Happy Halloween

Courtesy of the Cassini team at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory.

Hubble is working again!

Thankfully, the Hubble Space Telescope appears to be up and running again, with no permanent loss of its scientific capabilities resulting from it's recent mechanical troubles. Go here to see the wonderful first image it took after getting fixed. Shew! That was scary...

Special Sunset for Halloween

This Halloween, the sunset sky has a nice treat for you. Go here for details.

New NASA contest for kids

As part of its work on a future human base on the Moon, NASA is conducting a test of a lightweight, durable, inflatable habitat on the cold, harsh landscape of the National Science Foundation's McMurdo Station to see if it is suitable for a future moonbase. However, everything needs a name, and this structure doesn't have one yet. Until November 20th, NASA and the Challenger Center for Space Education will be accepting possible naming entries from students in kindergarten through twelfth grades from Oct 21 to Nov. 20, 2008. The winning name will be selected later this year and announced by scientists in Antarctica in January 2009. For more information about entering the Name that Habitat contest, go here, and good luck!

Description of October 8th Radio Show: Solar System

Already available here, below is a description of the October 8th episode of this radio show:

• News: NASA's Phoenix Mars Lander discovers snow falling in Mars's upper atmosphere, and evidence for liquid past in the soil (link; Eberswalde Crater chosen as preliminary site for NASA's next rover to Mars called Mars Science Laboratory; Mars Science Laboratory to have a computer chip to measure the wind on Mars (link); MESSENGER spacecraft flies by Mercury for a second time on October 6th (link); NASA developing sensor to allow lunar landers to automatically determine a safe landing site for future return to the Moon (link); ESA's SMART-1 mission makes 3D map on Moon's south pole (link); Hubble Space Telescope (HST) enters "safe" mode due to error in device which transmits science data to Earth, resulting in postponement of final servicing mission; 10th anniversary of Hubble Heritage Project, which distributes the prettiest pictures taken by HST; ESA's GOCE satellite has new launch date of 2008 October 27; NASA's IBEX spacecraft ready for launch on October 19; ESA's Planck satellite - the next satellite to study the Cosmic Microwave Background (listen to inteviews with Dr. Gary Hinshaw and Dr. Dan Babich for more infomation on the Cosmic Microwave Background) - almost done with final pre-launch testing; teams behind the three different proposals for NASA/DoE Joint Dark Energy Mission (JDEM) told to work together on a single, joint, design; European astroparticle physics list the seven major experiments they want to build (link); ESO's Very Large Telescope in Chile takes highest-resolution image of Jupiter ever done from the ground; privately developed Falcon 1 rocket finally has successful launch; congratulations to Custer Institute and Observatory for receiving a Break-Thru Mini-Grant for their research and public outreach activities (for more information on their activities, listen to my interview with Dr. Jeffrey Owen Katz); congratulations to Robert Cabana for succeeding William Parsons as head of NASA's Kennedy Space Center; congratulations to teams awarded five-year grants by the NASA Astrobiology Institute (link); NASA issues new challenge for college students to design tools for next generation of Moon rovers (website); new art exhibit at Pasadena, CA's Art Center College of Design inspired by pictures taken by Spitzer Space Telescope.
• Wednesday Morning Astronomer (an Astronomer's response to the astronomy content in this ESPN column): I don't think SCP 06F6, which had 100 day long outburst of optical light, is the result of intergalactic warfare. Sorry.
• Calendar of upcoming Astronomy / Science events in the greater New York City / Poughkeepsie area.
• Solar System: So far during 2008, the Sun has produced many fewer sunspots than any other year in the last 50 years - not that surprising though; NASA's RHESSI satellite finds that Sun not a perfect sphere with the equator wider than the distance between the poles (link); changes in Sun's output of light has very SLIGHT effect on Earth's temperature (link); ESA's Venus Express mission, in orbit around Venus, has made 3D map of Venus's winds over Southern hemisphere (link); observations done by ESA's Mars Express satellites determines why Mars's Southern Polar Cap misplaced in the Martian summer- result of local weather systems; difference between Mars's Northern and Southern hemisphere (e.g. thickness of crust, number of craters) believed to be the result of ancient collision with a meteorite that essentially melted the entire northern hemisphere of Mars (link 1, link 2); astronomers at Armagh Observatory see meteorites striking Mars's surface (link); ancient Moon believed to have been rich in water; same is true for ancient Mars - though it might have lasted only a short period of time (link); might have once rained on Mars as well (link); NASA spacecrafts photograph evidence for avalanches on Mars (link); glaciers on Mars show evidence for recent climate activity (link); Mars has undergone five periods of high amounts of volcanic activity (link); atmospheres of Mars and Venus interact with the Solar wind in a similar fashion (link); graphite found in Solar System meteorites, if graphite exists in interstellar medium, could complicate using supernovae to measure the distance to galaxies - the best evidence for the existence of dark energy (link); meteorites could be the source of all the Platinum and Iridium found on Earth (link); Jupiter and Saturn may have liquid metal helium in their cores (link); Cassini spacecraft makes a 3D image of the region responsible for the low-frequency radio emission emitted by Saturn (link); Saturn's moon Titan keeps some of Saturn's magnetic field when it leaves Saturn's magnetosphere; new Pluto-like object found in outer Solar System (link); "backward-orbiting" comet discovered (link); Taiwanese-American Occultation Survey discovers no objects between 2 miles - 17 miles big inthe Kuiper Belt - suggests they either broke apart in collisions or stuck together to form bigger objects.

