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Bringing Astrophysics to YouTube: An Interview with Jessica Few

  • By Sara Mitchell
  • November 22, 2013
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Earlier this year, Blueshift contributor Koji Mukai sent us a link to a series of astronomy videos produced by Jessica Few, a student at Durham University in the UK. We loved the videos, and knew we wanted to share them… and find out a bit more about Jessica and her … Continue Reading →


SpaceCrafts: Build your own JWST costume!

For the past couple of years, we’ve run a Halloween costume contest – and we’ve seen some pretty amazing costumes! We also occasionally get a peek at costumes (in-progress and finished) on Twitter or Facebook… and when the Schoellner family tweeted a shot of their JWST costume, we knew we … Continue Reading →


Podcast: Studying Simulated Stardust

  • By Sara Mitchell
  • April 25, 2013
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Dust – on Earth, it’s a nuisance. But in space, it’s a valuable natural resource, a raw material essential to the formation of nearly any object imaginable. NASA Postdoctoral Fellow Dr. Christina Richey studies interstellar dust grains through laboratory-created analogs, comparing the properties of simulated stardust to data from missions … Continue Reading →


Awww! Cosmic baby pictures!

Protostars in Messier 78, as seen by multiple observatories Credit: NASA/ESA/ESO/JPL-Caltech/Max-Planck The side-by-side images above depict protostars found in Messier 78, a reflection nebula found within the constellation Orion (but not the Orion Nebula, which is Messier 42). These are some of the youngest stars that astronomers have ever seen … Continue Reading →


A Blast from the Past

The past few weeks have seen the release of several fantastic space-themed videos. You may have seen them as they made the rounds on Twitter or Tumblr, but I wanted to take a moment to highlight three that take a nostalgic look back at NASA’s missions and personnel in the … Continue Reading →


Go, Super-TIGER, go!

Super-TIGER team members in Antarctica: John E Ward (WUSTL), Ryan Murphy (WUSTL), Thomas Hams (GSFC), Sean Fitzsimmons (GSFC) Credit: NASA/WUSTL We’ve talked about NASA’s scientific balloon projects in the past, even featuring them in a two-part podcast series about balloon-borne science in Antarctica and what it’s like to live and … Continue Reading →


Try It At Home: Turning Sound Into Light

  • By Sara Mitchell
  • January 22, 2013
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This is a long-overdue follow-up to the blog where we showed you how to eavesdrop on the signals coming from your remote control, turning the infrared light patterns into sound through a simple circuit with a photocell and an amplifier/speaker. In this Try It At Home activity, we’ll build another … Continue Reading →


American Astronomical Society wrap-up

  • By Sara Mitchell
  • January 18, 2013
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Each December, there’s a bit of a lull in astronomy news. Not only do the holidays slow things down, but astronomers are also getting ready for the winter meeting of the American Astronomical Society (AAS) in January. These AAS meetings (there’s also a summer meeting in May or June) are … Continue Reading →


Zombie Planet

The Strange Case of “Zombie” Planet Fomalhaut b

  • By Sara Mitchell
  • November 26, 2012
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The timing couldn’t have been more perfect – just days before Halloween, NASA released a story about a planet that had returned from the dead. The exoplanet, Fomalhaut b, was discovered in 2008 using data from the Hubble Space Telescope. More recently, other researchers suspected it might be a dust … Continue Reading →


Astrophysical Activity Revisited

Astrophysical Activity Revisited

  • By Sara Mitchell
  • October 31, 2012
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It’s Halloween, and the Blueshift team wants to keep you in the holiday spirit – but with an astronomical twist. We’re running a costume contest, we posted a gallery of spooky astronomy, and now we want to share a blast from the past! We made this video three years ago, … Continue Reading →


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