What are the chances that life evolved on other planets? 100%. What are the chances that some of THAT life evolved “intelligence”? Say 0.00001%. What is the chance that that life form is beaming messages to us? Zero. Nada. Zilch.But… Continue reading Seeking Extraterrestrial Sitcoms →

“We are going to visit a living, breathing star for the first time,” says program scientist Lika Guhathakurta of NASA Headquarters. “This is an unexplored region of the solar system and the possibilities for discovery are off the charts.” The best job you’ll ever love! Travel! Excitement! Join NASA on an amazing new venture. A trip of a life time.To where you ask?Why, THE SUN, of course!The mission will be called Solar Probe+. Launch may happen as early as 2015. Continue reading NASA Announces New Mission … Seeking Volunteers →

… of Martian Dirt.

Phoenix used its Robotic Arm to test a “sprinkle” method for delivering small samples of soil to instruments on the lander deck. Bigger picture here. The Phoenix Lander is preparing to sprinkle Martian soil onto a flat place for a microscope to look at.”On Monday, Phoenix tested delivering Martian soil by sprinkling it rather than dumping it. The positive result prompted researchers not only to proceed with plans for delivery to the microscope, but also to plan on sprinkling a sample in the near future into one of the eight ovens of an instrument that bakes and sniffs samples, the Thermal and Evolved-Gas Analyzer, or TEGA.” Continue reading Mars Robot to cut a few lines… →

Pluto is the ninth planet in our solar system. In our planetary mythology, it is the ninth planet, it is small, far away, cold, and there is an important cartoon dog named after it. But astronomers decided a while ago that Pluto is not a planet. That throws everything out of balance. Nine Planets is not just some number (nine, in this case) and the word “planets.” It is a balanced equation, an iconic formula. Like the Holy Trinity. Or the Ten Commandments. Or the Three Stooges. Can you imagine a world in which there are only two stooges?Well, Pluto has been given a kind of compromise …. a fully inadequate one … but also a kind of honor. Continue reading Pluto Gets Consolation Prize, Will Thumb Nose at Astronomers Forever →

And this is the resulting divot::NASA’s Phoenix Mars Lander’s Surface Stereo Imager took this image on Sol 14 (June 8, 2008), the 14th Martian day after landing. It shows two trenches dug by Phoenix’s Robotic Arm.Soil from the right trench, informally called “Baby Bear,” was delivered to Phoenix’s Thermal and Evolved-Gas Analyzer, or TEGA, on Sol 12 (June 6). The following several sols included repeated attempts to shake the screen over TEGA’s oven number 4 to get fine soil particles through the screen and into the oven for analysis.The trench on the left is informally called “Dodo” and was dug as a test.Each of the trenches is about 9 centimeters (3 inches) wide. This view is presented in approximately true color by combining separate exposures taken through different filters of the Surface Stereo Imager.The Phoenix Mission is led by the University of Arizona, Tucson, on behalf of NASA. Project management of the mission is by NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif. Spacecraft development is by Lockheed Martin Space Systems, Denver.Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/University of Arizona/Texas A&M UniversityMore details in the following press release: Continue reading NASA’s Phoenix Lander Has an Oven Full of Martian Soil →

Surveyor 1 Lunar Lander On June 2, 1966, a robot alien sent from the United States landed on The Moon. This was the first US “soft landing” on Moon (the Soviets had a previous soft landing, known as Luna 9, four months earlier).Surveyor transmitted 11,237 photographs to earth.

A video that purportedly shows a living, breathing space alien will be shown to the news media Friday in Denver.”It shows an extraterrestrial’s head popping up outside of a window at night, looking in the window, that’s visible through an infrared camera,” he said. The alien is about 4 feet tall and can be seen blinking, Peckman said earlier this month.An instructor at the Colorado Film School in Denver scrutinized the video “very carefully” and determined it was authentic, Peckman said.source

I’m confused, but I think we are going to get to see the Alien this coming Friday. Unless, of course, other aliens intervene to make that not happen.

This just in from NASA:

This image shows a ghostly ring extending seven light-years across around the corpse of a massive star. The collapsed star, called a magnetar, is located at the exact center of this image. NASA’s Spitzer Space Telescope imaged the mysterious ring around magnetar SGR 1900+14 in infrared light. The magnetar itself is not visible in this image, as it has not been detected at infrared wavelengths (it has been seen in X-ray light).

Personally, I think what we’ve got here is one of these: Continue reading Ghostly Ring Found in Outer Space →

Every few minutes I get an email from NASA telling me which button they’ve pressed on the Phoenix Robot, recently landed on Mars. And I’m only slightly exaggerating. OK, I’m exaggerating a lot.The latest: Phoenix has been commanded to move its arm: Continue reading NASA is Twittering Phoenix →

This:Is a picture of Phoenix landing on Mars, taken from above.One always wonders where the camera operator is during these things…. Continue reading Phoenix landing photo →

“Rock star physicist” Brian Cox talks about his work on the Large Hadron Collider at CERN. Discussing the biggest of big science in an engaging, accessible way, Cox brings us along on a tour of the massive project. … Physicist Brian Cox has two jobs: working with the Large Hadron Collider at CERN, and explaining big science to the general public.

Continue reading Brian Cox: What really goes on at the Large Hadron Collider →

Pehdtsckjmba …. Continue reading Suddenly it all makes sense… →

And by this, I mean really, really big…This was sent to me by my colleague Christian Reinboth in Germany. This video was created by Mike (Metafis), a retired PC support guy, who has also been kind enough to comment below.

…. It shows a massive zoom (315 times) into the famous Mandelbrot set. The astonishing thing is this (and I am quoting the filmmakers): You would need a monitor 2^316 times the size of a normal one to view the whole of the first frame by the time you get to the last frame. That’s approx 2^176 times the size of the known universe.

Here it is: Continue reading The Big Picture →