400 Years of the Telescope

on PBS in the New York area tonight at 10 PM. Read more about it here. Sounds interesting to me, hope you enjoy it.

Firefly is back!!!!

Not the TV show, unfortunately. But NASA is planning on launching a new satellite called Firefly to study flashed of gamma-rays - from the Earth! Where they are coming from (no, they are not from underground nuclear tests. Those would be absorbed by the ground and atmosphere and never make it out to space), no one really knows. Read more about it here.

Herschel update

The newest ESA satellite, Herschel is slowly but surely turning on its main scientific instruments. Go here to learn more.

The Amazing Flying Telescope

NASA is currently working on a telescope called SOFIA designed to operate inside a flying Boeing 747. Why? To get above as much of the atmosphere as possible to detect mid-infrared light, which is absorbed by water. How? With great difficulty, as you can read about here.

The Sun is mass of incandescent gas

but there is much more to it then that. Go here to read more about NASA next Sun-studying satellite, the Solar Dynamics Observatory, scheduled to launch today!

WISE telescope launched

A "small" (only 40 cm in diameter) telescope launched to survey to entire sky at mid-infrared wavelengths (where brown dwarfs, stars and AGN behind lots of dust, and dusty galaxies are easiest to detect), WISE is going to be an extremely important telescope for years to come (even though it is only designed to work for a year). Because it will make the most sensitive all-sky map at these wavelengths, it is likely to discover new classes of sources, and identify interesting objects for the upcoming James Webb Space Telescope and Atacama Large Millimeter Array to observed in detail. Go here for more information, and wish them luck!

Update: Here is a nice summary of different news articles regarding what different astronomers hope WISE will discover. Even though most of the objects I work on (neutron stars, pulsar wind nebulae) are unlikely to be detected by this satellite, I think projects like this one are some of the most important in astronomy. All-sky surveys have the greatest potential of discovering new things we didn't know and didn't guess exist, that is almost always the most exciting discovery of all. Stay tuned!