WISE

The ‘Nifty Fifty (times 4)’, a program of Science Spark, presented by InfoComm International, are a group of 200 noted science and engineering professionals who will fan out across the Washington, D.C. area in the 2014-2015 school year to speak about their work and careers at various middle and high schools. Meet Nifty Fifty Speaker Dr. Loren Anderson Loren Anderson, a noted physicist at West Virginia University, works in an elite and highly specialized area of astrophysics. His research focuses on Galactic HII regions in our galaxy. HII regions are ionized zones around young and very…
The google+ hangout on SETI searches for KII and KIII aliens using WISE is archived on Youtube: Enjoy
"I am undecided whether or not the Milky Way is but one of countless others all of which form an entire system. Perhaps the light from these infinitely distant galaxies is so faint that we cannot see them." -Johann Lambert When we look out at the Universe, our view is pretty consistently dominated by the stars within our own galaxy. Although we know that many interesting things lie beyond -- globular clusters, individual galaxies, and rich clusters and superclusters of galaxies -- being in the Milky Way makes it very hard to see beyond it. Image credit: Richard Payne, of Arizona…
"As a boy I believed I could make myself invisible. I'm not sure that I ever could, but I certainly had the ability to pass unnoticed." -Terence Stamp When we look up at the night sky from a dark location here on Earth, somewhere around 6,000 stars greet you on a clear night. Image credit: Tamas Ladanyi (TWAN). This is just a tiny fraction of the hundreds of billions of stars that actually make up our galaxy, which makes sense, considering how large our galaxy is and how vast the distances between the stars is. You'd probably think that the stars we can see are pretty representative of the…
The verdict is out, the 2010 Senior Review Committee recommendation on the NASA Astrophysics old active missions; who will keep going, and who is recommended to get the chop. It is an interesting list, with some interesting recommendations. And the winners are...: 1. Planck - level funding for 30 months, per request, consider 42 month extension later 2. Chandra - extend to 2012 and beyond, restore and augment funding, consider automated operation, concern about spacecraft degradation 3. Warm Spitzer - surprise winner! recommend $7M augmentation for 2012 and 2013, note spacecraft ends…