Comet Lulin, as Superman Would See It

February 20, 2009

Comet Lulin near the Earth? Check.

X-ray, ultraviolet and optical vision? Check.

Superman-like photo? Check:

This middle of this gorgeous shot was snapped by NASA's Fermi Swift telescope. The starry background, taken by the the Digital Sky Survey, was merged into it to create this final product.

Red reveals the portion of the comet in X-ray, while purple/blue shows it off in ultraviolet and visible wavelengths.

Lulin certainly looks cool, perhaps even by Superman's standards, but what does this pic tell us?

Magnetar With a Temper Caught Misbehaving

February 11, 2009

Neutron stars might be tiny, but they can be extremely temperamental.

Case in point is SGR J1550-5418. That's an unwieldy name, but you could deem it a magnetar, pulsar, gamma-ray repeater, or just plain naughty:

This little bugger is 12 miles across but it likely packs more mass than the sun, which is about 21,900,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 tons.

Just a teaspoon of the neutron star, in fact, would weigh in at about 10 million tons (no spoonful of sugar could help that go down).

So where do these violent outbursts -- at times 20 years worth of sun energy -- come from?

How Superman Sees Outer Space

February 10, 2009

Imagine you're Superman, and you're sick and tired of saving the people of Earth. They take your super-awesomeness for granted, so your home planet Krypton is looking pretty good.

"Forget this," you say. "Peace out!"

Trouble is, Krypton is 50 light-years away (yes, I looked it up). What are you going to do with all of that time, even assuming you can travel twice the speed of light, let alone the standard speed of light (670,616,629 mph, mind you).

Duuuuh: Function as a super-human space observatory and solve the mysteries of the universe!

Here's one thing you might see during your superluminal journey:

One down, about 199,999,999,999 to go!

Science De-Stimulated(?), Amazing Spiral Galaxy, Hot 'n Rocky Exoplanet

February 09, 2009

Without any adieu, the space video for this week:

Also: If you haven't checked out this week's big Wide Angle: Mission to Europa?, click here to dig in!

Found: One Hot and Rocky Little Exoplanet

February 03, 2009

Ladies and gents, we've found the smallest-ever rocky planet outside of the solar system -- way outside of the solar system. (About 456 light-years outside, to be precise.)

Nevermind that COROT-Exo-7b is likely a place covered in molten lava and/or face-melting steam; it's still rocky and we know it (clap your hands)!

This from the press release:

"For the first time, we have unambiguously detected a planet that is 'rocky' in the same sense as our own Earth." - Malcolm Fridlund, ESA's COROT (convection rotation and transits) project scientist

This brand-new exoplanet is about half two times the diameter of Earth.*

Since hardly any of us can remember the precise diameters of solar system bodies, I whipped up this graphic for a sense of scale (I make no warranties that this is exact, but it should be close):

Solar Eclipse, Control Hubble, One Hot Exoplanet, Lakes on Titan

February 02, 2009

Your space news wrap-up for the week waits below. And I don't care what you say, but I don't look like Shia LeBoeuf:

Note 1: Speaking of solar eclipses...

If you missed the audio slide shows from 2008 total solar eclipse trip (in a ginormous plane near the North Pole), click here for part one. Then click here for part two.

Note 2: Speaking of solar eclipses (again)...

Going to Asia or the South Pacific around, say, July 22 of this year? You're in for a treat! Click here to see why.

Your Chance to Control the Hubble Telescope

January 28, 2009

This (will be*) just in from NASA: You can help decide which object the Hubble Space Telescope will photograph by casting a vote.

Your choices? Six pretty nifty objects, all of which Hubble has never before imaged, in celebration of the International Year of Astronomy (Galileo's 400th anniversary of using the telescope to peek up at the stars).

The contest ends March 1 and the winning shot will be taken during the 100 Hours of Astronomy celebration, which is April 2-5. So don't delay.

Vote and ye shall be rewarded -- maybe. If you give your e-mail address after voting, looks like you'll be entered to win one of 100 big posters of the winning shot.

