April 22, 2011
"We came all this way to explore the moon, and the most important thing is that we discovered the Earth." -Bill Anders, Apollo 8 Astronaut
This Earth Day, I think -- for anyone interested in space, astronomy, or the Universe -- gives us perhaps the best opportunity to look back on our planet as we…
April 20, 2011
"You may hate gravity, but gravity doesn't care." -Clayton Christensen
What's the deal with gravity, dark matter, and this whole "lensing" business anyway? You've probably heard that energy -- most commonly mass -- bends light. And perhaps you've seen an image or two like this one to illustrate…
April 18, 2011
"The lessons of science should be experimental also. The sight of a planet through a telescope is worth all the course on astronomy; the shock of the electric spark in the elbow outvalues all theories; the taste of the nitrous oxide, the firing of an artificial volcano, are better than volumes of…
April 17, 2011
"The loss of the night sky is most troubling for children. Whole generations of kids in cities and suburbs are growing up seldom if ever having seen the milky way and what a sky full of thousands of stars look like." -Timothy Ferris
While Dave Chappelle will tell you that everything looks better in…
April 14, 2011
"All of nature begins to whisper its secrets to us through its sounds. Sounds that were previously incomprehensible to our soul now become the meaningful language of nature." -Rudolf Steiner
For millenia, humans have looked to the heavens for answers about the cosmos.
Image credit: ESO/S. Guisard…
April 12, 2011
"I could have gone on flying through space forever." -Yuri Gagarin
It was April 12th, 1961, or fifty years ago today, that Yuri Gagarin became the first human being to leave Earth -- the ground, the atmosphere, the stratosphere -- and to soar into outer space.
Image credit: GETTY images.
What was…
April 11, 2011
"Life's but a walking shadow, a poor player, that struts and frets his hour upon the stage and then is heard no more; it is a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing." -William Shakespeare
Ahh, the glorious shadows of our Universe. Everywhere that sunlight is blocked gives…
April 8, 2011
"School sucks, right? I mean you do what you can to improve it, but in the end, there's a limit. Because it's school. And 'school sucks.' Remember?" -Louis C.K.
At every level, education always seems to be a hot button issue. Whether it's in primary and secondary schools, where testing at every…
April 6, 2011
"Although important nuclear physics work was to go on in laboratories such as ours had become - and we had to cut down to a lower energy group - it was not fundamentally opening up new insights on the structure of matter. That required you to be in a higher league." -John Henry Carver
Okay, before…
April 5, 2011
"Where there is an observatory and a telescope, we expect that any eyes will see new worlds at once." -Henry David Thoreau
This past weekend, the Astronomy Picture of the Day was a remarkable shot of the giant spiral galaxy NGC 6872, taken by the Gemini Telescope. (It's not Hubble, but Gemini is…
April 3, 2011
Intel Science Talent Search Winner: Mr. Bush, please save Hubble.
Then-President Bush: Is Hubble in trouble?
Oh my, yes, for those of you who don't know, Hubble is, in fact, in trouble once again. To set the mood, I've got one of the best songs about it: Ray LaMontagne's
Trouble.
For the…
April 1, 2011
"This is Tokyo. Once a city of six million people. What has happened here was caused by a force which up until a few days ago was entirely beyond the scope of Man's imagination." -Steve Martin
What was once only in the realm of our wildest science-fiction fantasies has become a nightmare come true…
March 31, 2011
"It took less than an hour to make the atoms, a few hundred million years to make the stars and planets, but five billion years to make man!" -George Gamow
Some people are never satisfied. After I wrote last time on the odds for cosmic inflation, I started noticing a flurry of comments on an older…
March 28, 2011
"If it were worth the while to settle in those parts near to the Pleiades or the Hyades, to Aldebaran or Altair, then I was really there, or at an equal remoteness from the life which I had left behind, dwindled and twinkling with as fine a ray to my nearest neighbor, and to be seen only in…
March 26, 2011
"There is a pleasure in the pathless woods,
There is a rapture on the lonely shore,
There is society, where none intrudes,
By the deep sea, and music in its roar:
I love not man the less, but Nature more." -Lord Byron
All over the world, Earth Hour has fallen, and it's about to, imminently, here in…
March 25, 2011
"Some scientists claim that hydrogen, because it is so plentiful, is the basic building block of the universe. I dispute that. I say there is more stupidity than hydrogen, and that is the basic building block of the universe." -Frank Zappa
Oh yeah, Zappa? Well, let me show you what hydrogen can do…
March 23, 2011
"I came from the country, and when I came to the city, I was ridin' high, you know. I was seeing more lights than I ever dreamed to shine in the world. 'Cos where I came from, there wasn't too many lights. Bugs made a lot of light, but after that there wasn't no lights." -John Hunter
John Hunter…
March 21, 2011
"And Lord, we are especially thankful for nuclear power, the cleanest, safest energy source there is. Except for solar, which is just a pipe dream." -Homer Simpson
If you've been reading or watching the news, you've probably been hearing a whole lot of information about the Fukushima Nuclear Power…
March 17, 2011
"If I am not for myself, who will be for me? If I am not for others, what am I? And if not now, when?" -Rabbi Hillel
As you all know, it has been one week since the devastating earthquake first struck Japan. And the damage is simply horrific.
