Angry Astronomer (Free subscription) | 11/24/2009
Back when I taught labs at KU, one of the labs I taught was one in which students would use a computer program to determine the mass of Jupiter by observing the orbital period of the four biggest moons (known together as the Galilean moons). It's not terribly hard to do. Just find the orbital period, apply Newton's revision to Kepler's 3rd Law and do some conversion factors and the answer's right there....
Astroblog (Free subscription) | 11/20/2009
Image credit, Chris Wyatt (click on images to embiggen, it's worth it). Correspondent Chris Wyatt of Bendigo has sent in these terrific pictures of Jupiter and its Moons. Chris writes: "From mid August to early October I have made a number of efforts to photograph Jupiter, especially with the Great Red Spot (GRS) visible. I used my 10 inch dobsonian with my Canon S2IS camera with the magnification...
Bill Crider's Pop Culture Magazine (Free subscription) | 11/19/2009
Scientists Say Jupiter's Moon Europa Might Be Teeming With Fish - Space - io9 : "New evidence has come to light that the vast, ice-encrusted oceans of Europa may be harboring Earth-like life that lives on the oxygen-rich waters. Time to plan your extraterrestrial fishing trip? Maybe. Apparently, the oceans of Europa are fed with more than 100 times more oxygen than previous models suggested."...
Darker View (Free subscription) | 11/06/2009
If you are staying up or getting up to watch the 2009 Leonid Meteors , you might take some time and enjoy some other sights the universe has to offer while you are out under a dark sky. The notes here are for the night of the Leonids, November 17th, but as planetary configurations do not change quickly, much is accurate for several weeks either side of that date. Times may change a bit dependent on...
Astroblog (Free subscription) | 10/27/2009
Carnival of Space #126 is now up at The Gish Bar Times (a blog devoted to Jupiter's moon Io). There's cavers on the Moon, LCROSS's impact, poems about Martian meteors, future spaceflight, space elevator competitions, fun ways to destroy our planet and much, much more. Pop on over and have a look.
Cinematical (Free subscription) | 10/26/2009
While geeks the world over are eagerly awaiting Avatar , the return of James Cameron to the original sci-fi territory he's proven a master over with The Abyss and Terminator/Terminator 2 , fans of obscure science fiction novellas from 1957 are being struck with deja vu. A reader tipped off genre champions io9 to the story Call Me Joe by Poul Anderson , a story that sounds remarkably like Cameron's...
Best Movies 2008 (Free subscription) | 10/26/2009
The line between deliberate rip-off and unintentional reflection is thin and blurry. There's now an accusation that James Cameron's upcoming Avatar might sit somewhere uncomfortably close to that line. Seems that the film bears an uncanny resemblance to Poul Anderson's 1957 short story Call Me Joe. io9 was directed towards a synopsis of the tale, which the site recounts as follows: Call Me Joe centers...
watersblogged! (Free subscription) | 10/09/2009
For a long time, astronomers have believed that Jupiter's moon Europa (along with two of the other Galilean moons, Ganymede and Callisto- all three of which, along with the volcanic Io, are visible in a good pair of binoculars) is the best candidate for extraterrestrial life in our solar system. The three moons are believed to be covered by global, ice-encrusted oceans, containing sufficient oxygen...
Darker View (Free subscription) | 10/04/2009
To give my old Nikon 995 camera a proper spin I decided to take it to the summit of Mauna Kea for a day. This was no special field trip as I was going up to work for the day anyway, just a matter of providing some suitably dramatic scenery to photograph. The segment crane preparing to lift a segment out of Keck 2 Actually I took the camera up for a day last week intending to do the same thing, but...
Jonstraveladventures (Free subscription) | 09/30/2009
It's one of those days where I have a huge list of things to do but somehow nothing can be done in parallel and there's a lot of waiting around, never with quite enough time to get on with something else useful. I write this as I'm waiting for two programs to finish running and give me results for a paper I'm finally writing up having met up with a collaborator in Greece last week - of which more,...
Darker View (Free subscription) | 09/30/2009
The Milky Way may have been drowned out by a bright Moon last night, but it was still a great night to view the sky from the Mauna Kea VIS. The sky may have been bright, but we had something else that can be a precious as a dark sky, very steady air. The images of the Moon and Jupiter were crisp and sharp, even at high power. Many folks took advantage of the conditions to attempt photographs of the...
Astro Photos (Free subscription) | 09/29/2009
Last night was generally a bit hazy, but Jupiter was shining brightly, although a first quarter moon wasn't far away. This image was captured through the LX200R, and is a stack of about 1600 frames which was processed in Registax 5. The "pimple" on the side of Jupiter is Io, which was just emerging from the glare of the planet.
AstroMick (Free subscription) | 09/21/2009
4 x imagemate, Red filter and Skynyx 2-0M camera.
Cool Science News (Free subscription) | 09/21/2009
From The National Geographic: A mini-magnetosphere around the largest moon in the solar system leaves a mighty footprint on Jupiter's atmosphere—helping to drive the "hyperauroras" that dance across the planet's poles. That's one finding in new research that offers unprecedented details on interactions between Jupiter and two of its moons, the giant Ganymede and the volcanically active...
advanced nanotechnology (Free subscription) | 09/19/2009
1. Centauri Dreams sends "Lightcraft: A Laser Push to Orbit" It is about a laser-powered launch technology that could drastically change the economics of getting to LEO (low earth orbit). Experiments continuing. 2. Out of the cradle covers the lunar lander challenge and the success and vehicles of Armadillo aerospace. 3. The Planetary society blog covers some first results from Lunar Reconnaissance...
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