Category: Astrosphere

Today’s photo, captured by Chris Schurs, is amazing and difficult. It’s an image of the night sky, focused on Polaris (the North Star). Chris kept his exposure open for a full 6 hours, with the stars making the bright trails that you see. You can see more of Chris’ pictures at schursastrophotography.com

Cumbrian Sky celebrates the 50th anniversary of Sputnik on a sad note, regretting the future that we could have had if we just kept going.

Clear Skies on Demand has a cool picture of a sundog. It’s a cool little rainbow that can appear off to the side of the Sun when conditions are just right.

Larry Klaes writes for Centauri Dreams about a new propulsion system that uses magnetic fields.

Want to buy a Sputnik to celebrate that special 50th anniversary? collectSPACE has a list of the top 10 Sputniks.

A Mars Odyssey has an article about the recent failure of a space tether experiment.

And a big congratulations to George “Mr. Sulu” Takei on the asteroid named after him.

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.

Today’s astrophoto was captured by Mike Salway. It’s the Milky Way. Wow.

Here’s a new blog that I’m watching: Black Holes and Astro Stuff. In other words, space bloggers are contacting me, and letting me know they exist. And you should do the same. Email me at [email protected]. That way I can help you out and raise awareness of your hard work.

Personal Spaceflight has an interesting story about the trials and tribulations Anousheh Ansari went through to become a space tourist.

Pamela looks at a group of galaxies called Seyfert’s Sextet. It looks like an important stage in galaxy evolution.

CNet has this interview with X-Prize founder Peter Diamandis.

My blogging comrades over at Wired News have wrapped up a contest for people to choose a new tagline for NASA. I won’t spoil it for you, check out the top entries.

Phil finds a garden shaped like a galaxy.

The 2007 Spaceward Games are just two weeks away.

And finally, a community of space enthusiasts are building a fictional galaxy, star by star, planet by planet. It’s called the Galaxiki, and it’s one of those wiki things, where the public is able to freely edit it.

Today’s space photo was captured by Phil22. I don’t I have to tell you that it’s the Horsehead Nebula.

First some sad news. The life of a young space blogger was ended in a motorcycle accident a couple of days ago. Matt Bowes was the mind behind Space Liberates Us!; an extremely well-written blog. Matt’s blog was one of the ones I was following every day, and I had no idea he was only 19. The obituary is here. Thanks to Clark, Keith and Rand for the heads up on this.

He’s both a rocket scientist and an astronaut. MIT Technology review has an interview with Franklin Chang Diaz discussing his plasma rocket research.

The launch of Dawn brings another ion engine into space. Centauri Dreams wonders when we’ll see solar sails propel a spacecraft.

If you listen to the Skeptic’s Guide to the Universe, you’ll be pleased to hear that Skepchick Rebecca Watson has won a fierce competition to get her own public radio show. If you need a guest Rebecca… call me. 😉

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.

Today’s space photo was captured RickJ. He says it’s a photograph of a pelican, but I think he’s talking about the nebular variety.

The Carnival of Space continues. Wandering Space has the 22nd iteration of this wonderful collection of links.

Well now, this is just cool. ESA has instructions so you can make your own Hipparcos star globe. It looks like a 20-sided die (come on, can I get some D&D love here?) which you print out on your printer and then cut and glue together. It has all the constellations and the Milky Way on it. Lucky I just bought a colour laser printer.

Here’s a cool picture of Canada’s northernmost lake at Livescience, and a description of the changes happening from global warming.

The 50th anniversary of Sputnik’s launch is coming up. What are you doing to celebrate? The Rocketry Blog has 10 good ideas.

How much will it cost to go back to the Moon? Not a trillion dollars, that’s for sure. Space Politics deals with misinformation about the costs of space exploration.

Most scientists think water on Earth came from cometary bombardment. But there’s another theory that elemental hydrogen in the atmosphere combined with oxygen in rocks to create the oceans. Quasar9 has the story.

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.

Here’s your nice space photo for the day. You might not be aware, but when Venus is at its closest and brightest, it actually looks like a crescent. Here’s a photo captured two days ago by John Chumack.

Got some money to burn? Astronomy.com is reporting that a large metal meteorite is up for sale.

Cosmic Variance has some good advice to would-be graduate students. Here’s how to survive and thrive that grueling educational period.

Popular Mechanics is reporting on a new proposal from Boeing to put a gas station in space. It could make getting to the Moon much easier.

I love this blog. Aerospace worker Damaris B. Sarria really really wants to be an astronaut. Her blog chronicles her journey. And look at this, NASA just opened up applications for more astronauts.

You remember Wolf 359. Come on Star Trek geeks. It’s actually a really close star that you can find in the night sky. Astroprof shows you how.

First the photo. Winensky captured this great image of the Moon, using a 7-megapixel camera connected to a 3″ reflector telescope. Click this link to see the whole collection, including a mosaic with several images stitched together.

