I just got an email out of the blue from former CNN anchor Miles O’Brien letting me know about a recent blog post at True/Slant about the recent repair of the Hubble Space Telescope. It’s a great article, go read it and then dig back through the archives. I think the first article is here.
When I first got the email, I was a little puzzled about why it was coming from regular Miles O’Brien, and not CNN anchor O’Brien, so I did a little digging and it turns out CNN started dismantling their science and technology division earlier this year. Yes, I’m completely out of touch with current events, and possibly even reality.
Are they insane? Universe Today has been growing in leaps and bounds, to the point that I’ve got several writers working with me to feed your voracious appetite for space news. And as science progresses at an exponentially faster rate, people will need better and better coverage to comprehend the complicated implications of scientific discovery. I can guarantee that the demand is there, we just need people who can explain it better, and stand up for the science.
Science and technology is doing just fine thank you very much. Feel free to leave the field CNN, I’m happy to fill the void.
Anyway, if you want to catch up with Miles O’Brien, he’s got his blogging gig over at True/Slant and he’s doing a weekly video cast for Boing Boing called This Week in Space.
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You might have heard through the celestial grape vine that Universe Today correspondent Ian O’Neill has been tagged to lead the space news team over at the Discovery Channel’s space blog network. So if you’re wondering why there aren’t many O’Neill articles over here, or at his own website Astroengine.com, that’s because he writing (and editing) his big heart over at Discovery.com: Space Disco. The previous producer, Dave Mosher has moved on to manage the web development for a non-profit foundation.
A big thanks to Ian for all his dedicated work on Universe Today and I really hope everything goes well with his work over at the Discovery Channel.
Ian has promised he’ll still be contributing the occasional article for Universe Today. And if he’s too busy for that, we’ll still be linking to his coverage when we can.
I’m sure you all knew this was coming. I enabled comments on Universe Today about 6 months ago, and it was great to have everyone’s feedback. But now people are abusing the system, being rude to each other and advertising their personal theories, so it’s time to crack down. I’m going to implement some new policies that should keep things cleaner. This is a shortened version, inspired by the powerful (but fair) rules over at the Bad Astronomy/Universe Today forum.
The writers and I will be deleting any posts that break the following rules:
Be nice – Don’t abuse other readers, the writers, or the Universe in general. Don’t swear, make racist or sexist comments, etc. I think you know when you’re being rude. Stop it.
Be brief – Don’t write a long rambling comment that’s longer than the original article.
Don’t advertise – Don’t use the site to promote your product, service, or your own website. If you’d like to promote your stuff, buy advertising.
Don’t promote your personal, alternative physics theories – This is the same as advertising. You’ve got an idea and you want the world to know about it, then start up your own website, and blog away, but don’t do it here.
I’m also going to make commenters register with the website shortly, so you have to create an account to be able to comment.
Hey everyone, I’ve noticed there’s a Twitterstorm going on out there over the kinds of ads showing up on Universe Today. You know the ones for 2012, and strange theories about how Einstein was wrong. These are the contextual ads provided by Google Adsense, and without them, Universe Today would be a shadow of its former self.
Tim Farley over at Skeptical Software Toolswrote a reasoned response to the controversy of allowing woowoo ads on a scientific site, and it pretty much matches my point of view. But I chimed in on the comments of his site with a more detailed response. Here’s what I had to say:
“Thanks Tim, I appreciate the reasoned response to the situation. What you’ve described is essentially my position on the matter. Google Adsense is the only advertiser out there that will actually pay the bills, so I can pay the writers, server costs, etc. Without the money from Adsense, Universe Today would be a shadow of its current self. I’d layoff the writers, move the site to a $10/month host, and go get a real job.
And don’t think that I haven’t tried to bring in real advertisers. I’ve started up advertising networks, cold-called every telescope manufacturer, and begged my readers to help find sponsors for Universe Today – and that was met with silence. I know that it’s just a matter of time before lots of advertising moves online, but until then what do people suggest we do?
So for now, it’s Adsense. Big, bold Adsense ads that take up a tiny fraction of the site’s total real estate. Compare that to a newspaper or magazine and you’ll see that UT has less advertising.
The big complaint, obviously, is that there are 2012 and woowoo ads selling all kinds of nutty theories. But those ads paid for a multi-part series of articles that debunked every aspect of the 2012 silliness. Those ads keep the BAUT forum going. And they’re not the only ads on the site, there are also ads for telescopes, trips to the Kennedy Space Center and other space-related stuff.