The death toll is in the thousands (if not the tens of…
March 17, 2011
"Don't tell me the moon is shining; show me the glint of light on broken glass." -Anton Chekhov
Ahh, Chekhov, you old sour puss, what do you have against the brilliance of our Moon?
Beautiful in our sky, the Moon typically takes up half-a-degree in the night sky, where it's by far the largest and…
March 16, 2011
"It is said that there's no such thing as a free lunch. But the Universe is the ultimate free lunch." -Alan Guth
We've talked about the Big Bang too many times to count, and why it's easily the leading theory regarding the origin of the Universe. It's the only cosmic idea we have that can explain…
March 14, 2011
"You can no more win a war than you can win an earthquake." -Jeannette Rankin
As you all surely know, an 8.9 magnitude earthquake just struck Japan, devastating the island of Honshu.
Before and after images link at abc.net.au.
Ask a geologist, and they'll rightly tell you about plate tectonics,…
March 12, 2011
"The makers of entertainment must try, in our field, to be honest and grown-up." -Elia Kazan
There's a lot of negativity in the world lately, from natural disasters to social, political, and economic strife. But this week also saw the 100th International Women's Day go by, and what I saw was so…
March 11, 2011
Well, don't you know
I'm gonna skate right through
Ain't nobody do it but me
Nobody but me -The Human Beinz
If you're only a casual watcher of the night sky, you might have no idea what the brightest stars are. Sure, if you're in the northern hemisphere, you probably recognize the Big Dipper,
the…
March 10, 2011
"All truths are easy to understand once they are discovered; the point is to discover them." -Galileo Galilei
Ever since the time of Galileo, Jupiter has been an amazing sight for skywatchers. With its four large moons, even the smallest of amateur telescopes provide amazing sights.
In fact, if…
March 7, 2011
"Nothing in life is to be feared, it is only to be understood. Now is the time to understand more, so that we may fear less." -Marie Curie
Were you here last week, when I wrote about MOND and dark matter, and in particular what the supreme failings of MOND are? Apparently, right here on…
March 6, 2011
"Blessed be Providence which has given to each his toy: the doll to the child, the child to the woman, the woman to the man, the man to the devil!" -Victor Hugo
I don't know how many of you have ever had the experience of listening to all your music on shuffle, had a song come on, and then say to…
March 4, 2011
"The subject of gambling is all encompassing. It combines man's natural play instinct with his desire to know about his fate and his future." -Franz Rosenthal
Last month, Sean Carroll asked the blogosphere to give their personal odds on whether various theories will turn out to be true or not.
And…
March 3, 2011
"Old men and comets have been reverenced for the same reason: their long beards, and pretenses to foretell events." -Jonathan Swift
Last week, I showed you the new, highest-resolution mosaic ever made of the near side of the Moon.
And I also showed you a small, somewhat unusual feature that I…
March 1, 2011
"There's an old saying about those who forget history. I don't remember it, but it's good." -Stephen Colbert
Let me start by telling you a story about an old problem. Take a look at the planet Mercury, one of the five planets (not counting Earth) visible in our night sky to the naked eye.
And I…