Hope you enjoy, and thank you very much for listening!

Free Astronomy movie Tomorrow!!!!

Tomorrow night, as part of the Imagine Science Film Festival going on in NYC (look at the calendar for events), will be the NY premiere of the new documentary "BLAST!", directed by Paul Devlin, on the launch of the Balloon-borne, Large Aperture, Sub-millimeter Telescope (BLAST!) from Antarctica to study the cosmic microwave background (CMB). It sounds likes a great movie. For more information on the showing, which is tomorrow night (Oct. 23rd) at 7:30 PM at Baisley Powell Elebash Recital Hall in the CUNY Graduate Graduate Center (365 5th Ave at 34th Street), go here. For more information on this movie, check out their website. And for more information on the CMB, listen to my interviews with Dr. Daniel Babich and Dr. Gary Hinshaw. Enjoy!

October 15th Radio Show: Star Formation, Planet Formation, and Massive Stars

Continuing my recap of topics I discussed this summer, here is the October 15th episode of the radio show, where I discuss the latest results concerning star and planet formation, massive stars, in addition to the usual Astronomy news and calendar. I'll post a more detailed description later, but in the mean time, enjoy! Comments and concerns are always appreciated, and please leave any you have below.

Orionid meteor shower tomorrow morning

Before sunrise tomorrow (Tuesday, Oct. 21st) is a good time to see the annual Orionid meteor shower which peaks today and tomorrow. This meteor shower is caused by the Earth passing through the dusty debris from Halley's Comet, but is hard to observed during the night due to the Full moon. Check out spaceweather.com for updates and a sky map, and happy meteor hunting!

Great World Wide Star Count 2008

The Great World Wide Star Count is an event where people around the world go outside and just count the number of stars and constellations they see. Of course, living in New York City, that is easy for me because I can only see about 10 stars on a given night. For more information, or if you would like to join the fun, go here. Enjoy!

IBEX Spacecraft launched

Dropped from an airplane, the rocket which contains the IBEX spacecraft flew into orbit this Sunday. To watch the launch go here.

Space X-Prize Live!

NASA is sponsoring a competition to see who can built the best lunar lander, and the nine teams who have entered will be displaying their product this week on October 24-25, at Las Cruces International Airport in New Mexico. The teams must fly their lunar landers, simulating a takeoff and landing on the moon, and repeat the task in a limited period of time. It will also be webcast live here. Should be fun!

NASA Premieres 50th Anniversary Documentary

NASA is premiering tonight, tommorrow, and Friday a new documentary in celebration of its 50th anniversary, "50 Years of Exploration: The Golden Anniversary of NASA". This documentary is hosted by Neil Armstrong, features film and video highlights of the agency's first half-century, and interviews with former NASA astronaut and U.S. Senator John Glenn, Apollo Flight Director Gene Kranz, author Ray Bradbury, NASA scientist and Nobel Prize winner John Mather, and presidents George H.W. Bush and Bill Clinton. To watch on NASA TV, go here, and enjoy!

October 8th Radio Show: Solar System News

Now available here is the October 8th radio show, where I quickly race through all of the recent scientific results on our Solar System plus the usual news and calendar. Hope you enjoy!

Imagine Science Film Festival

Starting this Thursday, the Imagine Science Film Festival brings the latest science films to New York City. Many of the events appear to be free, and October 23rd will be the premiere of a documentary titled "BLAST!" about a balloon flight to study the Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB) in Antarctica. For more information, go here, and enjoy!

