Brazil Ventures into Space with a Little Help from Russia, China and France In 2006 Marcos Pontes, a Lieutenant Colonel in the Brazilian Air Force, became the first Brazilian national to go into space as a member of the crew of the Expedition-13. This event is both a landmark in Brazilian history as we...
Nancy Holt. Sun Tunnels Sun Tunnels is located in the Great Basin Desert outside of the town of Lucin, Utah. The work is a product of Holts interest in the great variation of intensity of the sun in the desert compared to the sun in the city. [url=http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nancy_Holt]Read more[...
Measuring the spectrum of Earth-like planets in search for atmospheric bio-markers is one of the great objectives of astrophysics in the next generation. We have now come to the point of measuring spectral features in nearby transiting hot Jupiters. [url=http://www.astro.ex.ac.uk/esp08/]R...
ScienceOnline09 is the third annual science blogging conference, to be held Jan. 16-18, 2009 at the Sigma Xi Center in Research Triangle Park, NC. Please join the free three-day event to explore science on the Web. Read more
New Jersey Institute of Technology physics professor Andrew Gerrard hopes by the end of October to be able to peer through what will be the second largest optical telescope east of Texas. Under his direction, a 1.2-meter diameter, fully-steerable Itek optical telescope will soon be installed far...
Title: The Breakup of a Main-Belt Asteroid 450 Thousand Years Ago Authors: David Nesvorny, David Vokrouhlicky, William F. Bottke Collisions in the asteroid belt frequently lead to catastrophic breakups, where more than half of the target's mass is ejected into space. Several dozen large astero...
Johnson Space Centre roof damage delays reopening Damage assessments from Hurricane Ike at NASA's Johnson Space Centre continued on Sunday, and a space agency spokesman said it could be late this week or even sometime during the week of Sept. 21 before the facility is ready to reopen for normal oper...
Title: Chandra observations of the pulsar PSR B1929+10 and its environment Authors: Zdenka Misanovic, George Pavlov, Gordon Garmire We report on two Chandra observations of the 3-Myr pulsar B1929+10, which reveal a faint compact (~9"x4") nebula elongated in the direction perpendi...
Title: The LkHa 101 Cluster Authors: Sean M. Andrews, Scott J. Wolk In the infrared, the heavily reddened LkH\alpha 101 is one of the brightest young stars in the sky. Situated just north of the Taurus-Auriga complex in the L1482 dark cloud, it appears to be an early B-type star that has been serendipi...
What began as a farfetched idea 50 years ago, drilling a hole into the sea floor from a floating vessel, was successful and soon opened up an exciting new era of ocean exploration which continues today. The Ocean Drilling Program, by obtaining long cores of sediment and ancient rock from the floors of...
A new magnitude 15.2 comet was discovered by Rob H. McNaught (Siding Spring) on images taken with the 0.5 meter Uppsala Schmidt telescope on January 10, 2008. The comet was confirmed on the following day by J Young (Table Mountain Observatory, Wrightwood), E Guido and G Sostero (Mayhill), S. G...
A new high-quality short-tube refractor from William Optics - The Megrez 90 APO . FLT 90 Doublet APO f/6.9 air-spaced FPL-53 glass objective Focal Ratio F/6.9 Focal Length 621mm Aperture 90mm Focuser 2" to 1.25" adapter [url=http://www.williamoptics.com/te...
A bright Magnitude 13.5 supernova, 2008fp, was discovered by the Chilean Automated Supernova search (CHASE) on the 7th September, 2008, in the Seyfert galaxy ESO 428-G14 in the constellation Canis Major. The supernova is located 17".5 east and 2".1 south from the centre of the galaxy....
A Soviet-designed Antonov An-124 aircraft landed at the Cleveland Hopkins International Airport to deliver parts for NASA. There's something about Soviet aircraft in American skies that never fails to arouse imagination. The latest incursion ended Friday morning when a massive Antonov An-1...