So why don’t I filter out the woowoo ads? I tried that. Within a day or so, I filled up my filter list completely and it was just a fraction of the ads out there. And there’s no way I can see them all. And if you filter some, it just lets others float to the top.
We’re at an uncomfortable time in the world economy, with massive advertising resources shifting from the old media publishers to the new online world. Universe Today and the other space media sites are perfectly positioned to reap the rewards when the shift is actually finished. And when it does, we’ll have lots of very appropriate advertisers, spending the kind of money required to keep these kinds of sites going. It’ll be awesome, and there’ll be ice cream for everyone.
But until then, we have to do what we can to survive. I’m grateful that I can pay salaries to 6 full and part time writers and still feed my children. And the woowoos are contributing to that. I think it’s a hilarious transfer of wealth, honestly.
Universe Today is financially stable and growing nicely. As it grows, I can bring on more writers and provide better coverage. The site is almost completely immune the current troubles in the world economy. (I’ve worked in my basement developing Universe Today in my spare time before and I can do it again)
If you don’t like ads, I suggest you install Adblock for Firefox. Zip done, never see an ad again. And the when the future has arrived, I’ll let you know.
But if you want to complain about Universe Today, I beg you to complain about the content, tone and coverage of the articles and our respect for science and skepticism. Don’t worry about the ads, they’ll get sorted out soon enough.
Hey everyone, I just wanted to inform you of a little anniversary. I started up Universe Today exactly 10 years ago today, on March 23rd, 1999. Since very few of you know the actual story of Universe Today, I thought I’d regale you with it on this 10-year anniversary.
I was living in Vancouver at the time, working as a project manager in an Internet company. We were helping clients develop websites, but I felt that I didn’t have enough personal experience developing and maintaining a website to really give good advice. I was thinking I should run a website on the side about a topic I was passionate about… but what subject?
On one business trip I stopped at a Barnes and Nobles, browsed through the books section and picked up The Case for Mars by Bob Zubrin, and Pale Blue Dot by Carl Sagan – I gobbled them up, front to back in a single sitting. I had always been interested in space and astronomy, and was out every clear night as a teenager with my 4″ telescope. I realized that this was the topic that I was most interested in, and I was excited enough about the subject matter that I could keep the website going with my busy job and total lack of spare time.
I started brainstorming domain names; unfortunately space.com was taken. I started mashing together spacey names with other words, and then checked to see what was available. In the end, Universe + Today was open, so I went with that. I hacked together a site with my terrible HTML skills and even worse graphic abilities, but I knew that the purpose of the site would be the articles updated on a daily basis.
My goal for Universe Today was to teach myself about space and astronomy… by teaching others. Each day I went though all of the breaking news, wrote a quick summary, and then linked out to the originating sources. And this was how things went for years and years. Over time, I learned more and more about space and astronomy, and was able to put this knowledge back into the website. I covered lunar eclipses live, interviewed astronomers and astronauts, and eventually learned how to write longer and better articles.
The website’s traffic and number of subscribers continued to grow. About 3 years ago, the advertising revenue from Google and other advertisers was enough that I could work on Universe Today full time – thanks to a hardworking wife who understands that we need to do what we love to be truly happy (she works in a toy store). Over the last few years, I brought on a team of writers to help get the news out faster and better than what I was doing alone. I’m indebted to Nancy, Ian, Nick, Tammy, Mark, and our newest team member, Anne.
10 years from when I started Universe Today, we’ve now got almost 45,000 RSS subscribers, and receive close to 2 million page views a month. I’m able to pick the brains of an astrophysicist twice a week with our Astronomy Cast podcast. I’ve met professional astronomers, astronauts, and Nobel laureates. I’m a member of a wonderful community of space bloggers, and call many of them my bestfriends.
It’s funny how a hobby can turn into so much more.
Who knows where we’ll all be in 10 more years? I know what I’ll be doing, though – working on Universe Today; covering the New Horizons close encounter with Pluto, the launch and first images from the James Webb Space Telescope, and reporting on astronauts returning to the Moon.
[/caption]Naming Pluto explores the chain of events that lead to Pluto’s naming and in 2007 sees Venetia Phair viewing Pluto for the very first time through a telescope, on her 89th birthday, 77 years after Pluto’s discovery. A wonderful, intimate look into the story behind how Pluto got its name. A review of the short film directed and produced by Ginita Jimenez, distributed by Father Films.