Description of October 1st Radio Show: Astronomy News

Already available here, below is a detailed description of the October 1st episode of this radio show:

• Calendar of upcoming Astronomy/science events in the greater Poughkeepsie / New York City area.
• Interview with Dr. Jeffrey Katz of the Custer Institute and Observatory in Long Island on their public outreach and astronomy reseearch efforts.
• News: Phoenix Mars Lander finds evidence for snow falling in upper atmosphere of Mars as well as past presence of liquid water under the surface; Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter images fractures on Martian surface believed to be evidence of past water flow (link); rising costs might delay Mars Science Laboratory and possibly cancel future Mars missions; NASA hosted a teleconference last Monday to discuss Hubble malfunction and resultant delay to servicing mission; capsule returned by NASA's Stardust mission to go on display at Air & Space Museum; IBEX spacecraft attached to rocket, scheduled for October 19th launch; NASA investigating three possible designs for next satellite to study extra-solar planets (link, listen to my interview with Dr. Jennfier Wiseman of NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center for more information on NASA's research program on exoplanets); Sloan Digital Sky Survey begins program to map galaxies in order to study dark energy (link); artificial meteorite built by ESA shows that some microbes can survive in space and re-entry into atmosphere (link); any future mission to the Moon will have to contend with the problem of moon dust (link); add your name to NASA's upcoming Glory satellite by going here; successful re-entry for ESA's Jules Verne ATV; ESA left with only 192 astronaut candidates after first round of psychological testing; NASA astronaut Greg Chamitoff playing chess with Earthlings, go here to join in; NASA mission control now streaming live, 24/7/365, here.

Thank you very much for listening. Hope you enjoyed, and please email me or leave any comments you have below.

Are you worried...

... that the Large Hadron Collider is going to create a black hole which is going to swallow the Earth? Don't be.

If people are interesting in this, I can talk about it in more depth on a future program. Please let me know.

October 1st Radio Show online: Astronomy News

Finally online is the October 1st episode of this Astronomy radio show / podcast, available here. On this program, I interviewed Dr. Jeffrey Owen Katz of the Custer Institute and Observatory, as well as discuss the latest Astronomy news. Sorry it took so long to put online, and hope you enjoy! As always, please email or leave any feedback below.

Description of September 24th radio show: The Sun and the Earth

I know, it's been available here for a while, but below is description of the September 24th edition of this radio show:

• Calendar of upcoming Astronomy/Science events in the greater Poughkeepsie/New York City area.
• Interview with Prof. Joseph Tanski (Vassar College) on Vassar's summer research program for undergraduates.
• News: Phoenix Mars Lander to attempt to take a soil sample from under a rock to determine the origin of sub-surface ice; Mars Rover Opportunity headed to Victoria crater; NASA's Swift satellite detects highest redshift gamma-ray burst to date (link 1, link 2); space shuttle Endeavour moves to launch pad to get ready in case it is needed to rescue crew on Atlantis (NOTE: since broadcast, Atlantis launched delayed until 2009 due to Hubble malfunction); IBEX spacecraft testing proceeding; NASA's Kepler spacecraft, designed to detect new classes of extra-solar planet, survives baking test enroute to 2009 launch (listen to my interview with Dr. Jennifer Wiseman for more information on the Kepler mission); developmental models for components of NASA's James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) passes "shake and bake" tests (link, for more information on JWST, listen to my interview with Dr. Mark Clampin); optical interferometry instrument PRIMA installed on ESO's Very Large Telescope (link); gravitational wave interferometer Virgo suffers a vacuum failure due to glass viewport breaking; Dr. Roger Blandford chosen to head next Astronomy Decadal Survey; Senator McCain announces that, if elected president, he would freeze next year's science budget; International Astronomical Union names fifth dwarf planet in Solar System "Haumea" (link); NASA releases new educational tool called "eClips" available here or here; ESA releases new educational DVD and 3-D Teaching tool, available here, as well as announces a contest to design a t-shirt for astronaut Frank De Winne onboard the International Space Station; ESA satellite Artemis does emergency communications with Jules Verne ATV.
• Wednesday Morning Astronomer (my weekly take on the Astronomy content of this ESPN column): Google Earth (and Sky) are pretty awesome, it is funny that spy satellites also take pictures for Google, and the leak at LHC has nothing to do with black holes....
• The Sun and the Earth: Ulysses spacecraft determines that solar wind at 50 year low; Hinode records video of polar crown prominence in Sun's corona; TRACE satellite records a Coronal Mass Ejection doing a cartwheel!; nanoflares may be reason for keeping the Sun's corona so hot (link); Sun goes longer than normal without producing a sunspot (link); changes in Solar activity could account for only a very small amount of the climate change on Earth (link); radio emission from lower Earth magnetosphere "hiss" might be responsible for clearing out electrons from a section of the Earth's magnetosphere as well as "chorus" radio emission from outer magnetosphere; ESA's Cluster satellites record low-frequency radio emission from aurorae (link) and discovers that Earth's magnetosphere responsible for accelerating ions leaving Earth's atmosphere (link); NASA's THEMIS satellites observes "substorms" caused by reshaping of Earth's outer magnetosphere - related to aurorae (link 1, link 2, link 3); mineral content of glass from the Moon indicates presence of water in Moon's interior.

