Try It At Home: Build-It-Yourself: Satellite launches!
- By Maggie Masetti
- July 18, 2012
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I wanted to thank all you Blueshift readers (especially a few of our Facebook followers) who were really helpful at offering me feedback for my new game. We’ve made a bunch of changes and released the final result! If you played an earlier version, please give the latest one a … Continue Reading →
The Life of a Scientist: Traveling to ACM 2012, Niigata, Japan
- By Christina Richey
- July 12, 2012
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The 2012 Asteroids, Comets, Meteors (ACM) Conference, was held mid-May in Niigata, Japan. The conference brought together approximately 400 scientists from over 30 countries to present observational, experimental, and theoretical results on small bodies (see the group photo below). I presented my experimental work on metal-silicate dust grain analogs and … Continue Reading →
Ring Around the Moon
- By Maggie Masetti
- July 10, 2012
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It all started when my friend Craig mentioned that there was an upcoming annular eclipse that would be visible from the US. And that maybe we should go to Portland to visit it. Or better yet, Arizona, where the skies would be much more likely to be clear! Solar eclipses … 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 →
7 Degrees of NuSTAR…
- By Christina Richey
- June 22, 2012
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The NuSTAR (Nuclear Spectroscopic Telescope Array) launched last week, with a mission goal of studying black holes and their jets of energy, as well as other high-energy objects in our universe (supernovae, compact stars after their explosive deaths, and clusters of galaxies). This is done through using a very unique … Continue Reading →
A Midsummer Day’s Rant
- By Koji Mukai
- June 20, 2012
- 1 Comment
This year, the summer solstice happens on Wednesday, June 20th, in mainland US, at 7:09 pm Eastern Daylight Time. This is often reported in the news as the beginning of the “official” or “astronomical” summer. Who decided that seasons begin at equinoxes and solstices, though? Words like “equinox” and “solstices” … Continue Reading →
Celebrating Science and Engineering in Washington, DC
- By Christina Richey
- May 2, 2012
- 2 Comments
Please welcome our new guest blogger, Dr. Christina Richey! Over 3,000 booths, 100 stage shows, a book fair, a career fair, and an estimated 100,000 people each day gathered in one building. At times you’d smell something burning, or you’d hear an explosion followed by squeals of pure excitement. Throngs … Continue Reading →
An “X-ray Astronomer” Among Radio Telescopes
- By Koji Mukai
- April 30, 2012
- 2 Comments
To me, an observational astronomer, there is no such thing as X-ray astronomy. What I do is astronomical research on objects that happen to emit X-rays, as well as ultraviolet, visible, and infrared, etc. light. My research interest is not X-rays, but astronomical objects called cataclysmic variables and symbiotic stars … Continue Reading →
The Last Flight of Discovery
- By Maggie Masetti
- April 18, 2012
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Today we said a bittersweet farewell to the space shuttle orbiter Discovery, as it headed off to retirement at the National Air and Space Museum Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center atop a special 747. On its way to Dulles Airport (where it landed just outside DC) from Kennedy Space Center (where … Continue Reading →
Gorgeous new images of James Webb Space Telescope hardware being readied for testing.
- By Maggie Masetti
- April 13, 2012
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These brand-new photos show a critical piece of James Webb Space Telescope hardware being hoisted with a crane into NASA Goddard Space Flight Center’s giant thermal vacuum chamber (called the Space Environment Simulator, or SES) to be tested to withstand the cold temperatures of space. The hardware in question is … Continue Reading →