In recent years, Pluto has seen its status change from being a planet to what many people view as a planetary underclass. The reasons behind this have been set out by the International Astronomical Union (IAU) to cater for the increasing number of Solar System bodies being discovered; the traditional nine planets have had to make room for a growing minor planet population. Unfortunately, Pluto was at the front line as it inhabits a region of space dominated by the gas giant Neptune, plus thousands of other Kuiper belt objects. Although the mysterious body lost its planetary status (as it does not have the ability to “clear its own orbit”), it has taken the title of “dwarf planet” and now has an entire class of object named in its honour: “Plutoids”.
However, the recent tumultuous history of the traditional “9th planet” has not impacted the fascination we have for Pluto. It has, and always will be, viewed with intrigue and wonder.
The key to Pluto’s romantic tale begins in the year 1930 when a mysterious heavenly was discovered by Clyde Tombaugh, a 23 year-old astronomer working at the Lowell Observatory in Flagstaff, Arizona. However, the honour of naming Pluto didn’t rest on Tombaugh’s shoulders. Over 5000 miles away in Oxford (UK) an 11 year old girl was having breakfast with her grandfather, wondering what this newly discovered planet should be called…
The Pluto system seen from the surface of Hydra (NASA)Naming Pluto starts out with some stunning visuals from 2006 of NASA’s New Horizons Pluto mission launching from Cape Canaveral. Throughout the opening tour of the Solar System, we can hear the voice of Venetia Burney as she is interviewed by NASA Public Affairs officer Edward Goldstein during the launch.
When Goldstein asks whether she had ever seen Pluto through a telescope, the clear and articulate voice of Venetia replies, “I don’t think I have. I’ve just seen a photograph.” And so the journey begins, where Venetia explains her fascination with Pluto and a number of experts (including the enigmatic Sir Patrick Moore) help to explain the facts behind the discovery of Pluto to the scientific endeavour of the search for “Planet X”.
One of the key moments is when Venetia is describing when she decided on the name for the heavenly body. At age 11, had an acute interest in ancient mythology, so she chose the name because Pluto is the Roman god of the underworld; a fitting name considering the cold, dark nature of Pluto’s 248 year orbit. In a fortuitous chain of events, her grandfather, a former librarian of Oxford University’s Bodleian Library, passed the suggestion via letter to Professor Herbert Hall Turner saying that his granddaughter had chosen a “thoroughly suitable name: PLUTO.” Hall Turner, thrilled with the candidate name, sent Venetia’s idea to colleagues in the USA, at the Lowell Observatory.
A special delight is when Venetia visits St. Anne’s Primary School in Surrey to participate in their class project all about Pluto. It goes to show that even young school children have fallen under Pluto’s spell. One 9 year-old pupil, Katie, shares her concerns about Pluto’s demotion, “Some people say that Pluto isn’t a real planet, so I’m looking forward to Venetia coming because I want to find out if that’s true.”
Other guests on the film uncover the various attributes of Pluto’s discovery, delving into the history and future of the planetary lightweight on the outermost reaches of the Solar System.
“Yes, indeed,” the ever gracious Venetia replies, smiling.
Unfortunately, the UK summer weather conspired against the possibility of clear skies, and any chance of Patrick’s 15″ reflector of spying Pluto was lost. However, there is a fantastic twist in the tale, bringing the whole film to a wonderfully emotional ending.
All in all, Naming Pluto is a fabulous tribute, not only to Venetia, but to the astronomical process. Although Pluto has undergone a change in status these last few years, it remains an important, permanent feature of the Solar System. This well-crafted story gives the viewer an excellent overview of Pluto’s discovery, naming and the magic it holds today for the 9 year-olds at St. Anne’s to Venetia who named the planet nearly 80 years ago…
A big thank you goes to writer, director and producer Ginita Jimenez for sharing this magnificent production with me. My copy will have pride of place with my growing collection of space science DVDs, a timeless memento of a historic time for astronomy.
If you want your own copy, or want to buy it as a gift, contact Ginita at: [email protected]
Naming Pluto is currently on the international film festival circuit so if you’d prefer watching it on the big screen, and are in the area, please see below. There will also be a blog and updates on www.fatherfilms.com.
