Kepler launch tonight

Kepler telescope, an instrument that will look for Earth-sized exoplanets, will be launched today. It may find thousands of them, another step in our search for life elsewhere in the Universe, and a boon for future navigators of sublight colony ships...;)

Excitement and joy!

The first image of the previously unphotographed and unseen hemisphere of Mercury is released!!! In the upper right, Caloris Basin, only part of which was observed by Mariner 10 over 30 years ago.


For more info, go to MESSENGER images page.

42 minutes left

MESSENGER approaching Mercury! About 40 minutes till closest approach.

See the whole series of this, the first flyby of three.

No fun for us

The chance of the rock WD5 impacting Mars on Jan 30 has gone down to 1 in 10000, sadly. This animation shows the decrease in uncertainty considering its trajectory (image from Planetary Society):

Double Einstein Ring

I missed this fascinating bit of news yesterday: Hubble discovers a double Einstein Ring...

a very special Mercury conjunction

on January 14th, MESSENGER, the NASA Mercury probe, will make its first closest approach to Mercury; the last time anything constructed by humans was anywhere near that planet was in March 1975, when Mariner 10 made its final flyby.

But MESSENGER (MErcury Surface, Space ENvironment, GEochemistry and Ranging) is so much cooler! Of course, the technology now was probably little dreamed of more than 30 years ago, but MESSENGER will also, after a series of three flybys, will enter, on October 18 2001, into orbit around Mercury! Keep your eyes on the news; the official MESSENGER site is excellent; make sure you check it out.

This is cool science, indeed.

Mars impact becomes more probable

The chances of the asteroid WD5 missing Mars and depriving us of a great show have been downgraded to 27 out of 28. Keep your finger crossed, as the orbit is calculated to better precision.

Perihelion

It passed (about 20 minutes ago) and everything still seems to be the same. But now we are receding from the Sun at about 5 km/sec, although paradoxically (for the Northern Hemisphere anyway, and not really in any case) the weather in Portland is looking up.

pretty pictures

Cassini team had a vote for the best Saturn image of 2007. Oooh! Awesome!...get yer desktop backrounds straight from the source! The winner was, of course, this:



The rest of the results are here

Mars may be subject to some pounding

A 100-meter rock is headed for Mars. While the orbit is still highly uncertain, the latest estimate is 1 in 75 chance of it impacting on Jan 30th. I can't wait, and (being the mad scientist that I am) hope it happens! We have probes in orbit around Mars that would hopefully be in a position to observe the impact. There is much to learn from it; the global effects of that impact will help us refine our models and perhaps alert those yet unconvinced that Earth may be in line for a similar punishment.

disappointment

Of course the weather of Portland conspired with someone to prevent me from looking at the beautiful conjunction of Moon and Mars last night. At least I had some whiskey...

Moon and Mars tonight

from spaceweather.com

MOON AND MARS: Please don't miss this: At sunset on Sunday, Dec. 23rd, the full Moon and Mars will rise in the east less than two degrees apart. So close together, the two brightest objects in the evening sky look absolutely dynamite. The display will be visible all night long, even from brightly lit cities, and requires no telescope to enjoy...

coolness over there

Sunspot no 978: about the size of Jupiter as of this writing, getting ready to explode and utterly beautiful. I can stare at stuff like this for hours...



For more details, go to SpaceWeather

Never seen you look that good

From Kaguya, a Japanese probe in lunar orbit now, the first HD image of Earth-rise from the Moon:

A Pleiades update

Just after mentioning my desire to spend years exploring possible planets in the Pleiades cluster, here comes this bit of news: evidence has been found for *rocky* planets around HD 23514. While it is not one of the more famous stars in the cluster, the cool thing is that there seems to be an ongoing process of planetary formation in that system, at the stage that in our Solar System had led to the formation of the Moon. The planets themselves are too small to be directly observed, of course. They are probably quite inhospitable to life (HD 23514 is a G0 star, but it is likely a subgiant, several times brighter than our Sun, making its environment too warm for comfort, and it is too young for any life to have formed like the rest of the stars in the cluster), but I already took that into account: the planets to be explored are scorched, as I said...;). Indeed... More data on the host star at Vizier and SIMBAD, but nothing yet on the Extrasolar Planet Encyclopedia.

Shaking a stick at all those lovely images

An amazing volcanic plume on Io, taken by the New Horizons probe during its flyby of Jupiter. Tvashtar--the volcano responsile for this beaut--is your standard sulfuric volcano, and the plume is about 290 km long. Two other plumes are visible.

And here we have a nice shot of an Einstein Cross. A quasar (QSO2237+0305) is behind a spiral galaxy the gravity of which bends its light, making it appear in four different places! A gravitational funhouse mirror. Both objects are quite far, although the galaxy is much closer to us than the quasar: redshift 0.04 vs 1.7.

Some wonderful space art, including extraterrestrial planets (about which, more later), lives at Nova Celestia.

I am going to attempt to produce one little column on the current work in my astronomical pet interests--which as of now include the search for terrestrial extrasolar planets and astrobiology--once a week, probably on Monday or Tuesday. Hold me to it. Meanwhile, I should really sleep.

you must be certain of the devil

One of the most annoying (and disappointing) things that happens to me fairly regularly is this:

I'd be in a bar, chatting up some comely wench. The wench would ask-"So, what did you study in school?"

"Astrophysics", I'd tell her, uncomfortably, dreading what may come next.

"???"

"Well astronomy, you know", I'd try to explain.

"Oh, ASTROLOGY..."

At which point I would no longer want to be chatting her up but, rather, to be kicking her in the head with steel-toed boots. Another ripening romance gone to shite. I would excuse myself and flee.
Sometimes the dreaded word would pop up much later, as in "This is my friend Jorg, he is an ASTROLOGER". At least, by that point I may have had a chance to get what I wanted, but then I would feel curiously dirty.

In any case, we all know that America isn't really up there as far as the knowledge of science and, y'know, general facts of life, is concerned. What is interesting, however, is that apparently our scientific knowledge has been getting better, but, at the same time...well, here. Tell me this does not disturb you and...we'll see what and.

The Discovery Institute is at it again, as you can see in this piece. They, and...whatchamacallit...Bob Jones University (whose dress code alone is ground for some serious chuckles) would be truly hilarious underneath all the dishonesty, with the pure unadulteratedly not-really-malicious-but-maybe-just-a-little-bit-so laughter one reserves for village idiots, except for the fact that a lot of people believe that crap. Indeed, the village is in imminent danger of being taken over by the said idiots.

See, I am actually linking to the cretinous submammals, lest anyone accuse me of one-sided approach to the subject. Yeah, check them out: if you actually think that there are valid points about evolutionary theory on those sites, let me know, and I will try to explain. Cos there ain't. That is pure and simple bullshit, and calling them idiots is the kindest thing anyone can do. The alternatives are "lying scumbags", "evil power-addicted fuckwads", et al. You get the picture.