A mixed bag for today’s Universe Today articles. For starters, NASA has asked the ESA Mars orbiter, Mars Express, to help out when NASA’s Phoenix Mars Mission approaches the Red Planet in May this year. Along with NASA’s Mars Reconnaisance Orbiter and Mars Odyssey missions, Mars Express will aid tracking duties as the lander begins its critical descent. Great international/interplanetary cooperation! But, back on Earth…
Continue reading “Daily Roundup: Universe Today Articles (4)”
The Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe (WMAP) has observed something rather strange in our galaxy. There appears to be excess microwave radiation being emitted from the space around us, with apparently no explanation. In new research, this microwave excess may be caused by “nuggets” of dark matter, perhaps a few tonnes in mass, radiating some low energy EM waves. Could this be the first evidence of dark matter? If so, this could be a revolutionary method of observing the stuff…
Continue reading “Dark Matter Ain’t So Dark After All: Observing The Mysterious Cosmic Glow with the Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe”
My true aim for astroengine.com is to post advanced (but interesting) space physics concepts on an informal stage. But when news like this comes along, I feel compelled to say something. In a nutshell, the UK physics and astronomy community has been hit with a series of harsh and ill thought-out budget cutbacks in recent years. Things have gotten worse since April 2007 (when the two main research councils PPARC and CCLRC merged) when all UK physics and astronomy funding started being managed by The Science and Technology Facilities Council (STFC). It would appear the main focus is to find ways to plug the £80 million funding deficit it has inherited and not to find ways to protect research projects.
So, physics and astronomy in the UK is facing cutbacks on a scale that defies intelligence. Why is a nation, as scientifically gifted as the UK, making cutbacks to research that will shape the most exciting era of science mankind has ever seen?
Continue reading “UK Physics and Astronomy in Danger”
OK, here are two questions on everybody’s lips:
1) Could we be wiped out by an asteroid in the near future?
2) Are Pluto and Charon’s kids adopted?
Well, #1 has probably been asked a few times (most likely during crappy movies like Deep Impact), but #2? I’m hoping this is the first time it’s ever been asked… and it’s a very important question… well, kinda.
Continue reading “Question of the Day: Were Moons Nix and Hydra Adopted by Pluto and Charon?”
Just the one article this time for the Universe Today. Todays article covers a recent US satellite mission carrying out some cool experiments in space. This orbiting mini-lab is carrying out tests on a new nanotech sensor that is sensitive to poisons in air (useful for spaceships, protecting astronauts), and possibly even more interesting, experiments on a new electrochromic film that could be wrapped around spaceships to keep them warm or cool them down. The wonders never cease…
Every time a rocket launches, a spaceship orbits, an astronaut drops some trash or the US blows up a satellite, debris is created. Space debris (a.k.a. space junk) is a nasty side-effect of our push into space, but it isn’t a recent phenomenon. Even the early Gemini missions in the sixties did it, as does the ultra-efficient International Space Station – bits of spacesuits, cameras, nuts, bolts and tools are accidentally (and deliberately) dropped into the vacuum. But it’s only a bit of litter right? Wrong. That’s a hyper-velocity rifle shot, and it’s coming to a spaceship very soon, if we don’t take action now…
Continue reading “Snippet: Space Debris is Becoming a Serious Problem, but Google Earth is Watching”
Primordial black holes are strange little critters. They’re not the product of a massive star recently gone supernova and they’re not as exotic as a wormhole, tunnelling a gateway into another dimension. They are very, very old remnants of the very beginning of our Universe. Much like the foamy bubbles left over from washing the dishes, a few bubbles stubbornly hang around on the side of the sink for an hour or so after the water has long gone. Primordial black holes (or PBHs for short) are just that, the leftovers from the very energetic (and very bubbly) Big Bang 14 billion years ago…
…but they’re not done causing trouble quite yet…
Continue reading “The Mischievous Nature of Primordial Black Holes”
Some more Universe Today articles for you, one about exploding pulsars and another on the mysteries of Venus’s atmosphere:
This striking image has been created by tracking the round-trip times of data packets sent from a web site in Virginia to thousands of nodes around the World Wide Web. Using a new technique, this visualization method (3D “hyperbolic geometry”) allows the viewer to analyse large amounts of data mapped around a sphere. Not only does it give an insight to where data travels around the Internet – like an electronic dye highlighting the route packets of data take – it has also become a work of art…
Continue reading “Snippet: Where Science and Art Meet – The Internet “Universe” Frozen in Time”
Other articles I’ve written today (for the Universe Today):
astroengine.com 
