Assembling a Space Mirror
- By Maggie Masetti
- December 10, 2015
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I have been remiss in not blogging about this sooner – but it’s been incredibly busy around here at “JWST Central.” That is to say, we’ve been hard at work, here at NASA Goddard putting together the actual James Webb Space Telescope. Back in August, we had the giant telescope … Continue Reading →
Try It At Home: Help Discover New Planets!
- By Sara Mitchell
- December 7, 2015
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When I heard the news that astronomers have made unprecedented observations of a still-forming planet around a star named LkCa 15, I was really excited. Just 25 years ago, we hadn’t found any exoplanets and weren’t sure if, when, or how we’d find something so small, faint, and distant. In … Continue Reading →
Chasing Unicorns
- By Ira Thorpe
- December 3, 2015
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Although the incident happened nearly ten years ago, I still remember it clearly. I was a newly-minted NASA scientist and was attending a workshop about future space-based scientific facilities. At a coffee break I started chatting with some other young scientists, one of whom asked what I worked on. I … Continue Reading →
SpaceCrafts: Making a Hubble Space Telescope Costume
- By Maggie Masetti
- November 30, 2015
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You may have seen our recent blog post by a high school friend of Maggie’s who helped her son make a James Webb Space Telescope costume for Halloween this year. When the Schoellners put together a Hubble costume, we had to ask them for a “how to” – so now … Continue Reading →
Testing General Relativity
- By Barb Mattson
- November 27, 2015
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Everyone seems to want to take shot at discrediting Einstein and his theories. I used to volunteer to answer questions for an Ask an Astrophysicist service, and nearly every week I would get a question or two that started with, “I have a new theory…” And at least half of … Continue Reading →
100 Years of General Relativity
- By Barb Mattson
- November 25, 2015
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This week is the 100th anniversary of Einstein’s theory of general relativity. On November 25, 1915, Einstein published the field equations of gravity which are the heart of the general relativity. Sure, you’ve heard of Einstein – he was a smart guy. And you’ve probably heard of general relativity, but … Continue Reading →
Following Goddard’s Tracks
- By Maggie Masetti
- November 25, 2015
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Here is another guest blog from Daniela and Verena, German interns from Airbus. You can read their intro post here. You’ll find the blog first in English and then in German. Enjoy! After spending our first week at NASA Goddard, we went on our first “spacewalk.” Our mission: the discovery … Continue Reading →
Jasmin’s Intern Blog: Day 5
- By Jasmin Evans
- November 23, 2015
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Jasmin shadowed Sara and Maggie for a week in July, learning about outreach, education, and communication at NASA. She wrote blogs about her experience here and we thought you’d all enjoy seeing our world through her eyes. You can find her first blog here, and Day 2 and Day 3, … Continue Reading →
How Do We Know It: Supernova Remnant Age
- By Maggie Masetti
- November 20, 2015
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I get a lot of inspiration for blog-topics from questions I get via email. Often they don’t have easy or straightforward answers (see this question on how many stars there are in the Milky Way). I was recently asked how we arrived at an age of 8000 years for the … Continue Reading →
A Visit From Germany
- By Maggie Masetti
- November 18, 2015
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Daniela Schnauder and Verena Wechsler are visiting Goddard from Germany, for an internship via Airbus Defense & Space. They will be contributing several guest blogs to Blueshift while they are here. And, they’ll be blogging in both English and German. Here is their introduction. You’ll find the English first – … Continue Reading →