THROUGH WOMEN’S EYES – USA
WWW.THROUGHWOMENSEYES.COM
30TH & 31ST JANUARY 2009
JAIPUR INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL – INDIA
WWW.JIFFINDIA.ORG
FEB/MARCH 2009
SEBASTOPOL DOCUMENTARY FILM FESTIVAL – USA
WWW.SEBASTOPOLFILMFESTIVAL.ORG
MARCH 6-8, 2009
CINEQUEST FILM FESTIVAL – USA
WWW.CINEQUEST.ORG
FEB 25-MAR 08 2009
OFFICIAL SELECTION FOR BEST SHORT FILM AWARD
George Hrab performing at the IYA 2009 Opening Ceremonies
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Nothing works better than repetition. 2009 is the International Year of Astronomy! We’ve said it more than a few times before, and you’ll read a lot of coverage over the next year here on Universe Today. But last night we got to officially kick things off and celebrate the beginning of IYA 2009 events in the US.
Chorus to the 365 Days of Astronomy podcast intro
The IYA 2009 opening ceremonies started out with a mini-concert by George Hrab. In addition to playing this gig, George provided the intro music for IYA 2009 365 Days of Astronomy podcast. The podcast has the chorus, but George has a longer version which he performed last night. George led a sing-along, performing the lyrics and the 700ish people in the audience helped out with the chorus. George is a great performer, and an amazing guy. Check out his podcast at http://www.geologicpodcast.com/
The highlight of the evening for me was a live linkup between the Los Angeles party and party goers at the Cincinnati Observatory. The live video worked out great, and there was a real feeling of camaraderie between the two locations. The big plan was for the Cincinnati folks to broadcast a live image of the Pleiades star cluster, but they had cloudy skies – a picture taken a few days ago was used instead.
There was a simultaneous ribbon cutting ceremony in Second Life, on the IYA 2009 island. Unfortunately, the island totally filled up, and it was difficult to actually interact with the people there. As we were singing along with George in the real world, the avatars in
Second Life were singing along too.
The final treat of the evening was a special advance viewing of the new PBS documentary, 400 Years of the Telescope, with a voiceover by Neil deGrasse Tyson. This documentary won’t air until April 12, 2009, sadly, so there’s no place to watch it until then. The documentary starts with the invention of the telescope and then follows the major technological improvements that bring us to the modern observatories we have today; and a peek a the supertelescopes coming down the road. Ian O'Neill peers at the Moon.
As we were walking out, Celestron had set up a constellation of telescopes to check out the night sky. Of course, Los Angeles doesn’t have the clearest skies. The Moon was up and we could just barely make out the stars in Orion. So people walking out from the ceremonies could get a chance to look at objects in the sky with their own eyes. In the middle of these expensive telescopes was the prototype for the Galileo Scope (more on this in another post), so we got to take it out for a test drive. I really want one. You know… for the kids.
If you want to watch it for yourself, the Astronomy Cast media team recorded the entire opening ceremonies – except for the PBS documentary. I have no idea how long it will still be available, but check it out here.
The January AAS meeting is being held in Long Beach, CA (Image by Kevin Stanchfield)
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If you live near Long Beach or are there for the American Astronomical Society meeting, meet Fraser, Ian and the Astronomy Cast LIVE team at a “Blogger Meet-up” on Wed. January 7 at the Rock Bottom Brewery from 6pm – 9pm. The team hopes you can make it! (Have a tall cold one for me, OK?!)
And here’s the schedule for today’s press conferences, which will be streamed LIVE at Astronomy Cast LIVE’s UStream Channel: (all times Pacific Standard Time)
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After a day of crazy traveling through a Vancouver blizzard I’m now having my first full day down at the American Astronomical Society Meeting in Long Beach, California. As you’ve probably read, Ian’s here with me and Nancy’s supporting us back at Atkinson HQ.
My last AAS meeting was a year ago. It was fun but a really frustrating experience. I spent the whole conference sitting in the press room, pounding out stories based on press releases released at the conference. I was writing 10-12 stories a day, but there was a terrible irony. I was doing work I could have done from home, without even attending the convention. In fact, I got so busy working on articles that I didn’t even bother going to the press conferences at all. And the whole point of attending a convention like this is to meet with people, to find the news that you just can’t find anywhere else.
