h/t to Josh for the cool link. I especially like the part about the sine waves and frequencies.
January 18, 2012
September 26, 2011
August 23, 2011
James May Goes to the Moon
I’ve seen hundreds of hours of documentaries on the moon program. I’ve read dozens of books, built the models, and collected the mission patches. I can tell you the difference between a PLSS, an MMU, and TLI.
But I’ve never seen such a wonderful documentary as the one that Top Gear’s James May and the BBC put on. If you have an hour I would highly recommend that you take the time to watch it. James May and the BBC crew have the technical abilities perfectly married to well polished storytelling chops. I dare you to watch it with dry eyes. You won’t be disappointed.
Thanks to friend Josh for pointing it out.
April 18, 2011
Fire at the Observatory
McDonald Observatory out in Ft. Davis, Texas, is being threatened by wildfires. Crazy-amazing pictures here.
March 2, 2011
Finished
January 30, 2011
January 19, 2011
Outbound
“”We were all praying to get to Neptune [in 1989]. But after that? Who thought we could be with this 33 years [after launch]?”
In all that time, only one instrument, on Voyager 1, has broken down. Nine others on the two craft have been powered down to save dwindling electrical power from their plutonium-powered generators.
But five experiments on each Voyager are still funded and seven are still delivering data. Problems do crop up, but fixes can still be made with radioed instructions that take 12 hours to reach the craft.”
December 10, 2010
Sinistar Is In There Somewhere
Stars so weird that they make black holes look boring.: “”
Cool stuff.
November 27, 2010
November 15, 2010
This just sounds Star Trek
Finding the Universe’s 500 Million Light Year Yardstick – Technology Review: “”
Using Baryonic Acoustic Oscillations. Awesome. The previous way of measuring distances larger than several parsecs was via Cepheid variable stars (if you know how bright a certain star is, you can measure its distance by measuring its relative brightness). This is a much more accurate way. Plus, it sounds cool.
And don’t miss pics of the incredible Barcelona Supercomputing Center. Inspired!
August 22, 2010
Keep Looking Up
Jack Horkheimer, popular astronomer and TV guy, passes away at 72. I remember watching this guy growing up. He was always enthusiastic about astronomy and, though a bit on the hokey side, seemed to embrace that as part of the wonder. I’ll miss his charm.
August 16, 2010
Interview with a Rock Star
Queen’s Brian May- Rock god, guitarist, and… astrophysics PhD. (h/t Robert)
May 22, 2010
About Time
Nicolaus Copernicus, the 16th-century astronomer whose findings were condemned by the Roman Catholic Church as heretical, was reburied by Polish priests as a hero on Saturday, nearly 500 years after he was laid to rest in an unmarked grave…
…After his death, his remains rested in an unmarked grave beneath the floor of the cathedral in Frombork, northern Poland, the exact location unknown.
On Saturday, his remains were blessed with holy water by some of Poland’s highest-ranking clerics before an honor guard ceremoniously carried the coffin through the imposing red brick cathedral and lowered it back into the same spot where part of his skull and other bones were found in 2005.
A black granite tombstone now identifies him as the founder of the heliocentric theory, but also a church canon, a cleric that ranks below a priest. The tombstone is decorated with a model of the solar system, a golden sun encircled by six of the planets.
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March 5, 2010
Still Doing Science
During the heyday of the Apollo missions, astronauts put smallish reflectors on the surface of the moon.
About the size of a large pizza box and covered in prisms, these reflectors have been used by Earthbound scientists for scientific study of the moon ever since. These scientists fire very precise lasers at the reflectors and measure the amount of time it takes for the reflections to return. Since they know the speed of light with extreme accuracy (and have very accurate clocks), they can measure the time it takes the reflection to return and thus determine how far away the moon is.
Did you know that the moon is moving away from us? True thing. Our celestial neighbor is spiraling away at a rate of about 38mm per year, or approximately the same rate as the continents drift or your thumbnail grows. Neat, huh? Or how about this for accuracy: the laser that scientists shoot at the moon is powerful, but the reflectors on the surface are so far away that they don’t catch all of the light that hits it on the rebound. Of the 10,000,000,000,000,000 photons (10 quadrillion) that leave the laser, only one will return, and that’s on a good day. The detectors have to be very accurate to pick up the reflection.
A big mystery that scientists are trying to solve about the reflectors is just why, after over three decades, are the mirrors becoming so much less efficient? Their reflectivity has dropped by an order of magnitude (10x), and, during a full moon, they drop an additional order of magnitude. The reflectors are as much as 100x less reflective today than they were when they were placed on the surface. In addition, during a total lunar eclipse (full moon going into the shadow of the Earth), the reflectors’ efficiency returns to normal levels (which eliminates any explanation of lunar dust on the lenses). Strangely, this effect didn’t happen when the reflectors were first insalled. Why? We don’t know, but there are theories.
It’s a bizarre mystery that tells us there are still many things left for us to lear about “that boring place we’ve already been”.
December 10, 2009
Power to the People
Lowes in California has been stocking solar panels, but now they plan on rolling them out across the country. Hooray! With a big buyer like this, panel prices will come down even further and Home Depot will have to get into the act (which will only accelerate the drop). This is the type of great mass-market news that both greenie-weenie and free marketers can both agree on.
Our next house WILL get a big chunk (or all) power via panels and other renewable, off-the-grid type power. I’d love to see everyone move to this sort of thing. Am I a rabid Goreite? No, but five years as a wilderness guide does have an effect. Rather, I see the mass adoption of consumer-level renewable resources as a thumb in the eye of the Man, and a way for the average person to become more independent and autonomous. Isn’t it nice when both sides can work together? See that, Congress?
Anyway, I’m looking forward to watching the prices fall and the capacities rise. Now we just have to convince HOA’s across the country that solar panels are not visual blight.
Marfa, Eat Your Heart Out
Weird lights in the sky over in Norway (video at link). Freaky spiral pattern. I can’t find it right now, but earlier I saw a good computer model that convincingly showed how a leaky missile launch (where the leak caused the missile to spiral like a bullet) would have this exact effect. It’s cooler to think of it as a new Stargate opening up, though. Boring old rockets. Harumph.
December 7, 2009
Ex Libris
I may have posted this a while back, but it’s worth a re-post. The ultimate Geek Library.
November 23, 2009
November 20, 2009
Looking Up
The early computer- the Astrolabe. Amazing ancient tech. Thanks to Sean for the link.