16-05-2012 06:58 Maryann Hartwick, president and co-founder of the society, explains how the group brings exploration of the stars to the community through ‘sidewalk astronomy’. Continue reading
Category Archives: Astronomy
The long reach of the Centaur’s dark heart | Bad Astronomy
Every now again I get surprised by a photo, showing me something I didnt know about. And I love it even more when that surprise is from an object I thought I knew! So check out this incredible image of the nearby galaxy Centaurus A, a nearby galaxy harboring a whole slew of surprises: [Click to galactinate, or get the 4000 x 4000 pixel version, or, if you're feeling frisky, cram this onto your hard drive: an image that's 8500 x 8400 pixels and 29 Mb in size! And trust me: you want to.] Isnt that stunning? Continue reading
If the Mayans were right, it was probably about Internet comments | Bad Astronomy
A little while back, I was at Utah State University to give a public talk about the threat from asteroid impacts and what we can do to stop them (PLUG ALERT: if you want me to come talk at your venue, my agent would love to hear from you). While I was there I was interviewed by Utah Public Radio, and that interview is online Continue reading
Sunday solar eclipse visible from national parks
When the sun vanishes behind the moon for the first time over the United States in this century, what better place to enjoy the view than from one of the 154 national parks that stand in its path? Continue reading
Psychedelic space station stars and cities | Bad Astronomy
The view from the International Space Station is always pretty cool, but when an astronaut points the camera at the Earths horizon and takes a series of short exposures, adding them together gives a view right out of Haight-Ashbury in the 1960s: [Click to psilocybinate.] Whoa, man! Astronaut Don Petit took the pictures to make this composite. Basically, its a series of eighteen 30-second exposures added together so the motion of the ISS around the Earth makes the stars trail, the cities blur, and your mind expand, dude. The brown and green glow over the horizon is the atmospheric aerosol layer; molecules that absorb sunlight during the day and release that energy at night. Continue reading
Big Picture Science: Antivaxxers (and updates) | Bad Astronomy
I do a roughly monthly segment with astronomer Seth Shostak on Big Picture Science, a radio show/podcast done by The SETI Institute. This month, Seth and I talked about the American Airlines dustup when they were planning to run an interview with reality-impaired antivaxxer Meryl Dorey. This story is a great victory for reality, and Ive already written about the back story. Continue reading
WANT Part XIII: Moon throw | Bad Astronomy
When Im getting the mid-afternoon drowsies, and looking for a comfortable, warm, cozy place to take a nap, what could possibly be better than the impact crater-scarred surface of the Moon? Continue reading
Help find Hubble’s Hidden Treasures | Bad Astronomy
I worked with Hubble Space Telescope data for about ten years, and one of the most amazing things about that was seeing the images fresh off the mirror. Knowing that no human on Earth had ever seen that particular object that sharply was a thrill. Not every Hubble observation gets turned into a gorgeous image, though. Continue reading
NASA Captures the Sun's Most Striking Photo Yet [Astronomy]
You are looking at the Sun’s Evil Eye. Or the Death Star ready to shoot its planet-destructing laser Continue reading
The start of a long, long dance | Bad Astronomy
A hundred million light years away, two gorgeous spiral galaxies are locked in an embrace that may end with them merging, a dance spread across a hundred thousand light years in space and a hundred million years of time. Continue reading
Three-day course on Astronomy
The Tamil Nadu Science and Technology Centre will be organising a three-day Summer School on Astronomy and Astrophysics for students studying in classes VII to IX. The programme will be held during May 17 to 19, between 10 a.m Continue reading
This is Golden Age of astronomy
Did the universe have a beginning? When was it, and what was it like? What are the stars Continue reading
Fire, water, and ice | Bad Astronomy
Because you simply cannot have enough incredibly beautiful photographs of aurorae in your life, heres one taken near Tromso, Norway, on March 28, 2012 by photographer Helge Mortensen: [Click to coronalmassejectenate, and you should.] What a shot! Dead center in the picture is the Pleiades, the small cluster of bright stars. Continue reading
East Lince Astronomy Club observe Virgo cluster
EAST Lincs Astronomy Club’s next meeting is to be held on Saturday, May 19, at Gibraltar Point Nature Reserve from 8pm. Continue reading
The darkness and the light | Bad Astronomy
The sky is not as it seems. Certainly, gazing upon it on a clear night you see so much: stars, planets, the glow of hot gas here and there but theres also darkness Continue reading
Solar Cinco de Mayo | Bad Astronomy
Alan Friedman is a photographer who takes amazing pictures of the Sun. While others were out celebrating Cinco de Mayo this past weekend, he was outside taking another jaw-dropping image of the nearest star in the Universe: Yegads! Click to ensolarnate, and he has a greyscale version, too. I love the detail and texture of his images. Continue reading
Asteroid, mine | Bad Astronomy
I write a sporadically monthly column for Blastr, the science/science fiction web news portal for the SyFy channel. Continue reading
Unstoppable | Bad Astronomy
My willingness to fight has seen some major impediments in the past few weeks. The increase in antireality nonsense seems like a growing tsunami. Antivax health threats. Continue reading
The Point on asteroid mining and antiscience | Bad Astronomy
The Point is a web-based talk show on the Young Turks YouTube channel where various issues are discussed by panelists. They have people send in short videos making some salient point, then panelists discuss it Continue reading
Jupiter, acting all superior | Bad Astronomy
This is a cool picture: What youre seeing is from the NASA/ESA satellite Solar and Heliospheric Observatory, or SOHO. It stares at the Sun all the time, monitoring its activity Continue reading