Hope you enjoy this program. Sorry for taking so long to post the description and, as always, any and all feedback is appreciated. Again, thank you.

Pick your favorite X-ray image

The Chandra X-ray Center is having trouble picking its favorite Chandra image. You can cast you vote here until December 1st. It's a really hard choice, they all look so nice...

Astronomy Picture Survey

The Chandra X-ray Center wants YOUR opinion concerning the multi-wavelength pictures (images that combine data at optical, X-ray, and radio wavelengths) it releases. These are some of the most confusing images in Astronomy (I often get confused by them), because red is not red light, etc. etc. The survey is pretty short (15 minutes), and is available here.

NASA Spinoff 2008

One of the most common justifications for government's spending money on basic science research are all of the spinoff technologies developed as a result of this work (e.g. Tang). As a result, it should be of no surprise that NASA publishes a magazine each year describing how its work impacted your daily lives. To see this years edition, go here.

Sorry...

I'm sorry for the lack of postings, especially of past radio shows, lately, but I've been buried in work. As some of you might know, I'm an observational astronomer, and a key part of being an observational astronomer is writing observing proposals trying to convince telescopes to look at the objects you are interested. Unfortunately, these proposal deadlines often occur close to each other - for example, October 1 was the proposal deadline for the Very Large Array and this morning was the proposal deadline for XMM. Not that those are out of the way, I'll be able to start posting material in a more timely manner.

Thank you for your patience.

NASA's newest astronomy mission - IBEX

NASA hopes to launch its newest astronomy satellite, the Interstellar Boundary Explorer (IBEX), soon. The goal of this mission is to study the "termination shock" formed when the Solar wind is decelerated by the "interstellar medium" (diffuse hydrogen gas, for the most part) that fills the Milky Way - a boundary recently crossed by both Voyager missions. For more information on this satellite, go here.

Amazing images of Jupiter

Taken with a new instrument on ESO's Very Large Telescope, there image and movies of Jupiter are the sharpest even taken of this planet from the ground. Enjoy!

NASA Moon Rover Student Competition

NASA is sponsoring a competition to all US college students to design tools for the next generation of lunar rovers. The rules and regulations are quite complicated, and to participate, you must submit a notice of intent to NASA by Dec. 15, 2008, with final papers due May 15, 2009. For more information, go to this webpage, and good luck!

Interview with Dr. Jeffrey Owen Katz (Custer Institute and Observatory)

In honor of their 30th Annual Astronomy Jamboree and Science Fair, starting tonight and going on all day tomorrow, here is my interview with Dr. Jeffrey Owen Katz - director of the Custer Institute and Observatory - on the multitude of astronomy research and public outreach activities they host. The projects he described sound really exciting, and I hope you enjoy! If you have any questions about their activities, please email me or leave them below and I will forward them to him.

30th Annual Astronomy Jamboree and Science Fair

Starting today at 6 PM at the Custer Institute and Observatory is their 30th Annual Astronomy Jamboree and Science Fair. It sounds like a lot of fun, with music, food, and, of course, lots of very interesting astronomy talk and exhibits. For more information on this program, check out this flyer. If you go, hope you enjoy!

Cool Astronomy Webcomic

A log-scale view of the observable universe, couresy of xkcd. Enjoy!

Interview with Prof. Joseph Tanski now online

Now available here is my interview with Prof. Joseph Tanski of Vassar College on summer research opportunities for undergraduates at Vassar. If you have any questions about this program, visit their webpage. Hope you enjoy!

