Category: Astrosphere

First the photo. Take a careful look, and you’ll see that Comet Holmes has a tail now. Thanks to RickJ for the amazing photo.

Emily at the Planetary Society Blog has dug up some cool videos of Saturn’s moons.

X-Prize founder, Peter Diamandis speaks with Popular Science about the future of the X-Prize Cup.

Colony Worlds has an interesting story about a group of angel investors coming together to pour money into clever ideas for space exploration.
First the picture. Comet Holmes has got a tail! It’s not much of a tail, but it’s there… Thanks to RickJ for the photo.

Astronomers thought that 10% of the Universe was missing. Oh wait, it’s been found.

The 2007 Weblog award nominations have been announced. Once again, Bad Astronomy has been nominated for the best science blog, as well as several others. Vote early, vote often.

Scientific American’s 60 Second Science has gotten so popular, all on its own, they’ve decided to give it a website.

Happy Halloween everyone. First up, enjoy a triple view of Comet Holmes, captured by ngc3314.

Of course, Halloween is an excuse to write spooky flavoured press releases. Here’s one from NASA’s Cassini mission about the spooky sounds of the Saturnian system. And this chilling tale of a meteorite… IT Came From Vesta. Astronomy Picture of the Day focuses on the “Ghost Head Nebula“. Cosmic Log’s Alan Boyle looks at the science of spooks. And finally, Phil Plait has a terrifying image of, of… well, you’ll just have to see for yourself.

Thomas Marquart from Apparent Brightness suggests a trick you can use to pare down your RSS feeds to just get the ones you want. I actually do this to just focus on space-related news.

Have you noticed a bright star in the mornings? That’s not a star, that’s Venus.

Centauri Dreams reconsiders Gliese 581. It’s looking less and less Earthlike every day.

I hope you’re all enjoying this lazy Sunday. Sorry for the lack of updates, things have been busy for me. Of course, you’ll be wanting an image of Comet Holmes. This one was captured by Phil22 from the forum, but there are lots more there, so check them all out.

Lots of people are talking about Comet 17P/Holmes. Astroprof captured an image of the comet above his house. And here’s an image captured by Steve Tuttle. And here’s a cool series showing its evolution from Slacker Astronomy. And another nice one from Tom’s Astronomy Blog. And finally, here’s a sketch made by Bill Greer.

And everyone else is out at the X-Prize Cup. Jeff Foust uploaded a bunch of images. And here’s a video of Armadillo Aerospace’s unsuccessful attempt to win the first lunar prize. And here’s some coverage from Alan Boyle’s Cosmic Log. Finally, here’s Wired Science’s excellent coverage. Orbital Outfitters showed off their new prototype commercial pilot spacesuit.

For the photo, we’ve got this wonderful image of M31 (the Andromeda Galaxy) by John Chumack.

Now, before we get rolling with today’s episode, I’d like to encourage you to subscribe to Universe Today. Instead of coming here regularly, just subscribe so you find out when I’ve updated the site, automagically. There are two ways – both free, of course – to do this. One is to subscribe to the email subscription. Just put your email into the box on the right there, and you’ll get the latest stories by email every day. The second way is with a feed reader, such as Google Reader. Set up a Google Reader account, and then subscribe to the Universe Today feed. Here’s the URL: http://www.universetoday.com/universetoday.xml.

Once you get your news through a feed, you’ll never go back.

Centauri Dreams considers the controversy of whether we should try and signal extraterrestrial civilizations.

Now all your work on the Galaxy Zoo is starting to pay off. The Universe might be lopsided.

The Bad Astronomer explains how valuable contributions to astronomy come from amateurs.

We’re just 5 days away from the Space Elevator Games. I sure wish I could attend them.

The astropixie suggests you try and spot Mercury this week. It’s not an easy challenge.

Scientific American’s blog has posted computer desktop images of Iapetus, in a variety of convenient sizes.

Do you have a space-related blog? Email me your URL, and I’ll start watching you. Write something interesting, and I’ll link to it.

We’re rapidly approaching Mars, so it’s only appropriate to make that the astrophoto of the day. This image was captured by Kyle Edwards.

First, let me draw your attention to the Carnival of Space. This week it’s being held at Space for Commerce. No entry from me this week. I really need to get more organized about that.

From HobbySpace we learn that NASA is restarting its suborbital rocket and balloon programs. These are surprisingly cost-effective ways to gather science.

Remember that X-Wing model that came apart on launch? Here’s a theory about what might have brought it down.

Look out Moon, here comes another mission. This time, from China.

When Cassini’s mission comes to an end, it’ll probably be dropped down into Saturn to gather some final science. If you think the loonies are going to predict that this will somehow ignite Saturn, you don’t need to wait. They already think this.

Here’s your space photo for the day. It’s an image of galaxy NGC 253, captured by Strongmanmike. This is just one of a series of new images released by Mike.

