Looking to Lani in Hawaii
- By Amber Straughn
- August 6, 2010
- 2 Comments
Hello Blueshift readers! I’m a new blogger here, and want to briefly introduce myself. I’m a NASA Postdoctoral Program Fellow here at Goddard, which means that I spend most of my time studying the universe. Ok, maybe that’s too broad…more specifically, I’m an astronomer in the field of observational cosmology; … Continue Reading →
Webb Gotchu!
- By Maggie Masetti
- August 3, 2010
- 12 Comments
If you’re a fan of late night TV, you might have caught the segment on Jimmy Fallon, where an “audience member” extols the virtues of the Hubble Space Telescope (i.e. “Need an image of the Orion Nebula? Hubble gotchu!”). There followed a whole series of segments (sadly now offline), including … Continue Reading →
Awesomeness Round-up – 8/2/10
- By Maggie Masetti
- August 2, 2010
- Comments Off on Awesomeness Round-up – 8/2/10
We like to kick off the week with a pretty picture! This is Webb’s mirrors, which are being cryo-tested at Marshall.
Pilgrimage to Greenwich
- By Jim Lochner
- July 31, 2010
- 2 Comments
I’m Jim Lochner, and I lead the education and public outreach effort within the Astrophysics Science Division at NASA/GSFC. Maggie and Sara invited me to write a guest blog as part of the science travel series. Earlier this summer my wife and I took a vacation to London. One item … Continue Reading →
If you only see one petrified middle finger in your life…
- By Faith Tucker
- July 28, 2010
- 3 Comments
To be honest, I’ve never really understood why people go to crazy lengths to get the autographs of celebrities. It’s just their name in squiggly, illegible handwriting, after all – not worth hours waiting in line, if you ask me. But you know what would be an exciting way to … Continue Reading →
Awesomeness Round-up – 7/19/10
- By Maggie Masetti
- July 19, 2010
- 3 Comments
Want a real behind-the-scenes look at the James Webb Space Telescope’s mirror segments being prepared for cryo testing?
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 →
Exoplanets, Swiss Style
- By Faith Tucker
- July 16, 2010
- 3 Comments
Hemmed in on all sides by the heavyweights of Western Europe lies a rather curious country. After spending more than three months in this quadralingual, dairy-obsessed country, I’ve developed a deep fondness for Switzerland. But even I was surprised to find that there’s more to Switzerland than neutrality, fondue and … Continue Reading →
Awesomeness Round-up – 7/12/10
- By Maggie Masetti
- July 12, 2010
- 1 Comment
Last week Goddard shipped a piece of new technology developed for the James Webb Space Telescope to the European Space Agency for integration with the Webb’s Near Infrared Spectrograph (NIRSpec). This new piece of tech are the microshutters, tiny little shutters as small as the width of a human hair. … Continue Reading →
Ancient Astronomy in Mexico
- By Maggie Masetti
- July 8, 2010
- Comments Off on Ancient Astronomy in Mexico
Several years ago, I was fortunate enough to travel to Mexico. I visited several sites with ancient ruins. One of them was Chichen Itza. The night we were at Chichen Itza, we witnessed a lunar eclipse over it – I have no pics, unfortunately! Built sometime in the 7th century … Continue Reading →
