Astronomy
James Elliot, Discoverer of Uranus Ring System, Dies
[/caption] Astronomer James Elliot, a professor at MIT, has passed away at the age of 67. Elliot was part of…
STEREO Looks at the Sun; Finds Planets
[/caption] The primary mission of the twin STEREO probes is to explore the 3-dimensional makeup of our Sun. Each craft…
Buckyballs… Throwing Astronomers A Curve
[/caption]When I first heard about buckyballs a couple of decades ago, I had nothing but the deepest respect for anyone…
Dusty Neighbor NGC 247 is a Million Light-Years Closer Than Thought
[/caption] One of our celestial neighbors, the spiral galaxy NGC 247, just moved about a million light-years closer. Well, not…
What’s Up for March?
Jane Houston Jones from JPL provides a video report on the happenings in space this month, and what you can…
Another Ceasing Cepheid
[/caption] Earlier this year, I wrote an article about a Cepheid variable star named V19 in M31. This Cepheid was…
Meteorites Illuminate Mystery of Chromium in Earth’s Core
It’s generally assumed that the Earth’s overall composition is similar to that of chondritic meteorites, the primitive, undifferentiated building blocks…
T Chamaeleon Gets Caught in the Act — Forming Planets, That Is
[/caption] An international team of astronomers peering at a young star in the constellation Chamaeleon have detected a smaller companion…
Close Look at Cas A Reveals Bizarre ‘Superfluid’
[/caption] NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory has discovered the first direct evidence for a superfluid, a bizarre, friction-free state of matter, at the…