Astronomy
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More than meets the eye
Thousands light the night sky to the unaided eye, dimmer or brighter, yet seldom a hint of color to make a difference from an overwhelming whiteness. But the starry zoo features a wild variety in sizes, color and life span.
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Get a life, elsewhere
Faced with the unbelievable, we struggle forward on rationality crutches and begin to find answers. Life makes sense, but the mind may be hiding weird surprises, and we are probably not bound to meet aliens. Probably neither should.
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Get a life IV
Given the right conditions, life started almost immediately; yet the road to complex organisms and to intelligence was probably more arduous and fraught with devastating incidents of which the sky was not absent.
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Get a life III
After sniffing well over 99.9% of tentative locations around the Milky Way, a common yet tranquil corner in the Universe, we found a likely place to inhabit. A warm, cozy planet with steady climate driven by a stable star and sizable moon. Now we look to earthly needed features for life to spring.
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Get a life II
Picking off where we left, that is describing which are life compatible environments at the galactic and planetary system scale, we now focus on the Solar system and the Earth Moon subsystem.
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Get a life - I
It was bound to happen. The issue of extraterrestrial life, or of life in general as it relates to the Universe had to crawl here sooner or later. Tiptoeing around sensitive issues, we plot the journey life and intelligence had to negotiate in this galactic corner, on Earth.
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Mother lode
Ask anybody what is a supernova, and chances are a vast majority will respond it goes bang and has to do with astronomy. Supernovas are epitomes of out of this world catastrophe, of unimaginable violence. Yet we all have been - in a distant past - within not one but probably several ones. Close and intimate.
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Looking down the barrel
Gamma Ray Bursts (GRB's) puzzled astronomers for decades since their discovery by the Vela nuclear test surveillance satellites in the 60's. Scientists think now the mystery has been solved, adding yet another (unlikely) threat to the catastrophes lurking out there.
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Black holes ain't that black then?
That black holes are a pain in the neck for astrophysicists is more or less well known. Infinites and zeroes are fine for mathematics but not to be found in Nature, yet a black hole in principle hides an infinite at its center, or that was accepted until now.
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Martian chronicles, above and beyond
Above expectations and beyond budgeted lifetimes, this is what Spirit and Opportunity are accomplishing since the launch of an over 8 month martian surface journey. Bearing the scars of pushing design limits and the harsh martian winter, they keep purring and making science.
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Nature's magnifying glass
Predicted by General Relativity, gravitational lenses catapulted Einsteins's reputation as much as they are handy tools today to tackle one of Cosmology thorniest issues, the discovery and census of dark matter.
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Cassini Saturn arrival update
22 years hinged on a mere 96 minutes burn when the Saturn Orbital Insertion took place on June/30 - July/1. First looks from Saturn and Titan amazed even seasoned space mission veterans.
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Cassini Meets The Ringed Lord
After a 7 year journey featuring safety concerns and controversy, and a spectacular December 2000 Jupiter flyby teaming up with the earlier Galileo probe, Cassini is entering the real business phase. To orbit Saturn for a minimum of 4 years. The European Space Agency's Huygens probe will for its part plunge into Titan's methane haze to reveal the moon's surface enigmas.
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Save Hubble Space Telescope
The legendary Hubble Space Telescope narrowly escaped deliberate destruction. It's future is not clear though, and most probably will never be displayed in the Smithsonian
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Twice in a lifetime Venus
Venus transits in front of the Sun come in pairs, each pair separated from the next by over a century. In their time they spurred expeditions to far flung places tasked to observe the event.
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The Dark Side III
About 97% of what makes the Universe is unknown, a combination of dark matter and dark energy. This is not acceptable as is, neither the disfunctional relationship of General Relativity and Quantum Mechanics.
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The Dark Side II
The first part dealt with advances in cosmology that led to posit existence of "dark matter", and the lines of research intended to characterize universal expansion. We now check the first results and a possible model for the Universe.
