Contest: Win a WMAP beach ball – day 1!
- By Sara Mitchell
- September 27, 2010
- 73 Comments
As soon as we started blogging about the WMAP beach ball and its appearance on the set of The Big Bang Theory, we started getting some comments and tweets asking, “How can I get one of those?” The beach ball was produced for educational uses, so it’s available to teachers … Continue Reading →
Having a ball in Hollywood…
- By Sara Mitchell
- September 27, 2010
- 11 Comments
In lieu of our usual weekly link round-up, we thought we’d share some photos from our visit to the set of The Big Bang Theory last week! During our visit, we were really impressed by the level of detail in the sets – they really nailed everything! It felt just … Continue Reading →
Blueshift Roadtrip 2010
- By Sara Mitchell
- September 22, 2010
- 1 Comment
It all started with a Big Bang. Well, actually, it all started with a beach ball. Not just any beach ball, but one imprinted with data from the Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe (just call it WMAP for short – we do, it’s much easier). This educational beach ball was developed … Continue Reading →
Blueshift hits the road!
- By Sara Mitchell
- September 17, 2010
- Comments Off on Blueshift hits the road!
Roadtrip! Well, actually, to be fair… we’re going on a planetrip. But that doesn’t have the same ring, does it? The Blueshift team got an offer to visit somewhere amazing, and we couldn’t refuse. We’re leaving next Tuesday on our grand adventure, and we’ve been quietly plotting to bring you … Continue Reading →
Goddard Hosts “Gastro-nauts”
- By Sara Mitchell
- September 2, 2010
- 4 Comments
I love astronaut ice cream – that freeze-dried, crispy block of strawberry, vanilla, and chocolate sugary sweetness that melts on your tongue into something that vaguely resembles melted ice cream. Though it was developed for the Apollo program, I was disappointed to find out that it wasn’t very popular and … Continue Reading →
Blueshift ponders… what’s next in space exploration?
- By Sara Mitchell
- September 1, 2010
- 8 Comments
This past weekend, I attended an unconference called SpaceUP DC, which drew together space enthusiasts from near and far to talk about the future of space exploration and advocacy. It’s an “unconference” because it’s not like a regular professional conference – it’s much more free-form, and attendees determine the structure, … Continue Reading →
Awesomeness Round-up – 8/30/10
- By Sara Mitchell
- August 30, 2010
- 2 Comments
Courtesy NASA/JPL-Caltech What happens when planets form around a tightly orbiting binary star system? A cosmic smashup! As this particular type of binary stars get cozier, they cause a disturbance in the force… err, I mean, in their gravitational influences on their local planetary system. Things start colliding, and it’s … Continue Reading →
Awesomeness Round-up – 8/16/10
- By Sara Mitchell
- August 16, 2010
- Comments Off on Awesomeness Round-up – 8/16/10
Last week, the Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope team announced that they had spotted something that had never been seen before – gamma rays coming from a nova. Back in March, Japanese amateur astronomers saw a dramatic change in a star in Cygnus and informed the professional astronomy community. Swift took … Continue Reading →
Awesomeness Round-up – 8/9/10
- By Sara Mitchell
- August 9, 2010
- Comments Off on Awesomeness Round-up – 8/9/10
Our big news this past week? Webb Gotchu! But if you’ve seen our coverage, and the other behind-the-scenes coverage at Geeked on Goddard… how about Bad Astronomy’s coverage of our coverage? Or perhaps the Oakland Skepticism Examiner’s coverage of Phil’s coverage of our coverage? Whew. I guess it would be … Continue Reading →
Citizen science – and I helped!
- By Sara Mitchell
- July 16, 2010
- Comments Off on Citizen science – and I helped!
My house started rumbling at 5:04 this morning. I was instantly awake. Was it thunder? A low-flying jet? It lasted a little too long for either of those scenarios – and it was really a sensation, not a noise. I was pretty sure we’d just experienced an earthquake here … Continue Reading →
