One hundred Carnivals. Wow.
I think it goes without saying that this is a huge Carnival of Space, a celebration of the first century of space blogging as we move into the second. So long as I blog about space and science I will continue to participate in this supreme celebration of the space blogosphere.
So, over to Brian Ventrudo at One Minute Astronomer, for the huge 100th Carnival of Space!
“Somewhere, something incredible is waiting to be known.” — Carl Sagan (from One Minute Astronomer)
747 airliner? Check. Huge laser? Check. Huge-flying-missile-melting-laser? Nearly.
Actually, I’d want to fly the aircraft remotely, unmanned, and fire the oversized laser pointer at the 747 from a distance. Just to see how long it would take to melt. But that’s just me.
Boeing on the other hand, has succeeded in building a flying laser. Toward the end of 2008, the Airborne Laser (ABL) had been installed inside its Boeing 747 host and it was undergoing static tests. Sure enough, the megawatt laser had proven its worth and fired at a target, twice, in one-second bursts. Details are sketchy as to the damage the ABL caused, but Boeing and other US military contractors heralded the test as a success (if you ask me, the target probably looked like this afterwards).
Continue reading “Flying Laser Ready to Begin Airborne Weapon Tests”
In the first episode of A Green Space — A Green Earth at Astrocast.TV, my friend and astrophysicist Bente Lilja Bye gives a superb overview about the Gravity field and steady-state Ocean Circulation Explorer (GOCE) that was finally launched in March. It’s a captivating show, detailing the history and science behind the study of geodesy (the gravitational field, shape and rotation of the Earth).
You may not be familiar with geodesy, but it is critical to advancing our understanding of the planet we live on. For example, GOCE observations could aid prediction techniques for earthquakes, or refine GPS data; suddenly geodesy has a very real and immediate relevance to us on the ground.
Be sure to check out the video below, it’s a very slick production. Great job Bente!
Just when I was getting bored of the endless stream of 2012 doomsday hype (tripe), my interest was suddenly reinvigorated when I saw this advertisement:
2012 Calendar Magnet
$2.99 + shipping
Our calendar magnet is a real 2012 calendar. So you can have it on the refrigerator for 3 1/2 years! The calendar magnet is 4.25 inches wide and 5.5 inches long. It is also very clear and easy to read (looks better than the picture above, but is smaller). The shipping cost within the U.S. is $0.79 and for International orders $1.89.
No way. Oh yes. Yes, they did! The most well-known 2012 protagonist website is selling doomsday fridge magnets depicting an Earth plus comet barrelling towards it.
I had to triple-check, just in case this was the doomsday blogging equivalent to Punk’d. No, this is real: fridge magnets.
Continue reading “2012 Is Coming… And All I Got Was This Lousy Fridge Magnet”
In an effort to enhance the Astroengine.com community, I’ve now added a rather exciting new feature to the site. If you scroll down, and look at the right-hand side bar, you’ll notice an “ask a question” panel. This gadget is driven by Google Friend Connect, so this should appeal to the majority of readers.
What makes this even more exciting is that the panel is specific to each page you browse on Astroengine.com, so you can ask a question about a certain article and interact with other readers who might have a link or explanation to help you out. For example, I posed a question on the recent article “Mystery Blob Detected 12.9 Billion Light Years Away,” asking what people thought the “blob” was (and my hope that it’s a supermassive black hole… cue a bit of Muse awesomeness).
So, have a play, keep it clean and have fun! Any problems, drop me a comment and I’ll see if I can help.
Thank you Avi for bringing my attention to this great little gadget 🙂
Cheers, Ian
In today’s show, I’ll be giving brown dwarfs some airtime. They may be considered to be “failed stars”, but are they? Also, I’ll be giving a rundown of the week’s space news with some surprises thrown in. Be sure to tune in at 4pm PST/7pm EST!
Have any articles or stories you want to contribute? Have an opinion on anything in the world of space? Follow me on Twitter to send me live input when I’m on the air, or email me on astro@wprtradio.com and I’ll be sure to give it a mention. Eventually, I hope to have telephone call-ins, but for now, email will do.
Listen to Astroengine Live using the Paranormal Radio player. Or, pick up the podcast feed to activate your favourite audio software.
The Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence (SETI) has been an ongoing endeavour for the last 50 years. Detecting radio communications from an alien civilization would be the most profound event in mankind’s history; its effect would change the way we view our origin and our place in the Universe. It could mean that far from “being alone” we could be existing in a cosmic ecosystem, where life is more common than not and advanced extraterrestrial civilizations are no longer science fiction. A positive SETI signal would affect us globally; science, religion, society, daily life would alter radically.
Unfortunately, SETI is currently drawing up blanks. Apart from one or two inconclusive signs, it looks like we live in a dead part of the galaxy. Life As We Know It™ is an Earth-only affair. Who knows, we might be searching for another five decades and still be no closer to answering the question “are we alone?”
Not to be too downhearted, scientists have been trying to make our presence felt by reversing SETI; we’ve been Messaging Extraterrestrial Intelligence (METI, a.k.a. “Active-SETI”) ever since we attached a plaque depicting the human form and a handy galactic map to Earth to the side of the Pioneer probes in the 1970s. Now we send a variety of radio signals to the stars in the hope of attracting ET’s attention.
But what signal do we send? Do we send a message with only good stuff from Earth? Or should we send a more gritty message, detailing our flaws as well as achievements? What actually makes a “good” METI signal in the first place?
Perhaps SETI could take some advice from the evolving social media scene, after all, when done right, there’s no more efficient way of conveying a clear message via 140 characters or less…
Continue reading “Could Active-SETI Learn From… Twitter?”
Why is the term “failed star” synonymous with brown dwarfs? On the one hand, brown dwarfs lack the mass to sustain nuclear fusion in their cores. On the other hand, who said brown dwarfs were trying to be stars? Who ever said that becoming a star was the pinnacle of stellar living? Perhaps brown dwarfs are perfectly happy the way they are. In a world of equality and political correctness, brown dwarfs could be viewed as “over-achieving Jupiters”, or gas supergiants…
Continue reading “Brown Dwarfs: “Over-Achieving Jupiters” not “Failed Stars””
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
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.com 
