Holy Smokes- It's a 13 Billion Year old Explosion

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I don't want to hear you complaining about your Cable Company any more. Maybe your signal is down for an hour or two in bad weather, but I'm sure it comes through soon enough. In the best of times, your live games are delayed by probably no more than a few mere seconds,  which is nothing compared to the Gamma Ray Scientists saw explode in April. You could, in fact, say that the Gamma Ray was slightly more than somewhat delayed, as it actually exploded 13 billion years ago, making it the oldest thing ever witnessed from earth.

I can't even imagine what the scientist, who has the ephonious name of Edo Berger, said when he realized what he was witnessing, but I'm guessing it had to be something along the lines of "Holy Fucking Shit."

Exploding Russian Space Trash alarms Virginians

Last night on Sunday, March 29th at 9:45pm- a loud BOOM! in the sky along with streaking pale blue lights prompted a flood of 911 calls from Virginian residents. Aliens? Meteors? Supernatural weather? No. The remnants of a Russian rocket carrying crew and American billionaire Charles Simonyi- the world's first two-time space tourist- to the International Space Station high above the rest of our dozing heads. Is space tourism the next big thing? Of course it is... its the natural next step. We'll all be taking trips to the moon in no time aboard a luxury liner spaceship. Aren't they building hotels up there right now? Sea voyages aboard the QE2 will be so passe' in 10 years (maybe sooner). However, exploding space junk and rocket remnants raises a bit of a question for the rest of us on Earth. Atomic bomb-sized booms and meteorite-like lights in the sky, signaling trash slamming in to Earth from SPACE.... as if we didn't make enough of our own down here.... poses a bit of a problem, don't you think? Afterall, there is no telling where it will land. The rocket that took off Sunday was lifting off in Kazakhstan. Though NASA and the U.S.

Space Curry

Feeding astronauts requires science, engineering, and a deft hand with spices. The difficulties of eating in micro gravity include problems of stray crumbs or drops of fluid floating around and lodging in equipment. That means, for instance, that salt and pepper have to be in liquid form. Physiological changes in low gravity include constantly blocked sinuses, which adversely affect human senses of taste and smell. The problems of cooking in very small spaces, with limited access to water, or refrigeration, or even power, and of disposing of packaging materials are also substantial. In space, everyone cleans their plates.

Colbert In Space

As you have no doubt heard, the NASA online poll to name a new space station module has gone in a landslide to the write-in name candidate, "Colbert." NASA never promised to name the space station after the poll results (the poll itself was quite clear on this point), but simply swore to take the poll results "into consideration." The big news here isn't that "Colbert" won. After all, Colbert issued several calls to his viewing audience to stuff the ballot box, and provided a link to the poll on his website. No, the big news in this story is that "Colbert" beat out the write-in candidate "Xenu." I know several people (myself among them) who voted for "Colbert" not because they were particularly fond of the man, or of doing his bidding. But because they simply refused to allow the name "Xenu" to win. Xenu is the pivotal figure in Scientology's founding combination of creation myth and Original Sin. According to Scientology's founder L. Ron Hubbard, Xenu was the "dictator of the Galactic Confederacy" who brought billions of people to Earth 75 million years ago. He then nuked them, but not into oblivion.

Jupiter's Great Red Spot is Shrinking

Astronomers first spotted—and drew pictures of—Jupiter's "Great Red Spot" some 300 years ago. It's that "eye of Sauron" spot on the Southern Hemisphere. In reality, it's a very large, very ancient storm, and as the weather on Jupiter changes, so does the Spot. The Spot really is properly called "Great"; it is so far the largest known storm in our Solar System, with a diameter of 15,400 miles. In other words, just the area covered by the storm on Jupiter is almost twice the size of Earth (and about one-sixth of Jupiter’s diameter). We've been watching the spot long enough now that we can see it is definitely shrinking. What's more, as currents and weather patterns shift, we've witnessed, albeit at a very great distance, new storms and smaller spots appearing in Jupiter's images.

Space: The Boring Frontier

NASA has launched a streaming video channel which feeds from a webcam on the International Space Station. The good news: that's really neat! The bad news: watching the feed from the International Space Station is… rather boring, actually. I watched for some time this morning, when the web cam was pointed in the direction of several astronauts who were making repairs to the exterior of the space station. The audio featured communications between a woman with a Russian accent (who I believe was inside, or possibly at the Russian control center in Moscow) and several unidentified men (who seemed to be working outside). Periodically a man would break in and provide a high-level overview. When I listened, he read off a list of the repairs that had just been made, including "the pivoting and rotation of one of the cassette containers that also contains material samples..." Oh man. Wake me when it's over. NASA has promised that when it's not focused on an active job, the webcam will be pointing towards the Earth.

Alternate Camera View of Apollo 11 Moon Walk

At 02:56 UTC on July 21 (10:56pm EDT, July 20), 1969, Astronaut Neil Armstrong began his descent to the moon's surface, and spoke his now famous line: "One small step for man, one giant leap for all mankind." We've all seen the video:

Recently, the video from the special 16 mm Data Acquisition Camera mounted in the lunar module has been widely available. The camera could be set to normal speed, or to one frame per second, to save film. For the moon walk, the camera was set to normal speed.

Comet Lulin Visible Tonight

Comet Lulin, a beautiful green comet with a double tail is fast approaching Earth. Tonight, and the wee hours of Tuesday morning, right around 1 AM, are you best bets for a view. You'll be able to spot Lulin, with the naked eye, barely, in rural areas without light pollution, but a decent pair of binoculars or a backyard telescope will work just fine for a great view. You'll want to look in the southwestern sky about 40 degrees above the horizon near Saturn, which should be fairly bright and easy to spot. The diagram here has a circled X to show the relative position of Lulin at about ten pm in North America on the Monday night, February 23, tonight.

Cosmic Music

Like many laymen with a passing interest in the epic scales and strange phenomena outside our little planet's atmosphere, there are things out there that I find both fascinating and frightening. Among them are those unusual events that do funny things with the electromagnetic spectrum. Since the invention of the telescope, people have been used to the idea of visually observing the cosmos. More recent inventions also allow us to detect energy emissions in the universe via audible signals as well. Some of them can be downright musical. Here are few to consider: Dawn Chorus If you downloaded from the above link, what you're hearing is known as "Dawn Chorus". It is phenomenon believed to be related to electrons as they pass through Earth's Van Allen Belts. It gets its name from a behavior of common song birds to begin chirping in distinct tones when they are first exposed to sunlight in the morning.

Dark Comets

A couple of UK based astronomers just suggested a rather chilling idea that seems to have found favour with the astronomical community. Bill Napier at Cardiff University and David Asher at the Armagh Observatory have claimed that there could be thousands of dark, dormant comets which we cannot see. With scientific estimates placing the likely number of comets in our solar system at around the 3000 mark, and with only 25 accounted for, the theory seems to be a very real possibility. Various space agencies are engaged in a project to try and monitor potentially threatening comets and asteroids. The group effort is known collectively as Spaceguard and many of the leading figures have agreed there may well be a number of dark comets. Dark comets reflect less light than the bright kind because they have no surface water and absorb sunlight. In fact another scientist, Clark Chapman, from a Research Institute in Colorado has suggested that they could possibly be detected because of the heat they emit.

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