Astroengine news – Page 2 – astroengine.com

A Bevvy of Doom

On the red carpet: John Cusack tells me what he'll be doing on Dec. 21st, 2012. Skiing (credit: Debra O'Neill/Discovery News)

Currently sitting in the departure lounge in LAX before I fly out to Washington D.C. to meet up with the Discovery News crew ahead of the launch of our brand new site (keep an eye on Discovery Space, it will soon be integrated into the Discovery News redesign — the beta version looks awesome).

Before I fly, I just wanted to post the news that the Discovery Channel will be airing the documentary I was interviewed for by KPI Productions in August. According to my DVR, the show “Surviving 2012” will be showing on Sunday (Nov. 8th). I’m not certain when it will be showing internationally, but in the US it will be on at 9pm PDT — so check your local listings for any slight changes in schedule. I think it’s going to be a great show as science is the focus, not the hype (unlike the idiotic History Channel-esque Nostradamus nonsense). However, I think fellow interviewee Dr. Alex Young and myself arrived at a very interesting conclusion as to the realities of being hit by an aggressive solar storm. Although our conclusions are far from the rip-roaring, solar blowtorch popular in sci-fi, we do point out that solar physics research is horribly underfunded considering our dependence on vulnerable power and communications systems.

In other news, on Tuesday night I attended the 2012 premier red carpet event in Downtown Los Angeles. I met some bloke named John and another called Roland. Apparently they’re quite famous, but what would I know. For more on my A-list adventures, have a read of “What Will John Cusack be Doing on Dec. 21, 2012? Skiing.” and check out some of the photos from the event via my Facebook account.

@Astroengine Got CNN’d (and other epic things)

I’ve been pondering a word that could describe today.

I drew a blank.

It’s a very hard day to sum up in one word. In fact, this entire week has been something of a unique one. From a space point of view, it’s been busy, largely due to the endless supply of space science research spewing from the American Astronomical Society’s Division of Planetary Sciences meeting in Puerto Rico.

However, last night (and early this morning) is what topped it all off. The NASA LCROSS mission slammed into the lunar south pole at 4:31am (PDT) and I was there tweeting away, keeping abreast of all the juicy LCROSS news. That was until Time Warner Cable decided to pull the plug on my internet connection 10 minutes before the main event (I’m certain they did it deliberately, it’s the only explanation). Panic-stricken — and really peeved that I’d spent the whole night excited to see the glorious end to this Moon mission, only to be foiled by my ISP — I checked the TV, and it was working, plus a local channel was covering the event. Phew.

As it turned out, there wasn’t much to see. Oh well.

Anyway, on waking up this morning, I was shocked to find my inbox was stuffed full of Twitter follow messages and notes of congratulations from my team at Discovery News. CNN had picked me, with four heavy-hitters on Twitter as their #FollowFriday. But it wasn’t an ordinary #FollowFriday, the guys at CNN Technology posted this #FollowFriday on their site!

Editor’s note: In this new weekly feature, we highlight five recommended Twitter feeds about a hot topic in the news. Today’s list focuses on space-related tweets and NASA’s plan to crash two spacecraft on the moon Friday in a search for water in lunar soil. —CNN Tech

So despite my internet woes, CNN had chosen me (@astroengine) with @BadAstronomer, @Astro_Mike, @LCROSS_NASA and @NASA_AMES. So I was in the company of an entire NASA facility (Ames), a NASA mission that had just hours before slammed into the Moon (LCROSS), the first astronaut to tweet from space (Mike Massimino) and the one, and only, Phil “The Bad Astronomer” Plait.

Wow.

They also added this very flattering description of @astroengine:

4. astroengine — Astroengine is the Twitter name of Ian O’Neill, a British-born physicist with a long resume and a healthy sense of humor. It’s also the name of his blog, which gathers articles and posts on such light-reading topics as quantum mechanics, solar physics, relativity, cosmology, space flight science and “some of the more bizarre theories that drive our universe.”

