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Helix Nebula

The Helix Nebula in New Light… Again!

Credit: NASA, ESA, C.R. O’Dell (Vanderbilt University), and M. Meixner, P. McCullough The Helix Nebula is an iconic astronomical object – it’s been imaged again and again, by a variety of satellites. It’s one of those objects that gets turned into desktop wallpapers, posters, and postcards. It was even featured … Continue Reading →

Blueshift Ponders - Exoplanet

Blueshift ponders… what would you like to find on an exoplanet?

We just recently blogged about some of the strange and wonderful planetary systems recently discovered. From Saturn-like rings, to miniature scale, to systems practically right out Star Wars, it seems that there are an indefinite number of possibilities out there. Our questions to you are this: Blueshift ponders: What kind … Continue Reading →

NuSTAR

Meet NuSTAR!

Meet the Nuclear Spectroscopic Telescope Array or NuSTAR – a new X-ray telescope that’s being launched in March of 2012. Below is the actual telescope in its pre-launch configuration: Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/Orbital And here is what it will look like post-launch! Credit: NASA NuSTAR has an interesting design that includes a … Continue Reading →

Awesomeness Roundup

Awesomeness Round-Up – 1/31/2012

This is a doozy of a round-up, thanks to the American Astronomical Society meeting mid-month! Maggie already blogged about some of the interesting exoplanet news that came out at the meeting. Here, we’ll cover some of the other big astrophysics releases at AAS! But first… a gorgeous image from the … Continue Reading →

Bizarre Solar Systems at AAS

Bizarre Solar Systems at AAS

Apparently solar systems are also like a box of chocolates… As the saying goes, you never know what you’re going to get. At the recent American Astronomical Society (AAS) meeting in Austin, TX, I got to sit in on a press session on extrasolar planets, where three new systems were … Continue Reading →

Scope It Out

Try It At Home: Scope It Out game

Curious about why the James Webb Space Telescope doesn’t look like Hubble, or most telescopes you are familiar with? Curious about the differences between reflector and refractor telescopes? This game will teach you the basics of how telescopes work and compare a simple telescope to Webb and to Hubble. You’ll … Continue Reading →

Try It At Home: The RXTE Learning Center

  • By Maggie Masetti
  • January 6, 2012
  • Comments Off on Try It At Home: The RXTE Learning Center

Happy 16th birthday to the Rossi X-ray Timing Explorer! Though this mission is soon coming to a close, it’s had an incredible lifespan and so much great science has come out of it. RXTE has a Learning Center, which recently received a facelift. It has a terrific intro to X-ray … Continue Reading →

Awesomeness Roundup

Awesomeness Round-Up – 1/4/12

There are gorgeous new images out from NASA’s Cassini spacecraft. Here, Saturn’s third-largest moon, Dione, can be seen through the haze of the planet’s largest moon, Titan, in this view of the two posing before the planet and its rings. There are more on the Cassini website. Credit: NASA

What's This

What’s This? #3 – The big reveal!

  • By Sara Mitchell
  • January 3, 2012
  • Comments Off on What’s This? #3 – The big reveal!

Our last post of 2011 was another in our What’s This? series – we posted a mysterious image (or three, this time) and asked for people to guess what they were looking at. Our first two challenges were reasonably easy, and I think our hints helped a lot of readers … Continue Reading →

What's This

What’s This? #3 – December 29, 2011

We’re closing out 2011 with another mysterious What’s This? contest! We’re making this one a little more challenging than the last two. Check out the three photos below and try to figure out… what’s this object? Post your guesses as comments to this post, comment on our Facebook wall, or … Continue Reading →

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