I think we’ve learned our lesson this time around. Nancy’s running the news release side of things back at Atkinson HQ, and Ian and I will be searching for original, unreported news. We’re attending the oral sessions, sitting in on the town hall meetings, and walking the isles to see all the poster sessions. We’re playing with Microsoft’s World Wide Telescope, learning more about Google Sky, and reporting on the launch of the 2009 International Year of Astronomy.
We’re going to be gathering news and contacts, and we’ll be reporting as much as we can. Of course, gathering (sitting and listening to speakers) and reporting (getting the info out to you) are mutually exclusive – you can’t report while you’re gathering, and vice versa. So it might be that the news trickles out after the conference.
A big thanks to Pamela Gay for coordinating our visit and finding hotel space for us – we couldn’t be here without that. Thanks to Scott Miller at Astronomy Cast for doing the live video feeds of the press conferences. Make sure you check them out.
The nominations are in, the votes have been counted and the Universe Today writers have been consulted; the Top 10 Scientific Endeavours of 2008 are decided! After much consideration by the readers of the Universe Today, it became quickly apparent what the popular choice would be, and some of the Top 10 may not come as a surprise. However, there are some nominations we weren’t expecting, and certainly cannot be found on any other “Top 10” list. Therefore, I believe the Universe Today’s Top 10 Scientific Endeavours of 2008 is the most comprehensive list out there, combining the votes of our readers, nominating a huge variety of articles available through one of the biggest space news websites on the Web.
Without further ado, here is the Universe Today’s definitive Top 10 Scientific Endeavours of 2008…
10. Chandra X-ray Observatory
Chandra X-ray image of M84 (NASA/CXC/MPE/A.Finoguenov et al.); Radio (NSF/NRAO/VLA/ESO/R.A.Laing et al); Optical (SDSS)Launched on July 23rd 1999, NASA’s Chandra X-Ray observatory has opened our eyes to the X-ray Universe. Chandra was named in honour of the late Indian-American Nobel laureate, Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar. Subrahmanyan was known to the world as Chandra (which also means “moon” or “luminous” in Sanskrit) and he was regarded as one of the most influential astrophysicists of the 20th Century. It is fitting that one of the most influential X-ray observatories of the start of the 21st Century should bear his name.
In short, Chandra is an astounding mission, continuing to shape our understanding of known X-ray phenomena, providing us with a glimpse at the answers to some of the most puzzling questions of our time. Certainly one of the “Great Observatories”.
9. Epsilon Eridani This artist's conception shows the closest known planetary system to our own, called Epsilon Eridani. Credit: NASA/JPL/CaltechThe star system of Epsilon Eridani has provided astronomers with a tantalizing look into past of our very own Solar System since 2000. Being the ninth closest star to our Sun, it is also fairly easy to observe. At approximately 850 million years old, it is effectively what our system will have looked like when it was young; scattered disks of asteroids and dust, with exoplanets orbiting the star. Astronomers have even half-jokingly formed the link between Star Trek‘s fictional world of “Vulcan” with one of the large exoplanets known to be shaping one of the asteroid belts.
In 2008, further work has been done analysing the structure of the Epsilon Eridani system and there is even more evidence to suggest the star system is the Solar System’s “twin”. Although the star itself is slightly smaller and cooler than the Sun, it does possess several unseen planets, creating an asteroid belt much like ours, plus an outer belt (analogous to our Kuiper Belt, but 20-times bigger). Regardless of the similarities between the Solar System and Epsilon Eridani, it is a phenomenal achievement to probe an alien star system, over 10 light years away, with such precision.
8. Galaxy Zoo’s discovery of Hanny’s Voorwerp A highly scientific illustration of the Voorwerp (Galaxy Zoo)In Dutch, “Voorwerp” means “object” and this “object” was discovered by Dutch schoolteacher Hanny van Arkel last year using the Galaxy Zoo project. Since then, this strange astronomical entity has captivated enthusiasts and professionals alike. In May, astronomers came a step closer to understanding what this object was, as Bill Keel explains:
“Our working hypothesis is that Hanny’s Voorwerp consists of dust and gas (maybe from a tidally disrupted dwarf galaxy) which is illuminated by a quasar outburst within IC 2497, an outburst which has faded dramatically within the last 100,000 years.”
