010
Review: I am Legend
No, not the Will Smith movie. The classic 1954 post-apocalyptic vampire/zombie novel that inspired the movie. I am Legend, by William Matheson, is a quick read and well worth it. It is intensely atmospheric, conjuring a very dark future in which the world’s population has succumbed to a disease that turns them into vampire-like monsters. The sole survivor is the main character, Robert Neville. Neville spends his days hunting down …
Branching Out
I have a confession to make: sometimes I don’t feel like posting about space. I know, this a shocking admission from a graduate student in Planetary Science. After all, grad students are supposed to live and breathe their topic of interest, right? Well, I still am really interested in space, but I’m also really interested in other stuff. For a long time now, I’ve struggled with the sometimes conflicting goals …
25 June 2010
What is the Best Dinosaur?
This is the funniest, most well-informed rant about dinosaurs I have ever witnessed (warning, NSFW language). I was a dinosaur freak as a kid, and I still remember a ridiculous amount about them. Can I just say how much I loved watching him shoot down people who thought plesiosaurs and pterodactlys were dinosaurs? Everything he says is correct except for one thing: Brontosaurus was (I believe) either a diplodocus head …
22 June 2010
Carnival of Space #159
Hey, check it out! It’s the Carnival of Space over at Next Big Future! This week’s coolest article, which I somehow missed before this: the Kepler science team has found 750 possible exoplanets!
21 June 2010
Hoyt and Ruth
Normally I stick to topics that are at least tangentially related to science on this blog, but I’m making an exception. My grandfather, who is 92 this year, has entered the story of how he met my grandmother into an online writing contest. They were happily married for 68 years, and their story is truly touching. I hope you’ll take a moment to go and read it, and if you …
20 June 2010
Space-Based Solar Power: a solution to our burning need for energy
People burn things. This crude way to get energy has done wonders for us as a species, but I think it’s about time we moved on. It’s easy to forget how important burning stuff is in modern times because the burning is mostly hidden. Most of our electricity comes from burning coal and gas, but the furnaces are far away and instead of huddling around our campfire to cook and …
19 June 2010
Carl Sagan's Apple Pie Recipe
Tip of the Chef’s hat to Jason Dunn at The Space Tourist for posting this!
17 June 2010
Solar System Tour: Mars
Continuing my re-posting of the solar-system tour that I made back in 2005 with a couple of other astronomy undergrads, here’s Mars! The target audience for this tour was younger than that for this blog, so you’ll have to forgive the simplistic tone… Mars (the Roman god of War, also known as Ares in Greek) is sometimes called the Red Planet because of its rusty red color. It is the …
