A Mirror Milestone, Part 4
- By Maggie Masetti
- December 11, 2012
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Here’s another update on the James Webb Space Telescope mirrors. In my last mirror blog I talked about the arrival of our flight secondary mirror, which is a pretty big deal, as there is only one on the telescope, and I hear it was a big challenge to manufacture. Along … Continue Reading →
The Life of a Scientist: Astrobiology in Iceland, Parts I and II
- By Christina Richey
- December 7, 2012
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The Nordic-NASA Astrobiology Summer School “Water, Ice and the Origin of Life in the Universe,” was held July 1-15 in Iceland. The school was organized by Wolf Geppert, the director of the Stockholm University Astrobiology Center, and Karen Meech, the director of the NASA Astrobiology Institute at the University of … Continue Reading →
Podcast: Science in a Nutshell, Part 2 of our interview with “The Bad Astronomer,” Dr. Phil Plait
- By Maggie Masetti
- December 4, 2012
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Click to listen! (6.5MB MP3, right-click to save) Transcript (Text, PDF) As science educators, encouraging critical thinking and skepticism is something we think is really important. We interviewed the “Bad Astronomer,” Dr. Phil Plait, to get his thoughts on the subject. He is a trained scientist who used to work … Continue Reading →
Poland’s Rich Scientific History
- By Maggie Masetti
- November 30, 2012
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This past summer, I took a trip to Poland, specifically, Warsaw and Krakow. My husband was there for a scientific conference, and I was there as a tourist, but I was amazed at the amount of science and science history there was to be found whilst seeing touristy things. One … Continue Reading →
Reddit Asked, John Mather Answered
- By Maggie Masetti
- November 29, 2012
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On Monday, November 26, 2012, Nobel Laureate and James Webb Space Telescope project scientist spent about an hour answering questions on Reddit. You can go read the full “Ask Me Anything” thread and the interesting discussion it provoked, but we’ve pulled out some of the questions he directly answered here … Continue Reading →
The Strange Case of “Zombie” Planet Fomalhaut b
- By Sara Mitchell
- November 26, 2012
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The timing couldn’t have been more perfect – just days before Halloween, NASA released a story about a planet that had returned from the dead. The exoplanet, Fomalhaut b, was discovered in 2008 using data from the Hubble Space Telescope. More recently, other researchers suspected it might be a dust … Continue Reading →
Ask John Mather Anything!
- By Maggie Masetti
- November 20, 2012
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Nobel Laureate and James Webb Space Telescope Project Scientist John Mather has answered questions on Twitter – and now he’s coming to Reddit on Monday, November 26, 2012 at 1pm EST. Reddit, a popular community where users vote on content they find interesting, has a sub-forum for interviews with volunteers … Continue Reading →
Contest: 2nd Annual Halloween Costume Contest Results
- By admin
- November 19, 2012
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Thank you so much for your entries for our space/science Halloween costume contest! We were really sorry to not be able to take entries from kids this time, but we hope we’ll be able to get the legalities sorted out for next year! Without further ado, here are our winners! … Continue Reading →
A Mirror Milestone, part 3
- By Maggie Masetti
- November 15, 2012
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I was lucky enough to get to witness the next mirror milestone for the James Webb Space Telescope. (Here are parts two and one.) I got word that our second shipment of mirrors were arriving at Goddard, which would consist of our flight secondary mirror and our 3rd flight primary … Continue Reading →
Darkest
- By Alexe Helmke
- November 13, 2012
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Welcome back to the -EST blog! This is where I chat about some of the astronomical superlatives that go the extra distance to make our universe so interesting and awesome. In this post I’m going to talk about a pretty popular topic, the darkest things in our universe – black … Continue Reading →