Galaxy Zoo is a superb example on how enthusiasts can use an Internet-based system to observe and identify objects in the cosmos. I am sure Hanny’s Voorwerp will continue to captivate professionals and amateurs, ensuring Galaxy Zoo’s popularity through 2009 and beyond…
7. MESSENGER The MESSENGER spacecraft at Mercury (NASA)The MErcury Surface, Space ENvironment, GEochemistry and Ranging (MESSENGER) spacecraft was launched by NASA in 2004 to begin an epic journey deep into the Solar System. Its eventual target would take it on a speedy roller-coaster ride via a series of Earth, Venus and Mercury flybys to slow its descent into the Sun’s extreme gravitational well. It won’t achieve orbital insertion until March 2011.
In January 2008, MESSENGER performed its first Mercury flyby. This is the first time for 30 years that the smallest planet* in the Solar System has been visited by a space mission (since the 1975 Mariner 10 mission flyby). There will be one more Mercury flyby until MESSENGER’s delta-v (change in velocity) has been slowed significantly to allow the spacecraft to be captured by the planet’s gravitational pull. During the January flyby, MESSENGER managed to capture some stunning images of the planet from an altitude of 200km. Then, in October the spacecraft made its second pass over Mercury’s surface from the same distance, revealing even more detail of the cratered, rocky surface.
After 3 decades, the mysterious planet, famous for being the closest planet to the Sun, is gradually revealing its secrets.
*Of course, when MESSENGER was launched, it was travelling to the second smallest planet in the Solar System. As Pluto was demoted in 2006, Mercury is now the smallest planet, whereas Pluto is a “dwarf planet” or a “Plutoid”.
6. First exploding supernova observed First supernova caught in the act (Alicia Soderberg, Princeton University)In January, something very special happened to a group of astronomers using NASA’s Swift X-ray satellite to study data from a month-old supernova remnant in a distant galaxy. In a case of “extreme serendipity”, the same galaxy produced another supernova the astronomers were able study right as it happened. This was the first time ever that astronomers caught a supernova in the act, we usually have to make do with studying the debris (or “remnant”) after a supernova has occurred.
“It’s a really lucky chain of events — a surprise,” said Alicia Soderberg, who is leading the group studying data from the explosion. “It was all over in a matter of minutes.”
This discovery is critical to understanding the science behind the final moments of a massive stars life, improving and advancing stellar models.
The complexity of the Large Hadron Collider (CERN/LHC/GridPP)
2008 has been the year for particle accelerator physics. The Large Hadron Collider (LHC) is the biggest physics experiment ever built, primarily to search for the elusive Higgs boson (the “force carrier” of the Higgs field that is theorized to permeate through the entire Universe, giving matter its mass), is as famous as it is infamous.
Early in the year, months before the 27km-long particle accelerator ring went online to circulate its first protons, the world’s media was abuzz with the possible science that could revolutionize physics as we knew it. However, there’s a flip-side to that coin. There was an increasing opposition to the LHC, culminating in attempted legal action (that ultimately failed), based on the flawed thinking that the LHC could generate dangerous micro black holes, strangelets and a host of other hypothetical particles. This only served to stir up international interest in what the LHC was actually going to do, and by October 10th, a mix of concern and excitement built up to the grand “switch on”.
Although many would argue the LHC shouldn’t be included in a “Top Ten Scientific Discoveries” (like Time Magazine’s Top Ten), as it hasn’t actually discovered anything yet, the LHC is a huge science and engineering endeavour, where its construction is as ground-breaking as the potential science it will be producing later this year.
Having recently completed its initial four-year tour of duty around the ringed planet, Cassini had its mission extended through September 2010. In August 2009, the Sun will shine directly on Saturn’s equator, illuminating the northern hemisphere. It is for this reason, the new phase of Cassini’s operations has been called the “Cassini Equinox Mission”.
The principal reason for extension is to find answers to some of the most perplexing questions raised during the spacecraft’s flybys of the Saturnian moons, principally Enceladus, the small 500km-diameter natural satellite. Enceladus may only be a tenth of the size of Titan (Saturn’s biggest moon) but it is one of the most intriguing.
“Of all the geologic provinces in the Saturn system that Cassini has explored, none has been more thrilling or carries greater implications than the region at the southernmost portion of Enceladus,” said Carolyn Porco, Cassini imaging team leader.
