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Awesomeness Round-up

Awesomeness Round-up – 3/28/11

The center of our galaxy glows in this infrared image taken by the Spitzer Space Telescope. This data was originally part of a more complete view of the plane of the Milky Way, but then was given different contrast to better highlight the features of this region around the galactic … 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 →


Awesomeness Round-up

Awesomeness Round-up – 12/6/10

  • By Sara Mitchell
  • December 6, 2010
  • Comments Off on Awesomeness Round-up – 12/6/10

Image credit: NASA image created by Jesse Allen, using Landsat data provided bythe University of Maryland’s Global Land Cover Facility. The biggest NASA news this week was the astrobiology press conference that had people buzzing about what the new discovery could be. The press release, when it was finally announced … Continue Reading →


Awesomeness Round-up

Awesomeness Round-up – 11/29/10

Two colliding spiral galaxies triggered a burst of star formation called a “starburst” (not like the candy). This one is the brightest ever seen away from the center of a galaxy merger. This image of these two galaxies (which are collectively known as II Zw 096) is a combination of … Continue Reading →


Astrophysical Activity Revisited

Tricks and Treats!

A year ago, we were moving out of our old offices in Building 2 here at NASA Goddard and decided to look into the rich history of that building. Things didn’t go quite as we expected:


Awesomeness Round-up

Awesomeness Round-up – 8/30/10

Courtesy NASA/JPL-Caltech What happens when planets form around a tightly orbiting binary star system? A cosmic smashup! As this particular type of binary stars get cozier, they cause a disturbance in the force… err, I mean, in their gravitational influences on their local planetary system. Things start colliding, and it’s … Continue Reading →


Awesomeness Round-up

Awesomeness Round-up – 8/9/10

Our big news this past week? Webb Gotchu! But if you’ve seen our coverage, and the other behind-the-scenes coverage at Geeked on Goddard… how about Bad Astronomy’s coverage of our coverage? Or perhaps the Oakland Skepticism Examiner’s coverage of Phil’s coverage of our coverage?  Whew. I guess it would be … Continue Reading →


Awesomeness Round-up

Awesomeness Round-up – 7/12/10

Last week Goddard shipped a piece of new technology developed for the James Webb Space Telescope to the European Space Agency for integration with the Webb’s Near Infrared Spectrograph (NIRSpec). This new piece of tech are the microshutters, tiny little shutters as small as the width of a human hair. … Continue Reading →


Podcast: There's No Place Like Home... Yet

Podcast: There’s No Place Like Home… Yet

  • By Sara Mitchell
  • March 3, 2009
  • Comments Off on Podcast: There’s No Place Like Home… Yet

Click to listen! (7MB MP3, right-click to save) Transcript (Text, PDF) HD 80606b would not be a fun place to live, with its high winds, intense storms, and temperatures thousands of degrees hotter than any region on Earth. This exoplanet goes on a wild ride around its host star, with an orbit … Continue Reading →


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