Astronomy
Plausibility Check – Habitable Planets around Red Giants
[/caption] While planets orbiting twin stars are a staple of science fiction, another is having humans live on planets orbiting…
Halt, Black Hole! Gemini Captures Explosions That Deprive Black Holes of Mass
[/caption] Astronomers have long suspected that something must stymie actively growing black holes, because most galaxies in the local universe…
20 Million Observations by Amateur Astronomers!
[/caption]Early into the celebration of its centennial year, observers of the American Association of Variable Star Observers (AAVSO) passed another…
Movies of Comet Tempel 1 Encounter by Stardust-NExT
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tmvm7cvaiKY&feature=related Want to know what it feels like at close range to ride on a spaceship past a zooming comet…
Another Must-Have Tool for Astronomers: A Shovel
Ah, the glamorous life of an astronomer. Scott Kardel, public affairs coordinator for the Palomar Observatory, found himself on top…
Film Review: Nostalgia for the Light (in Atacama)
[/caption] It's difficult enough to imagine stark white telescope domes towering over a parched brown landscape made even more arid…
Continent-Wide Telescope Array Now Seeing 450 Million Light-Years Into Space
[/caption] Kitt Peak. Los Alamos. St. Croix. Pie Town. What do these places have in common? They each house one…
Sun Erupts with Enormous X2 Solar Flare
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R5ZiLl8hMBs Just in time for Valentine’s Day, [and the Stardust flyby of Comet Tempel 1] the Sun erupted with a…
First-Time Views of Solar System Births
[/caption] Chalk up a sizzling success for the HiCIAO planet-hunter camera on the Subaru Telescope in Hawaii: it's captured this unprecedented…