I have two labs on Tuesdays, which is even more exhausting than it sounds, so I went to be early last night. And woke up to find a whole new planet. You guys need to give me some warning about these things… Anyway, the planet in question orbits a red dwarf star a mere 20… Continue reading New Rocky Planet
Category: Astronomy
Facing Mars
Via James Nicoll, a post he describes as “someone actively working in a particular field of science talk[ing] about how they went from embracing wingnuttery to more fruitful activities,” in this case regarding the “Face on Mars.” Sadly, other than a couple of passing mentions (he name-checks Richard Hoagland and Carl Sagan, and mentions overdosing… Continue reading Facing Mars
Dorky Poll: Science In Your Lifetime
I’ve got another long lab this afternoon, so I’m stealing an idea for an audience-participation thread from James Nicoll: Name five things we didn’t know in the year that you were born that make the universe a richer place to think about. This is actually a really interesting exercise for showing how rapidly the world… Continue reading Dorky Poll: Science In Your Lifetime
The Real Oldest Profession…
… is astronomy, as the New York Times notes in explaining the equinox: Archaeological evidence abounds that astronomy is among the oldest of professions, and that people attended with particular zeal to the equinoxes and the solstices. The Great Sphinx of Egypt, for example, built some 4,500 years ago, is positioned to face toward the… Continue reading The Real Oldest Profession…
Dark Aliens in the Times
A good weekend for science in the Sunday New York Times, with a nice magazine article about dark matter and dark energy, and also a piece about the Search for Extra-Terrestrial Intelligence (SETI), inexplicably located in the Book Review section (the article, that is, not the aliens). It’s probably possible to draw some sort of… Continue reading Dark Aliens in the Times
Extrasolar Planetary Atmospheres
The only reason I’m not going to hunt and kill James Nicoll for pointing me at the Conservapedia thing is that he also provides a link to the latest results from the Spitzer telescope. Not the one that Kate’s former boss uses to keep an eye on the New York State Legislature, but the one… Continue reading Extrasolar Planetary Atmospheres
Extraordinary Claims and Universality
“Thoreau,” guest-posting at Unqualified Offerings, has a nice post commenting on a Physics Today article about the use of language in science, by Helen Quinn. The article is pretty standard stuff for anyone following the “culture wars” debates here– use of the word “belief” to describe scientific conclusions causes confusion, and attempts to put science… Continue reading Extraordinary Claims and Universality
AAS Meeting
The American Astronomical Society is meeting in Seattle this week, which means a banner week for astronomy news: lots of press releases, and a bunch of live reports. If you’re into space stuff, you should have plenty to read and talk about in the next few days.
Wanted: Rocket Scientists
Via Tobia Buckell, Jeff Bezos is looking for a few good geeks: Blue Origin; Blue Origin wants you! Actually, Blue Origin needs you and wants to hire you … assuming you’re a hard working, technically gifted, team-oriented, experienced aerospace engineer or engineering leader. If you might be interested in joining us, please keep reading. We’re… Continue reading Wanted: Rocket Scientists
Come On In, the Methane’s Fine
The Times has an article announcing the discovery of methane lakes on Titan: The discovery, reported yesterday by an international team of researchers, was made by a radar survey of Titan’s high northern latitudes by the Cassini spacecraft, which has been orbiting Saturn and its retinue of satellites since July 2004. One of the mission’s… Continue reading Come On In, the Methane’s Fine