Darkest
- By Alexe Helmke
- November 13, 2012
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Welcome back to the -EST blog! This is where I chat about some of the astronomical superlatives that go the extra distance to make our universe so interesting and awesome. In this post I’m going to talk about a pretty popular topic, the darkest things in our universe – black … Continue Reading →
Brightest
- By Alexe Helmke
- October 16, 2012
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Welcome back to the -EST Blog! This is where we explore some of the astronomical superlatives that go the extra distance to make our universe so interesting. This time, I’ll be trying to tackle one of the brightest objects that we can see. We’re going to talk about Active Galactic … Continue Reading →
Awesomeness Round-Up – 8/24/2012
- By Alexe Helmke
- August 24, 2012
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Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech Curiosity has successfully made it to Mars! While it’s gotten a generous amount of press in recent days, we wanted add our own nod to the successful landing of the Mars Science Laboratory aboard its rover, Curiosity, (after its Seven Minutes of Terror) at 1:32 a.m. EDT, Aug. … Continue Reading →
Biggest Bang
- By Alexe Helmke
- August 9, 2012
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Welcome to the -EST blog! Here we’ll chat about some of the awesome astronomical superlatives that exist in our universe – biggest, smallest, brightest, coldest, densest, and whatever else we come up with. As this is my first -EST blog, I thought it would make sense to start with something … Continue Reading →
Awesomeness Round-Up – 7/27/2012
- By Alexe Helmke
- July 27, 2012
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Credit: NASA, ESA, and the Hubble Heritage Team (STScI/AURA) Hubble captured this wonderful image that looks very much like an outer space firework explosion. Herbig-Haro 110 is a geyser of hot gas being blown away from a newborn star that ricochets off the dense core of a cloud of molecular … Continue Reading →
Awesomeness Round-Up – 7/6/2012
- By Alexe Helmke
- July 6, 2012
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Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech Voyager is soon to be the first man-made object to leave the solar system. Data from NASA’s Voyager 1 spacecraft indicate that this deep space explorer has entered a region in space where the number of charged particles from beyond our solar system has significantly increased. This could … Continue Reading →
Observing the Sun to Learn About the Planets
- By Alexe Helmke
- July 2, 2012
- 1 Comment
We have had three rare celestial events in succession – an annular solar eclipse on May 20 (May 21 in the Eastern Hemisphere), a partial lunar eclipse on June 4, and a Transit of Venus on June 5/6. Credit: Shannon Hall Credit: Craig Markwardt The first image here is a … Continue Reading →
Awesomeness Round-Up – 6/11/2012
- By Alexe Helmke
- June 11, 2012
- 5 Comments
On Tuesday, June 5, Venus passed in front of the Sun – an event that was visible on seven continents for those that were fortunate enough to have clear weather. These “transits” of Venus are very rare, coming in pairs separated by more than a hundred years. This June’s transit, … Continue Reading →