Description of September 17th radio show: Galaxy Formation

I know it's been online for a while here, but below is a description of the September 17th radio show, which in addition to covering the latest Astronomy news, I discuss the recent results on galaxy formation. On this program, I talked about:

• News: Conductivity probe on Phoenix Mars Lander returns some interesting results regarding humidity on Mars (link) as well as photographs several dust devils (link); NASA selects MAVEN project as its next spacecraft to Mars, designed to study Mars's atmosphere; NASA's Ares I rocket passes preliminary design review and one of its many motors passes its first round of testing, photos here; NASA developing nuclear fission power source to use on the Moon's surface - is NOT similar to an atomic weapon or a nuclear power plant, but convert the heat released during the radioactive decay of an atom to power (link 1,link 2); NASA getting ready to launch Lunar Reconnaisance Orbiter to scout future landing sites for manned missions (link); European researchers developing a way to imprint Asimov's Laws of Robotics on future robots (link); space shuttle Endeavor to move to launch pad in case it needs to rescue space shuttle Atlantis; European Space Agency to launch GOCE satellite to map out the gravitational field of the Earth (link); University of Kent joins new generations radio telescope LOFAR (link); results suggest that gamma-ray burst GRB080319B, originally discovered by the Swift satellite and was so bright in the optical that it was observable with the naked eye, believed to a stream of high-energy particles traveling almost at the speed of light directed towards the Earth (link); NASA awards education research grants to minority universities (link); ESA hosts contests for name of its next mission to the International Space Station.
• Wednesday Morning Astronomer (an Astronomer's take on the science content in Gregg Easterbrook's Tuesday Morning Quarterback) - Congratulations are definitely due to Hanny van Arkel, the Dutch school teacher who discovered a new class of astronomical object while taking part in the Galaxy Zoo project. And yes, astronomy will be helped immensely when new telescopes such as the Large Synoptic Survey Telescope come online which make their data available to everyone every night. However, it is extremely unfair to say the "telescope views of deep space are monopolized by the guild structure of professional astronomy" since a huge amount of data and the software required to analyze them are already available for free, online, for anyone to look at. This is true for any US government funded observatory - such as Hubble, Chandra, Very Large Array, and literally countless others.
• Calendar of upcoming science/astronomy events in the greater Poughkeepsie/New York City area.
• Galaxy Formation: The current belief is that galaxies were formed by the merger of smaller galaxies who were formed by the gravitational attraction of stars and, more importantly, the massive amount of dark halo around them, to each other. By measuring how the properties of galaxies change over time, for example: does the average size of a galaxy get bigger?, how often do we observe galaxies merging?, it is possible to determine if this picture is correct. Hubble Space Telescope observations have recently found nine galaxies in the early universe (about 3 billion years after the Big Bang) which are smaller than the Milky Way, but carry the same number of stars - likely to be the building blocks for galaxies similar to the most massive galaxies we observe today (link). A Galaxy cluster in a very early stage of formation has also been observed about 3 billion years after the Big Bang, which several galaxy mergers going on in this cluster (link). A survey of galaxy clusters at different ages of the universe have found that the brightest galaxy in each cluster has increased in mass by 50% over the last few billion years, evidence that galaxies are merging together during this period (link). A deep infrared image have identified galaxies with masses about 10x that of the Milky Way only 4 billion years after the Big Bang - not much time for smaller galaxies to have merged together to form a galaxy this massive (link), and these galaxies appear to already be full of very old stars - like giant elliptical galaxies observed today (link). Galaxy groups and clusters are believed to be formed by the gravitational attraction of galaxies and their more massive dark matter "halos" to each other. Galaxy clusters are normally filled with gas that is expelled by their galaxies, probably during mergers, that is heated to X-ray emitting temperatures by the total gravitational potential of the galaxy cluster. Recently, similar X-ray emission has been detected not from a galaxy cluster but a single galaxy, NGC 1132, suggesting that this source was only a galaxy cluster but they all merged together to one galaxy. An important prediction / test for this model for galaxy formation is the mass of the most massive galaxy cluster, for which a new record setter has been discovered. And, as alluded too before, an important consideration is that when galaxies merge, it just isn't the stars and gas in these galaxies merging but the surrounding dark matter - which is where most of the mass is - as well. Gas interacts with gas differently that dark matter interacts with dark matter: gas collides with gas, while dark matter will pass through dark matter and only interact gravitationally. Therefore, when two galaxies or galaxy clusters merge, one should initially see an offset between the gas and the dark matter / mass distribution. This has been observed for one cluster before, the "Bullet" cluster, and has been recently seen in another one (link). Observations like these provide some of the best evidence for the existence of dark matter, which plays an extremely important role in our current model for the universe.

Hope you enjoy, thank you very much for listening, and please email me or leave below any questions or comments you might have.