by Brian Logee
June 15, 2009 in Science, Space by Brian Logee
Nearby star Betelgeuse has been noticably shrinking over the past decade indicating that it may by now have gone supernova, at 600 light years distant the explosion would pose no threat but would provide a spectacular fireworks display.
Since Betalgeuse is located on Orion’s shoulder does this mean that Orion’s shoulder blew up!
(via Unexplained Mysteries)
![Reblog this post [with Zemanta]](http://img.zemanta.com/reblog_e.png?x-id=c45b0ca0-93f2-42a1-a2b3-5168c9ac883c "Orions Shoulder May Have Blown Up!")
by Eric
November 13, 2008 in Science, Space by Eric
Above is a picture of three exoplanets orbiting a star in the constellation of Pegasus. In a separate study, scientists were able to image a planet in a stars dust cloud.
Paul Kalas of the University of California led a team of fellow scientists using the Hubble Telescope to get past the stars brightness.
But advances in optics and image processing have allowed astronomers to effectively subtract the bright light from stars, leaving behind light from the planets. That light can either come in the infrared, caused by the planets’ heat, or be reflected starlight (BBC).
This is a major advance in optics, and will help us as we continue following our dream to travel to other worlds and one day colonize them.
The study of the light directly from the planets will yield information about their atmospheres and surfaces that is impossible to collect from planets discovered indirectly (BBC).
by Eric
February 21, 2008 in Space by Eric
The Eclipse of the Moon was beautiful tonight, and luckily the photos my dad took actually turned out. Watching that red shadow creep across the moon was an awe inspiring. We won’t see another until 2010.
by Eric
by Eric
February 7, 2008 in Personal, Prose Poem, Space by Eric
Thin wisp of rainbow, caught in a flash of light – Ribbon of life, so fragile so rare.
Under your soft embrace, lifetimes flow like a river. I breathe out that another might breathe in. Every rise of my chest a gift from another sustains me. How can all life, all the world move through such a tiny wisp of blue?
(inspired by NASA )
Technorati Tags: earth, Space, sunrise
by Eric
February 2, 2008 in Space by Eric
It never ceases to amaze me how wondrous and beautiful the universe is, not to mention the sheer immensity of it all. Looking at the this stellar nursery, we are witnesses to the birth of new stars. Nothing is permanent. Everything has a beginning and an end.
(via APOD)
by Eric
January 24, 2008 in Science, Space by Eric
The most distant object easily visible to the unaided eye is M31, the great Andromeda Galaxy some two and a half million light-years away. (APOD: 2008 January 24)
I am always stunned by the beauty of the universe and how incomprehensibly vast. It is like staring into the eye of God.
by Eric
November 24, 2007 in Culture, Politics, Science, Space by Eric
Barak Obama has an interesting plan to fund his education plan:
To pay for his education program, Obama would eliminate tax-deductibility of CEO pay by corporations and delay NASA’s program to return to the moon and then journey to Mars (USATODAY).
This is not the first, and I know it will not be the last time I see a politician who wants to cut NASA funding to pay for some program. NASA is an easy target, because very few people know about the technological benefits we have all received from NASA’s exploration of space. The other thing that these politicians never seem to understand, that cutting funding to NASA to pay for Science and Math education may sound interesting in theory.
“We’re not going to have the engineers and the scientists to continue space exploration if we don’t have kids who are able to read, write and compute,” Obama said (USATODAY).
Without a space program to inspire them, what will fire the kids imagination to make them want to become engineers and scientists? Children need heroes to look up to, to motivate them and inspire them for greatness. In fact, the nation needs something to inspire us all to greatness.
Now is the time when I would usually list all of the benefits of Space Exploration, but I think there is only one real point that has to made against this proposal. If we get rid of the science jobs, what is a child to think about their future if they decide to go into science? People cannot aspire to join in a field of study that they cannot see a future in.
Give the children a hero, and they will become great.
by Eric
February 28, 2006 in Space by Eric
C.E. Dorsett
Last week, I blogged about Pluto’s two newly discovered Neighbors and I said I wished I could see images… Well, I should have gone to the Hubble website. They have images [here]. If you are as excited about space science as I am, you will love these images.
by Eric
February 24, 2006 in Science, Space by Eric
C.E. Dorsett
The universe has thrown us a curveball:
Astronomers have detected a new type of cosmic outburst that they can’t yet explain. The event was very close to our galaxy, they said.
The eruption might portend an even brighter event to come, a supernova (Space.com).
Personally, I like it when we discover new things. It keeps us from thinking to highly of our own intellect. This object is very interesting.
The blast seemed a lot like a gamma-ray burst, the most distant and powerful type of explosion known to astronomers.
But when scientists first detected it with NASA’s Swift satellite on February 18, the explosion was about 25 times closer and lasted 100 times longer than a typical gamma-ray burst (Reuters).
Here is the NASA page of the Explosion. Cool pics.
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