Number of followers: more than 1,700

Sample tweet: “Europa, Jupiter’s Moon, Could Support Complex Life http://bit.ly/3n6iKL (I, for one, welcome our alien Jellyfish Overlords)”

So, I’d like to take this opportunity to say “hello” to my hundreds of new followers!

And did I think of a word that describes today? Actually, I think I just did:

Epic.

Astroengine Featured on CNET

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In an article written by Don Reisinger for CNET News, Astroengine.com was selected as one of the “18 cool sites and apps that teach you about space.”

This is awesome as one of my main effort on Astroengine is to not only promote space news, opinion, skepticism and logical thinking, I also hope the site serves as an educational medium, so readers can understand the science that hides beneath the headlines. “Outreach” is a lot more than a group of scientists trying to work out how best to promote their work to the world; it’s a way of communicating advanced scientific theories to an audience who don’t necessarily have a specialized knowledge of the subject matter. Even though I have an education in a small aspect of astrophysics, it is often hard to understand the next big discovery in cosmology (don’t get me started on quantum dynamics, that stuff is insane!), so the more explaining the better in my books.

Also, to add to the coolness, by virtue of alphabetical luck, Astroengine.com takes the #2 slot in the top 18 space websites. And to top the whole thing off, Don Reisinger’s article hit the front page of Digg.com this morning. Needless to say, Astroengine was busier than Grand Central Station on a Friday evening this afternoon (thank goodness I have a brand new server to deal with demand)!

Thank you Don, I really appreciate the mention and the really cool review!

For more, check out “18 cool sites and apps that teach you about space” on CNET.com »

Astroengine 3.0

ae31

Now we’re cookin’… Welcome to the new-look Astroengine.com!

As you may have noticed I’ve been a little patchy with blog posts of late and now you can see why. I decided to migrate the entire Astroengine installation to a brand new server after the site suffered some serious downtime after a recent article (“Where is Planet X? Where is Nemesis?“) was slammed by Digg traffic. Now we are on a sparkling new server with a brand new design. I told you this year was going to be a big year for Astroengine, this officially marks the beginning of a new era…

After asking readers about suggestions for a new direction in design, it was Darnell Clayton (Colony Worlds) who came up with the winning suggestion. He pointed me in the direction of the designs by Elegant Themes and once I saw a design called StudioBlue, I was hooked. A few modifications later and I arrived at what you see here, Astroengine 3.0. It has a fresher, more magazine/blog vibe, so I hope you like it.

With all the technical stuff calming down, I can now get back to what I’m here for. Expect a tonne of space science articles over the coming months – 2009 is going to be a big year.

Thank you for your support (and patience!).

Cheers, Ian

A Change Is Coming…

Apologies for the break in Astroengine transmission, a change is brewing.

I’m currently migrating my WordPress installation over to a brand new server. This is primarily due to the huge increase in traffic Astroengine has been experiencing in recent months. All great news, but something had to give and it was my shared hosting account that eventually broke.

To celebrate the new server and faster delivery of content, I’ve also been working on a redesign. Expect a big change sometime between now and whenever I finish uploading the thousands of files to their new home (hopefully within the next day).

Thank you for your continuing loyal support.

A new era for Astroengine.com awaits…

Cheers, Ian

Astroengine Data Gathering

Astroengine needs a new look

Every few months, I think it’s healthy to reassess the design of Astroengine and develop it where necessary. In response to recent user feedback, I’m finding that the biggest weak spots of the site are firstly its speed and secondly its cross-browser compatibility.

Unfortunately visitors to the site that run Internet Explorer 6 see a mashed-up, messed-up Astroengine. It turns out that many of IE6 users are not using this out-of-date browser out of choice, it appears to be the staple of office computers the world over (system administrators really should think about updating their software once and a while).

