Carnival of Space #48

This weeks edition of the Carnival of Space is being housed over at the Next Big Future by futurist Brian Wang. Check out his site, you’ll find many ideas on the future of space technology, nanotechnology, anything to do with advanced concepts and the future. Great stuff.

I entered one article this week, a short discussion about the recent sunspot activity and the implications of the overlap of Solar Cycle 23 and 24… There’s more where that came from…

Astroengine.com Roundup and Opinion

It’s been a while since I last posted as I’ve been flying from the US to the UK and have only just gotten my office up and running. That’s not to say I haven’t been writing. On the Universe Today, I’ve posted quite a few articles ranging from quite an elaborate April Fools story (but not quite as elaborate as Virgin and Google’s Virgle prank), to a black hole hiding in the middle of Omega Centauri, to rocks rolling around on Mars… here’s a round up of the most interesting…
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Upgrade to WordPress 2.5

Keeping up to date with the upgrades, astroengine.com has been successfully upgraded to version 2.5. Apparently v2.5 has been in the making for six months, and I must say, everyone has done a great job. The Administration section is especially nice. Let’s see if the upgrade converts into an increase in speed…

Ouch, a few plugins are now dead, but I’ll be sure to find replacements. Feel free to point out any problems with the site as you go, sending a message to ijo@astroengine.com.

More to come…

Carnival of Space #47

In this weeks Carnival, we fly over to The Martian Chronicles for a Mars-themed look at the goings on in the Universe. Some really excellent articles have been posted this week, specifically “Artificial Gravity Via Bigelow Space Stations?” – a good question over at Colony Worlds, “The Science of the Brightest GRB” carries out a superb analysis of the recent gamma ray burst over at the aptly named Starts With A Bang and over at Bad Astronomy, Phil is honoured by having an asteroid named after him

I also submitted a rather “out there” story about all the things you can do with lasers and black holes – great fun! (But is that a white hole horizon or a black hole horizon? If you can’t tell, then what’s the point in worrying about it…?)

Carnival of Space #46

We’ve barely finished reading all the links on Carnival of Space #45 and the 46th edition comes out! In true carnival style, we have a huge variety of stories from a pile of space blogs hosted this time on Riding with Robots. We have stories ranging from a look into how the space elevator concept will work, how the solar observatory, STEREO, might be used to find exoplanets and as we still haven’t heard from those aliens out there, perhaps they’ve chosen to withhold their phone number

From astroengine.com, I’ve submitted another two stories, one about creating your own universe and another about quark nuggets

Enjoy!

Carnival of Space #45

The Carnival of Space is a real celebration of astronomical efforts and space-related blogs. Archived on the Universe Today, the Carnival is now on its 45th edition hosted on the excellent Observations from Missy’s Window and I’m proud to have two stories on there: How do you catch a Supernova in the Act? Build a Neutrino Detecting, Early Warning Device and Could Mars Quakes, Seasonal Temperature Changes or a Chance Meteorite Impact Cause Mars Avalanches?.

There is a huge following of space blogs, like astroengine.com, following the developments of current space missions and new discoveries. Space blogs are different in that they present the news, but give a personal spin on what is going on. Far more exciting reading if you ask me, guaranteed to spark debate and awareness of mankind’s efforts in space…

UK Physics and Astronomy in Danger

Color composite adaptive optics image of the planetary nebula M2-9 using the ALTAIR adaptive optics system on Gemini North. Image credit: Gemini Observatory/Travis Rector, University of Alaska Anchorage

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?
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Server Errors, RSS Feed Fix and Eeron.com

OK, I think I have it sorted out… I installed WordPress on astroengine.com so I could make life easier for me to write and organize articles – afterall, the previous version was always a “work in progress” and never became a serious science blog. I gained some satisfaction from building the site from the ground up, including custom RSS feeds, custom functions, creating complex gallery systems… all in all the “Astroengine Project” consumed months of development time. And yet, I was never satisfied.
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Astroengine.com Finally Up and Running!

For those of you who are regular to astroengine.com, you may notice a drastic change… what’s all this science all about?? Well, this has been in the pipeline for many, many years, but I couldn’t find the niche nor the time to put this together. The astroengine.com/.net/.co.uk domain kinda became my personal pages when I was in university, and it’s only now that I have decided to put something more focused online.
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