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More “Voorwerps”?

Back in 2010, Koji wrote a guest blog for us on Hanny’s Voorwerp. What is this? Back in 2007, a Dutch woman named Hanny van Arkel discovered an odd and until then unclassified ghostly gaseous structure near the galaxy IC 2497 while using the citizen science site, Galaxy Zoo. The … Continue Reading →


Awesomeness Round-up

Awesomeness Round-up – 7/26/11

The James Webb Space Telescope has had a lot of recent milestones. All the primary mirror segments have been polished – and the secondary mirror has just been completed. You can read a NASA web feature all about what Webb’s secondary mirror does and why it’s important. (It’s quite large … Continue Reading →


Awesomeness Round-up

Awesomeness Round-up – 12/13/10

Credit: Photo by Drew Noel One of the James Webb Space Telescope’s many feats of engineering will be its actuators – tiny mechanical motors on the back of its primary and secondary mirror segments that will help the telescope focus by changing the mirrors’ curvature. You can’t see the actuator … Continue Reading →


The Mystery of Hanny's Voorwerp

The Mystery of Hanny’s Voorwerp

Astronomical headlines are often written about an object that was observed recently. It could be about the brightest stellar flare ever seen, the most recently formed black hole, or a newly discovered eclipsing pulsar that allows a strict test of general relativity. But a few headlines are about the “dog … Continue Reading →


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