Wednesday, August 28, 2013

Latin lessons for Astonomers

Summary: Because sometimes scientists enjoy making things more confusing, images from the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO) are now going to be captioned in Latin. This is in addition to the already 10 different languages available to read the captions in. I find this particularly fitting as the planet is named for the Roman god of war and many of the sites on the planet already have Latin names.
Does this give anyone extra motivation to try to learn Latin in their spare time?


BBC News:

Tuesday, August 27, 2013

Evidence of new element

Summary: Researchers have found evidence of a new, super-heavy element. Although it will need to be triple checked by other professionals, it seems pretty cool that we have another element to add to the periodic table.

Monday, August 26, 2013

Spitzer’s Tenth Birthday Slideshow

In honor of Spitzer’s tenth year of searching for Dark Matter, BBC Future has compiled a short collection of some of it’s most brilliant images. If you enjoy astrophotography or are looking for a new desktop wallpaper, check out the pictures.

BBC Future

Teddy Bear jump

Summary: Remember that record breaking jump from near space that Mr. Baumgartner did back in October? His height record was just broken by a teddy bear.
The bear was lifted into space by a high altitude balloon flown by Dave Akerman. Inside the bear was a Raspberry Pi computer. A very basic computer, it is often used for people designing their own mini experiments. The computer took images as the balloon and the bear ascended high above the earth. It then switched to video in order to capture the jump from the basket and the subsequent plummet to the surface.


BBC News

Sunday, August 18, 2013

Retirement for Kepler

Summary: Kepler, once on a valiant mission to search for exoplanets, has now lost another wheel: one too many to continue its mission. At least three of the four wheels must be functional for it to maintain its pointing long enough to collect valid data. The vote is now up to spend NASA's money on maintaining the broken Kepler and using it to observe other astronomical events or to put the money to a future astrophysics mission. Keep in mind that Kepler has already fulfilled it minimum mission objections and there is still plenty if data to sort through.



Saturday, August 3, 2013

Rare Decay Confirmed at LHC

I unfortunately do not have time to writing a summary right now and I wanted to give this to you guys before I forgot completely. Trust me that it is very interesting.


Also remember that the Persied meteor shower is August 7th-11th so keep your eyes to the sky. They originate in the North East but they are very bright so you should be able to see them across the sky.


BBC News