The most important story of our life time . . . maybe

What's going on this month on Mars may, IMHO, prove to be the most important story of our lifetime. It's not getting the hype it deserves from the press, but that's no surprise. I've written about this before, but what...

Before our time. .. yet bright enough to see

A gamma ray burst coming from the direction of the constellation of Bootes started on its way to us some 7 bllion years ago and reached here a few nights ago in a suddens surge of light bright enough to...

'Inexorable path to finding other Earths'

The New York Times just posted some exiting news - scientists have discovered a solar system that looks much like ours. It's neat that amateur astronomers were part of the discovery team, but the part I like best is...

Stickleback fish and life on other planets

Here’s an evolutionist’s dream: 10,000 planet Earths, starting from the same point at the same time, and left to their own devices for four and a half billion years. What would happen? Could you go on safari from one...

Evening star, morning, star, fleeting star - at last you have a face!

Anyone else see this face on Mercury in the release of the first pictures of the hidden side? Anyone want to know what I saw in the pattern made by the maple syrup on my pancakes this morning ;-) Seriously...

Big brains, small brains, no brains. . . it's your call!

“People are not prepared for this discussion,” Dr. Linde said. Now THAT I can agree with . . . but everything else in this fascinating article in today's New York Times leaves my head spinning. I don't know if...

Spectacular Holmes gets some press!

I've been astounded by the performance of Comet Holmes - but almost as astounded at how little press attention this once-in-a-lifetime event is getting, so I tried to do something about it Monday by contacting the local paper. Here's an...

Say what! Startling "new" comet

UPDATE: 8:30 am Thursday - One forecast calls for some clearing tonight! And for a more complete account of Comet Holmes, see the Sky and Telescope article here. If it clears, Perseus - and the comet - will be visible...

Don't bring down the Hubble yet, but . . .

. . . this is fantastic. First you have to understand that when I was a kid the 200-inch Mount Palomar scope was the telescope of dreams - the key to the universe. Then it slowly became eclipsed by other...

NLCs - be on the alert!

Spacewetsher.com reports that we should be on the alert for NLCs - noctilucent clouds - over the next few days. OK. I will be. I have never knowingly seen one. If you don't have a clue what they are -...

The BIGGEST bang

I love the way the NYT reports this: Kaboom indeed. In a cascade of superlatives that belies the traditional cerebral reserve of their profession, astronomers reported yesterday that they had seen the brightest and most powerful stellar explosion ever recorded....

The Goldilocks Planet?

Not too warm - not to cold -just right! You gotta love it - and only 20 light years away. So how long would it take us to get there. Well for the betsof our current technology here's what we...

Epi, epi, epicycles!

Boy if you ever wondered about those crazy epicycles that folks had so much trouble explaining when they assumed we were the center of the solar system (universe?) and not the Sun, take a look at this Astronomy Picture of...

You gotta be kidding - observing for the blind?

Astronmical observing for the blind? Does that sound like a cruel joke to you? It did to me when I first heard it and before I gave it much thought. Yet a few weeks from now I hope to be...

Hey, I feel like one of those milk bottles in a carnival!

You know when they stand the milk bottles up and guys come along to show off to their girls and throw baseballs at the milk bottles? Watching this little movie makes me feel like someone is tossing baseballs at us!...

Speeding, iron-tipped bullets of Orion!

My friend Dom in Australia sent along this wonderful story - and picture - of " cosmic "bullets", bigger than our solar system, far faster than the speed of sound and filled with enough iron to satisfy China's needs for...

Naked eye nova in Scorpius!

Picture a small, incredibly massive - and incredibly dense - star, a white dwarf, revolving around a larger star so closely that it's continuously sucking gas away from the companion star. In such a situation the white dwarf eventually becomes...

Orion, Iran, and the stars of peace

I wrote the following article a week or so ago and it appeared on the editorial page of the New Bedford Standard-Times today. I don't usually mix astronomy and politics, so my apologies if this offens someones political sensitivities. but when it comes to war, or rumors of war . . . well, I just have to give my honest reaction . . . besides, it was kind of nice to have a positive interaction with an Iranian astronomer and find we were thinking along the same lines. (The article make sno sense without the picture, so please go to the Web site to see it. )

What in the world - the universe - is out there?

I don't know. No one knows. But stories such as this one - deriving from the very responsible source, Nature - certainly raise your curiosity a few notches. Here's how it starts: Astronomers detected unusually high quantities of carbon, the...

Eyecandy from Cassini

Click - please do - to enlarge! The Cassini spacecraft now orbiting Saturn has made a host of scientific discoveries, but this one you can just put in the awe column - it's simply beautiful. The little moon above...

Just when you think you know . . .

. . . what you are talking about, along come these busybodies with their darned discoveries.;-) When you're showing people the sky it's fun to point out the North Star, Polaris. People want to be able to find that star...

So what's a planet?

Here's what the New York Times is reporting today: A ball of ice and dust discovered last year in the outskirts of the solar system is 30 percent wider than Pluto, a team of German astronomers is reporting today....

Great discovery - maybe

Hey, isn't the big question, are we alone? And isn't one of the key questions relating to that is Earth unique? If so, this latest research discovery is far more significant than all of the other discoveries we've seen...

The Christmas spirit on Mars . . . in the form of a little "animal" friend

Well, something like that . . . My first reaction when reading the first couple paragraphs of this story from Astronomy magazine was - "well Merry Chjristmas. Darn! Good things still happen in government programs." But as I got near...