Month: March 2018
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Repairs completed on Lowell Observatory’s Pluto telescope
Repairs completed on Lowell Observatory’s Pluto telescope FLAGSTAFF, Ariz. (AP) — An observatory telescope in Arizona used to discover the distant Pluto nearly 90 years ago will reopen for business on Saturday after a year of extensive Source: azdailysun.com/news/state-and-regional/repairs-completed-on-lowell-observatory-s-pluto-telescope/article_bbab6272-7e13-5a25-9344-7d5d04721e8c.html
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THE POOR MAN’S TELESCOPE | Modern Mechanix
THE POOR MAN’S TELESCOPE – Mechanix Illustrated (May, 1962) Definitely an old school project! AS EVERY astronomer knows, a steady mounting is a must when using high magnification. Generally, to obtain the required steadiness, it has been considered necessary to build a strong, heavy instrument, made with high precision, often mounted on concrete piers. The…
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Juno reveals Jupiter’s interior in unprecedented detail
Jupiter’s interior has been revealed in unprecedented detail in observations by Nasa’s Juno spacecraft that show it to be as strange and turbulent as the planet’s surface. Despite extensive studies of Jupiter’s surface, including its distinctive dark and light bands and “great red spot”, little had previously been known about what lies at the interior…
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UChicago activities at Yerkes Observatory to end in 2018
The historic Yerkes Observatory is to close in 2018. Established in 1897 by George Ellery Hale, it’s home to the largest refracting telescope in the world, the 40″ Yerkes telescope. The University of Chicago has announced plans to wind down its activities at Yerkes Observatory in Williams Bay, Wis., over the next six months and…
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Chemical sleuthing unravels possible path to forming life’s building blocks in space
400 Bad request Scientists have used lab experiments to retrace the chemical steps leading to the creation of complex hydrocarbons in space, showing pathways to forming 2-D carbon-based nanostructures in a mix of heated gases. The latest study, which featured experiments at the Department of Energy’s Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab), could help explain…
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Cicero’s Map to the Stars – Medieval manuscripts blog
Marcus Tullius Cicero, born on 3 January 106 BC, bestrides Latin literature like a colossus. The combination of an immense output of writings and a strong afterlife in the schools of late antiquity, the Middle Ages, and the Renaissance, means that more manuscripts of Cicero’s work survive than of any other classical Latin author. Only…
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Should We Open Some Sealed Apollo Moon Samples?
Should We Open Some Sealed Apollo Moon Samples? Three containers of samples brought back to Earth by Apollo astronauts remain sealed today. Now is the right time to open one of them, some scientists contend. Between 1969 and 1972, Apollo astronauts brought back to Earth a total of nine containers of moon material that were sealed…
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SpaceX is Getting Serious About Its Future BFR Launchpad to Mars
SpaceX is Getting Serious About Its Future BFR Launchpad to Mars Start in Texas, end on Mars. When SpaceX does begin sending people to Mars, the last part of Earth they see from the ground — perhaps ever if it’s a one-way trip — will likely be the company’s private spaceport in Boca Chica Village, Texas. And it…
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Milky Way neighbours “ripped out” by colliding galaxy
Milky Way neighbours “ripped out” by colliding galaxy | Cosmos Stars currently orbiting the Milky Way were violently ripped from our own galaxy by an invading satellite galaxy, astronomers have discovered. When galaxies pass close by to each other, massive gravitational forces fling stars, dust and gas around like a giant cosmic blender. These interactions…
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Telescope Building with John Dobson
If you have or even heard of a “Dobsonian Telescope”, you’ll know they’re a low cost, easy to manage telescope. Here’s the man who popularized them and brought the joys of astronomy to many. This unique video shows John Dobson grinding mirrors hand and build the telescope mount and tube. A must for any serious…
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Can strongly lensed type Ia supernovae resolve one of cosmology’s biggest controversies?
In 1929 Edwin Hubble surprised many people – including Albert Einstein – when he showed that the universe is expanding. Another bombshell came in 1998 when two teams of astronomers proved that cosmic expansion is actually speeding up due to a mysterious property of space called dark energy. This discovery provided the first evidence of…
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Why Didn’t Voyager Explore the Kuiper Belt?
New Horizons There’s a very good reason – it wasn’t discovered until 1992. At that stage, Voyager 1 was almost all the way across the the Kuiper Belt and Voyager 2 halfway through it! Source: pluto.jhuapl.edu/News-Center/PI-Perspectives.php?page=piPerspective_02_28_2018 From the article – “But, perhaps most important is the question: could Voyager have flown by a small KBO…
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Signal detected from the first stars in the universe, with a hint that dark matter was involved
Great article from Professor Karl Glazebrook of Swinburne Uni. Signal detected from the first stars in the universe, with a hint that dark matter was involved Signals from the first stars to form in the universe have been picked up by a table-sized detector in a west Australian desert. The find also hints at an early…
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Astronomers detect light from the Universe’s first stars
Via a radio telescope in Western Australia! Astronomers detect light from the Universe’s first stars Surprises in signal from cosmic dawn also hint at presence of dark matter. Astronomers have for the first time spotted long-sought signals of light from the earliest stars ever to form in the Universe — around 180 million years…