Awfullest science headline of the month: “The aliens are silent because they’re dead.”
Science Daily clinches it – not because of inaccuracy, but because of the sheer despair in considering that we’re not hearing anyone in our galaxy […]
astronomy
Science Art: PIA18353: Janus and Tethys by Cassini (NASA/JPL-Caltech/Space Science Institute)
Click to embiggen A big moon and a little moon, orbiting Saturn. Moons like Tethys (660 miles or 1,062 kilometers across) are large enough that […]
Not exactly Nibiru, but… Planet Nine?
Nature surveys the growing body of evidence of *something* very big orbiting at the fringes of the solar system: “If I read this paper out […]
A really, really big black hole.
Science Daily reports that Japanese observers have just found the second-largest black hole in the Milky Way – by looking at clouds of gas: Astronomers […]
Science Art: Flaming Storms on the Sun’s Face
First found on dthorne books. I’m guessing this came from a very old Scientific American (maybe 1930s?), but can’t really say for sure. Welcome, 2016.
Science Art: XLII: Milky Way from Mythographi Latini by Thomas Munckerus/Hyginus, 1681.
Click to embiggen This is the Early Modern Milky Way, as appearing in an edition of the ‘Poeticon Astronomicon‘ by the Latin author Hyginus (although […]
*Is* there something past Pluto?
Ars Technica looks at something funny out beyond the orbit of Pluto – a thing that’s practically invisible, but that maybe a really, really big […]
How do you say “Hubble” in Hindi? “Astrosat” – sort of.
First Post shows how NASA’s not the only one with big space news today. India has just launched their own space observatory from Sriharikota spaceport: […]
Science Art: To Scale: The Solar System by Wylie Overstreet.
To Scale: The Solar System from Wylie Overstreet on Vimeo. I like the desert in Nevada already because of the sense of perspective – such […]
Science Art: Experience the Gravity of a Super Earth, NASA/JPL Exoplanet Travel Bureau
Click to embiggen Apparently, since last December at least, NASA has been creating vintage-style travel posters for exoplanets – the planets we’ve been discovering around […]
SONG: “How the Moon Began”
SONG: “How the Moon Began.” ARTIST: grant. SOURCE:Based on “Puzzle of Moon’s origin resolved”, Nature, 8 April 2015, as used in the post “Scientists: The […]
Scientists: The moon was formed when Earth smacked her twin sister.
Nature reports on a new way of looking at lunar formation that almost reads like a myth. The moon came to be when Earth collided […]
Science Art: Artist’s Impression of the GX 339-4 Black-Hole Binary System, by ESA/ATG medialab
Click to embiggen vastly The European Space Agency was watching the jets: Astronomers using ESA’s Herschel space observatory have detected emission from the base of […]
One supernova in four different places
Popular Science takes a wide-eyed look at gravitational lensing, the phenomenon responsible for splitting this supernova into four different images in the night sky: But […]
Unknown Pleasures: The story behind the cover.
Scientific American digs into one of the most recognizable, most influential records (and cover images) – the astronomical story behind Joy Division’s Unknown Pleasures album […]