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The Dark Side I
In the first part, we present the evolution of cosmology leading to the postulation of dark matter, the Universe Age Crisis, and the lines of research pursued to solve it.
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Extraterrestrial planets, over 100 and counting.
How astronomers detected the first extrasolar planets and how it relates to the only previosuly known example, the Solar System.
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The quest for extraterrestrial planets.
Evidence of planets circling nearby stars has been amassing since 1995. Pointing a big telescope and pouring in magnification does not work, but indirect methods have succeeded. First of an article series.
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Alien call II
The search for extra terrestrial signals has been going on for over 30 years. Support from official sources has been mostly lacking, and results up to now have been admittedly inconclusive. We make now a brief survey of what has been done, and what is planned to do in the quest for alien intelligence.
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Alien call I.
First contact will probably - if it ever takes place - not be face to face, instead, a distant call may be radioed purposefully or not. Neither will it be a true dialogue unless some fundamental physics breakthrough emerges. For decades now, many people are scanning the dial looking for signals. You may help too.
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The Master Plan, part II
Part II reports on the "optical" range (infrared to X rays) observation facilities - existing or planned - within the 1999 and 2000 NSA decadal survey.
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The Master Plan, part I
Space research may appear as a somewhat chaotic dispersion of disparate efforts, space probes, ground telescopes, space telescopes etc. Yet this is not completely true. Scientists manage to arrive to certain consensus, while politics has, the last say. First of a two part article, within a series of related installments.
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Martian Chronicles, the Backstage
It's been over 2 months since Spirit landed, with Opportunity following suit 3 weeks later. Learn what they are doing, and about their masters on Earth. (Not at all the nerdy bunch you may have suspected).
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Their darkest hour
Light pollution is of concern not solely to astronomers, it may affect you in more than one unexpected way. Yet, there is hope the situation may improve, for arriving to good solutions is not expensive, rather, it makes economic sense.
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OUR black hole. Part II
It seems that every galaxy harbors a black hole in its core. The larger the central bulge of older stars, the bigger the hole. Our Milky Way is no exception, but only recently have we developed techniques suitable for peering into the cocoon and measuring the massive, quiet beast lurking inside.
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OUR black hole. Part I
Black holes are strange beasts, small wonder they lure public imagination and feed Sci-Fi writers inspiration with all sort of wild tales.
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Twinkle twinkle little star, no more.
Earth's atmosphere perpetual movement blurs incoming starlight. It was because of this blurring the Hubble Space Telescope was launched, to peek from above the atmosphere, but new technology has succeeded in circumventing this problem
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Eugene M. Shoemaker (1928 - 1997)
Not the worldwide fame, glamorous kind of scientist, Shoemaker was a gifted, passionate person who loved his work and, more than anything, enriched the lives of those fortunate enough to know him.
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Mars under attack
A fleet of robot spacecraft launched in mid 2003 joined forces with two active orbiters in the quest to understand Mars geography, geology, climate, and to search for vestiges of life.
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Heavenly fireworks
Shooting stars seldom fail to amaze witnesses no matter age or cultural environment. Every night tiny bits of rock end their journey of eons wandering through space in a fiery blaze high on earth's atmosphere.
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The Gas Giants: Saturn
All about Saturn
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The Age of the Universe
New studies reveal new estimate on the age of the universe
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The Gas Giants: Jupiter
Overview of the planet Jupiter
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Mars: The Red Planet
Overview of Mars
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No Public Interest: An Editorial
A rant about the uninterest in science and technology
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Venus: Inferno of the Solar System
An overview of Venus
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New Kuiper Belt Object Found
Kuiper Belt, Pluto, KBO
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Rockets
Describes the basics of chemical rockets, with a blurb on nuclear rockets.
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Mercury
A breif overview of the planet Mercury
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Solar System Landmarks Part 1
5 Landmarks of the solar system described.
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