Space
Space includes outer space, the sun and planets in the solar systemScience Books for Kids
For weeks, Smithsonian editor Kathleen Burke has been sifting through piles of kids' books to put together her annual list of notable books for children, now online. I dove in behind her to pull out some of the wonderful science books that I would have loved to have read when I was young:Almost Ast...
December 21, 2009 |
By Sarah Zielinski
Picture of the Week—The Swirls of Mars
The atmosphere on Mars is very different from Earth's. It is composed primarily of carbon dioxide, which condenses into dry ice at the poles during winter. And it's thin, with only one percent of the pressure of the Earth's atmosphere. But it sure is pretty at times, especially as seen through the ...
December 18, 2009 |
By Sarah Zielinski
Eight Awful Movies for Science in the 2000s
Even a bad movie can be enjoyable under the right circumstances. Sometimes, though, you wish you hadn't bothered. Here are eight clunkers from the last decade: Erin Brockovich (2000): Julia Roberts won an Academy Award for her work in this true-life story of a woman who fought against polluters in ...
December 17, 2009 |
By Sarah Zielinski
The Big Dipper's Newest Star
If you can only spot one constellation, it's probably the Big Dipper. Other than being easily recognizable, the Big Dipper is special because it contains one of the first known binary star systems. The star in the crook of the handle was found to actually be two stars around 1617 by Benedetto Caste...
December 14, 2009 |
By Sarah Zielinski
A Musical Interlude
One more suggestion that I left off of Tuesday's holiday gift list: The band They Might Be Giants released their album "Here Comes Science" earlier this year. And here are videos from three of the songs, "Why Does the Sun Shine? (The Sun is a Mass of Incandescent Gas)," "Meet the Elements" and "Sci...
December 10, 2009 |
By Sarah Zielinski
The Secrets Within Cosmic Dust
Dust captured by a spacecraft from a comet's tail holds clues to the origin of the solar system
December 2009 |
By Robert Irion
What You Should Read -- Sesame Street and the Environment, Smart Pigs, Vaccines, the Amazon, and more...
Here's a roundup of the best of what I've been reading in the past couple of weeks:Are global warming and deforestation too scary for Sesame Street?: A couple of years ago Sesame Workshop named these as adult topics too scary for young children. Instead they focus on teaching kids to respect the Ea...
November 12, 2009 |
By Sarah Zielinski
Felicia Day Explains Colliding Galaxies
You may recognize Felicia Day as Dr. Horrible's red-haired obsession (or maybe from that appliance commercial). And if you've been reading this blog, you probably have heard of NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope, which was responsible for last month's discovery of a massive ring around Saturn. Add the ...
November 02, 2009 |
By Sarah Zielinski
Picture of the Week--The Kappa Crucis Cluster, a.k.a. the "Jewel Box"
The Abbé Nicolas-Louis de Lacaille was the first to find this cluster of stars, in 1751 while on an astronomical expedition to the Cape of Good Hope (South Africa). The Kappa Crucis Cluster (NGC 4755), which resides near the Southern Cross, received the nickname the "Jewel Box" during the next cent...
October 30, 2009 |
By Sarah Zielinski
Thursday News Roundup — Black Holes, Traveling to Titan, and More Spiders
According to New Scientist, physicists Tie Jun Cui and Qiang Cheng of the Southeast University in China have succeeded in creating the first black hole, built to absorb and trap solar energy. Based on a theory from Professors Evgenii Narimanov and Alexander Kildishev of Purdue University, the Chin...
October 22, 2009 |
By admin
Meteor Shower Rewards Early Risers Tomorrow
Right now, the Earth is traveling through a trail left behind by Halley’s comet, which last passed through our neighborhood in 1986 (it will return in 2061). These little bits of debris produce a yearly meteor shower, the Orionids, named so because they appear to originate in the constellation Orio...
October 20, 2009 |
By Sarah Zielinski
Saturn’s Massive Newfound Ring
NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope has discovered a new ring around Saturn. This ring is very different from those previously known. In some ways, this ring resembles the "accretionary disk" found around some stars more than it resembles the thin, orderly rings that Saturn is famous for.The new ring ...
October 08, 2009 |
By Greg Laden
Space Ships to Crash Into the Moon This Friday!
On Friday, October 9, two space ships will crash into the moon, and you will be able to see it happen.All you need to do is find the crater Cabeus, which is near the Moon's south pole. Be watching at 11:30 UT (That's 4:30 a.m. Pacific Time, 6:30 a.m. Central.) Bring your telescope. It should be a ...
October 06, 2009 |
By Greg Laden
Fantastic Photos of our Solar System
In the past decade, extraordinary space missions have found water on Mars, magnetic storms on Mercury and volcanoes on the moons of Saturn
October 2009 |
By Laura Helmuth
Mars Climate Change Patterns Seen in Ice Caps
Greg Laden is guest-blogging this week while Sarah is on vacation. You can find his regular blog at Scienceblogs.com and Quiche Moraine.You may know that much of the climate change on earth over the last two million years--the coming and going of ice ages--is caused by the "orbital geometry" of the...
September 29, 2009 |
By Greg Laden
Jupiter’s Temporary Moons
How many moons does Jupiter have? The answer may not be as simple as it sounds. Jupiter, the largest planet in our solar system, is so big that it can deflect the paths of comets and other objects, some of which might otherwise hit the Earth. Some of those comets hit the surface of the gas giant. O...
September 14, 2009 |
By Sarah Zielinski
Hubble Telescope Gets Back to Work
Yesterday, NASA celebrated the rejuvenation of the Hubble Space Telescope by releasing the first batch of images to come from the satellite since it was upgraded in May. That’s when astronauts installed two new instruments—the Wide Field Camera 3 and the Cosmic Origins Spectrograph—and repaired two...
September 10, 2009 |
By Sarah Zielinski
Sunspots and Climate
One of the more persistent climate change myths is that any warming we've been experiencing here on Earth is because of sunspots, not increasing amounts of greenhouse gases in our atmosphere. Of course, the Sun is an important factor in climate, and changes in solar output are suspected to be behin...
September 01, 2009 |
By Sarah Zielinski
An Honor and a Party for Stephen Hawking
Stephen Hawking, the renowned theoretical physicist from Great Britain, was one of two scientists among yesterday's recipients of the Presidential Medal of Freedom. Here's what President Obama had to say about Hawking:Professor Stephen Hawking was a brilliant man and a mediocre student when he lost...
August 13, 2009 |
By Sarah Zielinski
Q and A: Astronaut Buzz Aldrin on the Moon
Buzz Aldrin, the second man to walk on the moon, reflects on the Apollo 11 mission
August 2009 |
By Joseph Caputo
