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Next Stop: Shooting Stars

Last time, we set ourselves up with a nice place to cool off and had a drink or two. And as the evening rolls up, we can lay back with our drinks, dipping our feet in the distant APM 08279+5255 quasar, and watch the universe set. Maybe we can catch a shooting star or … Continue Reading →

Finding Herschel

We have an extra-special guest blog today! Nick Howes of the Faulkes Telescope Project wrote a blog for us about about his recent mission to find and image a legendary European Telescope. There are only a few years to go before the launch of the James Webb Space Telescope, which … Continue Reading →

Podcast: “Go outside and look up!,” Part 3 of our interview with “The Bad Astronomer,” Dr. Phil Plait

  • By Maggie Masetti
  • June 26, 2013
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Click to listen! (9MB MP3, right-click to save) Transcript (Text, PDF) This is part three of four of our interview with Dr. Phil Plait, the so-called “Bad Astronomer.” Phil is a scientist, writer, and specializes in debunking bad science. In part 1, we learned how he got started, and in … Continue Reading →

A New Kind of Stargazing

As both a scientist and a science communicator, I am always looking for opportunities to share the world of astronomy with audiences that might not spend their days thinking about how the universe works. When a friend of mine who is a dancer and choreographer mentioned to me that she … Continue Reading →

Light Echoes around a Mysterious Nova

  • By Koji Mukai
  • June 24, 2013
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“In 1890 T Pyxidis had appeared, brightened, and disappeared. When I first came to Harvard they were still telling how it was found again during a routine survey of plates taken in 1919, and how Miss Leavitt exclaimed: ‘That star hasn’t been seen for almost thirty years!’ – the first … Continue Reading →

Next Stop: the Universe

The universe is big. Of course it’s big, it’s the universe. Maybe big isn’t a good term, but that’s besides the point. In the vastness that is, what is out there for me? What can I do (hypothetically, of course) in this unfathomably vast menagerie of exotic cosmic objects? Let’s … Continue Reading →

American Astronomical Society wrap-up

Well, it happened again, guys!  The 222nd biannual meeting of the American Astronomical Society (AAS) held at the Indiana Convention Center, that’s what. For those of you not in the loop, the American Astronomical Society is a professional society for astronomers devoted to promoting astronomy and like sciences as well … Continue Reading →

Next Gen Engineers and Scientists Study a Next Gen Telescope

  • By Maggie Masetti
  • June 10, 2013
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Another school year has come and gone – as has another RealWorld/InWorld (RWIW) Engineering Design Challenge, this year sponsored by the James Webb Space Telescope. I last wrote about this awesome student program in November – and since then we’ve had InWorld Q&A’s with James Webb Space Telescope project members, … Continue Reading →

The New Guy

Hello Blueshifters! Prepare to join me on a few blogs this summer as I explore the infinite out here at the Goddard Space Flight Center. “Who are you?” you ask.  Jason McCracken, meanderer extraordinaire and intern magnificent! I was born and raised in Rockford, IL, where I became heavily involved … Continue Reading →

What’s This? #4 – The big reveal!

In our latest entry in the What’s This? series, we posted a mysterious image and asked for people to guess what they were looking at. So what is this tall thing in NASA Goddard’s cleanroom? We had a lot of great guesses – a number of people guessed it was … Continue Reading →

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