At any rate, here are your choices:

Star-Forming Region: NGC 6634	Planetary Nebula: NGC 6072
Planetary Nebula: NGC 40	Spiral Galaxy: NGC 5172
Edge-on Galaxy: NGC 4289	Interacting Galaxies: Arp 274

Ok, let's back up for a minute.

1) Why only six things?

A good question, indeed -- I asked it when I first heard about this from my Super-Secret Inside Source, aka "SSIS." I said there should be 10 objects. Twenty. Hell, put up 50 or 100 to pick from!

But alas... SISS told me that there were originally nine targets to choose from, not more because Hubble will have only that many good/bright objects to photograph from April 2-5.

The NASA folks organizing the contest decided three of the nine were too dim to measure up to the photographic caliber we now expect from Hubble (we're a bit spoiled). So there ya go.

2) Why are these black and white images?

I know, right... yuck. But SISS said to give each thing a "fair chance" the team used only grayscale pics.

While you won't find many or any super-high-resolution images on the 'Net (again, Hubble has not photographed these), there are a couple of decent color images out there if you're curious. I recommend using Google image search (e.g. this one on NGC 4289).

3) What did I vote for?

I don't think I'll skew the results, but I'm rooting for planetary nebula NGC 6072... there aren't any really great images of it yet (I wonder why), and the definition in the preview shot on the site looks rather tantalizing.

And who doesn't dig the fiery remains of a dead star?

Happy voting!

* NASA hasn't put out a release as of the time of this posting, but others** have posted about it, so I'm following suit.

** I see that Phil Plait, the Bad Astronomer himself, has beat me to the punch on this; his post = 12:01 a.m. ET today. But that doesn't surprise me -- Phil used to work with the Hubble Space Telescope... so he inevitably has an army of SISSies on hand. Wish I had me some more SISSies!

Photos: youdecide.hubblesite.org

Space at the Potter's Wheel

January 14, 2009

Let's face it. The economic recession hit us right where it hurts, leaving us all to gasp for air as we scramble to shove money under our mattresses.

While I'm lucky enough to have a job (thanks Discovery), it's stressful to watch the world crumble around me. In such dire straits, what is a worried Web producer to do?

1. Hunker down into my financial fall-out shelter for a few years?
   Oh, wait -- I don't have a backyard.
2. Run into the deepest, darkest wilderness around and disappear from modern society forever?
   Right. Central Park is just about all that's left.
3. Hijack the space shuttle into deep space?
   Wait, we're getting rid of those soon, aren't we...
4. Play with clay?
   Hmm...

Option #4 sounds good to me, too.

That's precisely what I did last night, in fact. I went to this great little place called the Potter's Wheel run by a woman named Sue.

Aside from crafting some much-needed soup bowls for my homestead on the potter's wheel, I plan to attempt some practical (and not-so-practical) space/astronomy/physics-themed art.

My "to-attempt list" thus far:

• Merging galaxies duet - Two wheel-thrown bowls resembling galaxies that are stuck together.
• Black hole bowl - A very wide, wheel-thrown bowl resembling the gravity well of a black hole.
• Solar system snack tray - Instructions: Hot salsa in bowl at center, surround with tortilla asteroids.
• Klein bottle - A closed, non-orientable and boundary-free manifold (for the math nerds).

I think that's a good start, but I'm open to ideas -- leave your comments and/or drawings in the comments section at the end of this post.

Speaking of art... Whenever you see astounding images such as these:

...you can thank a space artist.

If you're super-interested in space art -- perhaps you make your own, or want to? -- here are a few good places to visit:

• SpaceArtists.info - A slick database full of space art
• SpaceArt.org - A nice catalogue of space art and artists
• NovaSpace - Yet another good repository of spaced-out artwork
• IAAA - the International Association of Astronomical Artists

Photos, top to bottom: stock.xchng (nope, that's not me); NASA/JPL-Caltech/T. Pyle

Fat Milky Way, 3-D Supernova, Wearable Space Toilets and More

January 12, 2009

What happened in space last week, and what's coming up on Discovery Space:

Astronomy = Live

January 07, 2009

If you want incredible astronomy news straight from the source, this is it my friends:

Astronomical video action brought to you by Ustream.TV

It's AstronomyCast's live video feed -- complete with chatroom -- of the American Astronomical Society's 213th annual meeting.