Did any Canadians catch last night’s “Race to Mars”. What did you think of it? Mark Mortimer was good enough to write a review here on Universe Today. Personally, I was so grateful for the careful and accurate presentation of science that I wasn’t too concerned about it being a little boring.

I also caught last night’s premiere of Heroes. Now that was boring, and didn’t have the science to back it up. Pamela Gay gets frustrated by television physics as well – she thinks our heroes should be getting a little hungrier.

What do you use for your skywatching software? Astroprof reviews Stellarium. You can’t go wrong with free.

You’ve got to love the Space Review. Consistently great articles and opinion pieces about space exploration. Check out this one entitled, The rise and fall of great space powers. And here, editor Jeff Faust contemplates Mike Griffin’s recent remarks.

Over at Centauri Dreams, Larry Klaes looks at the rise of submillimetre astronomy.

Hi there, happy equinox tomorrow. Today’s astrophoto was captured by ShevillWMathers. It’s an image of the recent total lunar eclipse – which was clouded out for me. 🙁

First, I’d like to note that the 21st Carnival of Space has gone live over at its original home, Henry Cate’s blog. Henry founded the Carnival of Space, and we’re all grateful for his efforts to keep this organized. Thanks Henry! Speaking of organized, I wasn’t organized enough to get a contribution in.

Astronomy Magazine has a blog. And in this blog, they cover some recent comments by NASA Administrator Mike Griffin about how the US will probably lose the race to return to the Moon. I’m going to daydream about Canadian gumboots making the first steps, but I suspect that’s just wishful thinking.

Frontier Channel reviews the Bionic Woman TV show.

Angela Gunn saw “In the Shadow of the Moon”, and here’s what she thought. New Scientists has a review too.

Dr. Pamela Gay covers research about echoes of radiation from quasars being used to study the centres of distant galaxies.

Space Law Probe discusses the latest in getting electricity from space.

One final note, did anyone catch Seeing in the Dark on PBS? I’ve got it sitting on my PVR. Let me know what you thought.

Today’s image was taken by Jamesabrown. It’s a solar pillar, when the Sun’s rays bounce of water vapour in the atmosphere. They’re rare and cool to see.

Mercury is a hard planet to spot. It’s only visible around sunset or sunrise, and either sets quickly or fades into the brightening Sun. There’s going to be a cool pairing on Saturday, September 22nd, when Mercury gets really close to the star Spica. Astroblog has the details.

Centauri Dreams reports that Tau Ceti might not be a terrible place for life after all.

Remember the cool New Mexico spaceport I blogged about last week? Well, the government wants more money to help get it built. From the Personal Spaceflight blog.

Learn how to beam energy to move spaceships at the Fifth International Symposium on Beamed Energy Propulsion. It’s going to be at the Outrigger Keauhou Beach Resort, Hawaii, November 12 – 15, 2007. Nod to Hobbyspace for the link.

Well, I’m officially jealous. Space blogger Keith Cowing recently got a chance to fly on the Zero Gravity Corporation’s G Force One and experience weightlessness. Tell me that doesn’t look like fun.

My good friends over at Earth & Sky are going to be launching a Spanish-language version of their popular astronomy podcast, funded by the National Science Foundation. They’re planning to produce 600 one-minute science radio spots in Spanish over the next three years. It’s going to be called Cielo y Tierra, which, uh, makes sense.

A big thanks to the History Channel, and its show, “The Universe“. They sponsored Universe Today and Astronomy Cast over the summer. The last episode has aired, so they’re moving on. Hey, that means there’s a sponsorship opportunity available in Astronomy Cast. If you’re interested in sponsoring Astronomy Cast, we now get about 180,000 shows downloaded every month.

I’ve got a whole collection of interesting and unusual resources for you to enjoy today:

Remember Cassini’s visit to Iapetus? I know, I’m getting a little obsessed by it. Well, here’s another, more famous person who’s also excited by the arrival: Arthur C. Clarke. Here’s a video introduction that he recorded for NASA to celebrate the flyby.

More news from NASA. A new digital 3D film recently opening up at the Boston Museum of Science in the first week of September called “3D Sun”. Remember that really video of the Sun that STEREO captured? Well, imagine that, but on the big screen… in 3D!

Scientific American has a couple of new articles in the October issue about NASA’s return to the Moon, and the exploration of space. Here’s one entitled: To the Moon and Beyond, and a second called Five Essential Things to Do in Space.

And Popular Mechanics has gone absolutely bonkers for space. They put together a massive amount of articles, graphics and information for their Future of Space issue celebrating the 50th anniversary of Sputnik. For example, they list every mission launched… ever. All 6,039 of them. Kudos to PM on this one.

I know this isn’t exactly space-related, but Phil over at Bad Astronomy talks about his eye opening experiences running a space-related blog, and how it relates to publishing in the old world. It’s the evolution of a revolution. I couldn’t agree more.