In fact, I even had the chance to see Astroengine through IE6’s eyes a week ago, and I felt a little light-headed – It. Was. Nasty! Although I will always test sites that I build with a variety of browsers, I can’t test my site on old browsers (and therein lies the problem). The number of IE6 users are quite small, the numbers are significant according to my stats, so I’ve decided to act…

Continue reading “Astroengine Data Gathering”

The Universe Could Soon Be 6,000 Years Old… In Texas

Yesterday, some strange stuff went down in Texas. It may not be a surprising development, especially if you have been following Phil Plait’s articles at Bad Astronomy, but it is still… strange. I don’t usually discuss creationism on Astroengine.com as I’ve always considered much of the wrangling to be an evolution/intelligent design “debate” (debate? Really? Which century are we in again?). To be honest, I’m glad I work and write in a field that can sidestep a lot of creationist bunkum. But hold up there, it’s not that simple. It would appear that some individuals in the Texan educational board have taken it upon themselves to give schools “the option” to teach, in astronomy classes, an ‘alternative’ to Big Bang theory. OK, that’s cool, what alternative scientific theory can be put forward?

That’s the problem, there isn’t a scientific alternative. Big Bang theory is solid, and with the help of WMAP we know the Big Bang occurred 13.73 billion years ago (+/-120 million years). Unfortunately, one member of the Texas Educational Board wants the state’s science classes to teach creationism alongside cosmology, meaning students will have one of the most confusing and damaging cosmology lessons I can possibly imagine.

Guess what kids, the Universe is somewhere between 6,000 to 13,730,000,000 years old. Yes, it’s looking like creationism will be taught alongside cosmology…
Continue reading “The Universe Could Soon Be 6,000 Years Old… In Texas”

Astroengine.com Now Featured in Alltop.com!

Astroengine.com is now listed in the Alltop web directory! This ranks in the upper echelons of “coolness” as Astroengine now features alongside space news behemoths such as the Universe Today, Bad Astronomy, Space.com, Discovery, New Scientist, Space.com, Space Examiner and loads more besides!

From the Alltop homepage: Alltop is an “online magazine rack” of popular topics. We update the stories every hour. Pick a topic by searching, news category, or name, and we’ll deliver it to you 24 x 7. All the topics, all the time.

Be sure to check out Alltop.com, I’ve used it a lot. I like the format as you can access all your favourite space and science news websites on one page and organize it as you see fit. I suppose it’s like an RSS feed reader, only easier. That seems to be the trend of social media these days, speed and ease of use… perhaps I need to start cutting back on some of my gadgets…

It was Only a Matter of Time…

With the looming retirement of the space shuttle, the ascension of space tourism and hopes of returning to the Moon by the year 2020, this is an exciting and uncertain time when it comes to space travel and exploration. But with uncertainty and excitement also come opportunities that could change the way we look at space for decades to come and give rise to brand new ways of doing business and spawn dozens of new companies. Flying excited passengers to the edge of space could be just the beginning of a whole new industry that serves scientists, explorers and even the worlds’ military powers.

Dr. Ian O’Neill, a veteran contributor to Universe Today and avid space blogger and Greg Fish, a popular science and business writer who’s work regularly appears on BusinessWeek.com, have joined forces to identify target markets for space minded entrepreneurs as well as lay out what issues need to be resolved along the way in Astroeconomics: Making Money From The Vacuum Of Space. Combining science with marketing and the basics entrepreneurship, O’Neill and Fish take a new look at the economics of space exploration to find business opportunities for space minded companies and put many long popular ideas about the future of space travel under the microscope to separate fact from fiction.

Ultimately, the writers argue, we’ll need to rethink our priorities in space and rather than focus on politics, flag planting and living in fear of taking on new and exciting projects, we should be trying our best to transition space travel to a market-driven system which serves government agencies with assets in space, scientific institutions and private enterprise. Commercialization of space is slowly but surely beginning to happen and Astroeconomics will help space minded entrepreneurs to complete this shift and make the most of it.

See World Of Weird Things »