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 […]
astronomy
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 […]
Science Art: Leonid Meteor Storm, as seen over North America on the night of November 12-13, 1833
This is a celestial event recorded beautifully in E. Weiß’s Bilderatlas der Sternenwelt, the “Picture-Atlas of the Star-World”. I’m not sure, but I think that’s […]
Science Art: The moon’s influence on earth’s tides, c 1930s.
A planetary self-portrait, apparently from Wonderland of Science, a book published in the 1930s. [via scientificillustration.tumblr.com]
“Sorry, but your new home is a cosmic burp.”
Science Daily has us imagining that message being broadcast to an an interstellar ship full of would-be colonists, thanks to new research that’s found some […]
The biggest particle accelerator in the *universe*… is made of galaxies.
Nature writes so calmly about shockwaves of such epic proportions: Four massive clusters of galaxies are plowing into one another at a crash site about […]
Meet the Mega-Earth
Harvard researchers have found a whole new kind of planet. It’s just like ours, only way bigger: Astronomers announced today that they have discovered a […]
Farewell, Spitzer telescope?
Nature covers the hard decisions that NASA faces in its latest budget… which may include shutting down a great space telescope (and an asteroid watchdog) […]
Howdy, neighbor!
Universe Today celebrates a Goldilocks discovery. The Kepler mission has found a planet just the right size and in just the right place to have […]
Science Art: Hubble Views Stellar Genesis in the Southern Pinwheel
Click to embiggen This is a galaxy named M83, which is usually a faint smudge in the constellation Hydra. Up close, however, Hubble Space Telescope […]
Science Art: Portrait of John Kepler, 1854
This is the face of the man who was ROBBED by the third episode of Cosmos. Planetary motion? Elliptical orbits? Not Newton’s ideas – this […]
Faster computers will find aliens.
If you never thought cosmic loneliness was a computing problem, think again. In Popular Mechanics, SETI leader Seth Shostak says Moore’s Law means we’ll find […]