The SpaceX Falcon 9 being assembled at Cape Canaveral on Dec. 30th (SpaceX)
In August, the world watched in anticipation as SpaceX made its third attempt at becoming the world’s first commercial space flight company to launch a payload into orbit. Unfortunately, Flight 3 of the SpaceX Falcon 1 rocket became the third Falcon to fail, exploding high in the atmosphere after a stage separation (transient thrust) anomaly. It was a sad day not only for Elon Musk’s dream of providing affordable launch capabilities, but also for the promise of commercial space flight.
But in the true entrepreneurial spirit Musk has become synonymous with, his company turned Flight 3’s loss into a motivation to get it right the fourth time around. Only one month later, the Falcon 1 was readied for Flight 4 from the Kwajalein Atoll launch pad. On September 28th, SpaceX was propelled into the history books as the first ever private space company to design, build and launch a payload (albeit a “dummy” payload) into orbit.
Now SpaceX has proven itself to the world, the future has become very bright for commercial spaceflight. SpaceX not only got into orbit, they did it cheaply and quickly, setting the bar very high for its competitors. They also have a bold vision for the future; building bigger and more powerful rockets (the Falcon 9 for example), launching not only from the South Pacific, but also from the home of rocket launches: Cape Canaveral.
To top it all off, NASA has signed contracts worth $2.5 billion for private launch capabilities over the next decade, with SpaceX receiving a $1.6 billion share. All in all, it has been an outstanding year for SpaceX, and it looks like they might even be ready to supply the International Space Station in 2009, so watch this space.
Hubbles view of the exoplanet Fomalhaut b (NASA/HST)
We’ve known for many years that exoplanets orbit other stars and have observed them indirectly by looking at star “wobble” (due to gravitational effects of a massive exoplanet as it orbits) and exoplanet transits (as the planetary body passes in front of the star, reducing the amount of light received on Earth). This year astronomers went one better, they observed exoplanets directly, imaging the little dots as they orbit their host stars.
As if that wasn’t enough, on November 21st, astronomers using the ESO Very Large Telescope detected an exoplanet in a very compact orbit around Beta Pictoris, 70 light years from Earth.
These stunning glimpses of exoplanets have been made possible by the huge technological advancement in both ground-based and space-based observatory optics. Astronomers are now confident that they can go one step further as telescopes and techniques improve… how about looking for exomoons orbiting these exoplanets? Wow…
In May, the Phoenix Mars Lander captured the world’s attention as it entered the Martian upper atmosphere to begin its “7 minutes of terror“, including a fiery re-entry, fast decent and rocket-powered controlled landing. The robotic lander touched down in the frozen arctic region of the planet to begin its three month campaign with panache. The mission was extended to five months as Phoenix wrestled with the dwindling winter sunlight powering its solar panels and battled against troublesome dust storms.
This mission was also remarkable for the efforts carried out here on Earth by the Phoenix team at NASA and the University of Arizona communicating cutting-edge and up-to-the-minute science via a variety of social platforms. Scientists blogged and Twittered from the moment the mission was launched to the moment Phoenix finally succumbed to a frozen coma in early November (and MarsPhoenix continues to tweet regular data analysis updates).
However, this short mission joined the two rugged Mars Exploration Rovers Spirit and Opportunity soldiering through the elements for the last five years, after repeatedly having their missions extended over four years past their warranty. Add these incredible surface missions to the armada of satellites (NASA’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, Mars Odyssey and the European Space Agency’s Mars Express), and it becomes obvious that international efforts to study Mars have turned the once mysterious, dusty red globe into one of the most studied planetary bodies of the last decade.
*****
So, Phoenix and the continuing Mars program overwhelmed the popular vote in the Top 10 Science Endeavours of 2008, winning the number one spot convincingly. This was a very tough “Top 10” to compile, but with the help of Universe Today readers, the list became more varied than we could have possibly hoped.
Naturally, many worthy science endeavours didn’t make the cut and here’s the runners up:
The Universe Today’s Top 10 Scientific Endeavours of 2008 highlights some of the huge scientific advances we have made in the last 12 months. 2009 promises to be even bigger, and with the help of the organizers of the International Year of Astronomy, global efforts in space won’t only be recognised, they will be celebrated.
I started brainstorming domain names; unfortunately space.com was taken. I started mashing together spacey names with other words, and then checked to see what was available. In the end, Universe + Today was open, so I went with that. I hacked together a site with my terrible HTML skills and even worse graphic abilities, but I knew that the purpose of the site would be the articles updated on a daily basis.