I briefly mentioned that one of the latest batch of astronauts headed to the International Space Station is Malaysia’s Sheikh Muszaphar Shukor. As a Muslim, he’s got the puzzling problem of praying in space.

The SpaceShipTwo is going to cause delays to Virgin Galactic’s plans for space tourism. Personal Spaceflight tries to figure out how much of a delay.

Now this is going to be good. An upcoming episode of Nova will cover the recent Intelligent Design trial. Pharyngula has the trailer.

Why do people think the Earth is tilting wildly away from its normal 23.6-degree inclination? This madness almost debunks itself, but Phil gives it just the push it needs to tilt right over.

When the next generation of planet hunting space observatories get into orbit, they’re going to be analyzing the atmosphere of distant worlds. Pamela describes what they’ll be looking for.

Why bother with Mars when we could colonize Ceres instead?

Space Law Probe remarks on the 40th anniversary of the “Treaty on Principles Governing the Activities of States in the Exploration and Use of Outer Space, Including the Moon and Other Celestial Bodies.”

First, your photo for the day is of the Trifid Nebula, captured by JAICOA.

In Universe Today news, I’m testing out a new forum/blogging software called Lefora. This could be an eventual new home for Universe Today, or maybe it’ll be a botched experiment, quickly forgotten. To help me decide, please take a moment and come check it out at: http://universetoday.lefora.com/. Register as a user, comment on stories, start new discussions, post pictures, vote. And give your feedback. I’d really appreciate your help.

Now, onto the ‘sphere.

As a tribute for the 100,000th asteroid discovery, researchers have decided to rename it to Astronautica.

SPACE.com has a video of a potential asteroid mission.

Astronomy.com reports on the battle to save the Arecibo observatory.

Australian researchers are working on a design for a self-sufficient lunar colony.

Didn’t you think it was cool that Google redesigned its logo to celebrate Sputnik’s 50th anniversary? Not everyone did, apparently.

No, that’s not a big glass worm on the surface of Mars.

Remember the DARPA Grand Challenge, where robotic cars navigated a complex track? The urban version is about to begin. Robotic cars on busy city streets. I can’t wait.

And finally, Centauri Dreams remembers Robert Bussard, inventor of the ram jet that bears his name. He passed away from cancer a few days ago.

Today’s astrophoto was captured by RickJ. It’s VdB152, a reflection nebula in the constellation Cepheus. Around the Bad Astronomy/Universe Today forums, we call it the “Star Eating Leech”.

First up, Astroprof reviews a device that can help you measure just how light polluted your skies are.

Discover Magazine has a great interview with SpaceShipOne designer Burt Rutan about his plans for private space exploration.

We saw the model rocket X-Wing destruction. Now enjoy similar destruction of a scale model Y-Wing. Come on, can’t anyone build a scale model Star Wars vehicle that doesn’t tear itself to pieces in mid-flight? Death Star anyone?

Remember that terrible accident during the testing of SpaceShipTwo? Flight is reporting that it’s going to cause delays to Virgin Galactic’s plans for tourist flights.

MSNBC’s Alan Boyle helps you locate the beautiful images he uses for Cosmic Log.

Happy Thanksgiving to all my fellow Canadian readers. Mmmm, turkey.

Today’s astrophoto is Saturn, captured by Paul F. Campbell. I like this image because it reminds me of what you see when you look through a nice telescope at Saturn. Although, this image has better clarity of the rings and bands on the planet than what you’d see in the eyepiece.

It was a crazy, yet awesome idea. Build a 200+ kg model of an X-Wing, affix 4 powerful rocket engines, and blast it off. It started out well, and then things went wrong.

Astroprof reviews a handheld planetarium called Pocket Stars.

Need some kind of currency when you head up into orbit? Check out the Quid.

SPACE.com has a great article profiling the upcoming X-Prize Cup.

Got a lot of time on your hands? Try making this scale model of the Sputnik rocket. Thanks to the Rocketry Blog for the tip.

Today’s photo, captured by Patrick Taschler, is absolutely spectacular. It’s an image of the volcano Tungurahua, located in Ecuador. You really need to click and see the larger version to see why I posted this on Universe Today. In the background, above the volcano is the Pleiades star cluster.

It’s time for the 22nd Carnival of Space. I finally got my act together, and I’ve got an entry there.

The 50th anniversary Sputnik stories are flying fast and furious, everywhere you look. Everyone, has a story about this. I didn’t write one for Universe Today, because I was too busy working on one for Wired. Check out Sputnik’s grandchildren.

A Mars Odyssey considers the future of creepy space exploration robots.

Were older supernovae brighter? It could mess up our ability to measure distance in the Universe. Pamela has the details.

The HiRISE team has a blog, detailing their trials and tribulations dealing with the big camera on NASA’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter. Check out this recent entry discussing why their instrument was put into safe mode.

Colony Worlds has this suggestion. Why send humans to colonize planets, when we could send pigs.