Dear Friends, My apologies for the long time since my last space news update — I got a little busy! Lots going on; here’s the contents for this e-mail: 1. Boulder/Denver-area folks: This Saturday (4/29) is CU Astronomy Day – FREE! 2. Life on Enceladus? 3. New Horizons en route to Pluto 4. MRO in […]
Dear Friends, Lots of news in astronomy, so it’s time for one of my occasional updates. But before I begin, I’d like to invite those of you in the Denver area to come to my official “launch” of Max Goes to Mars, this Wednesday at the Denver Museum of Nature and Science: Date: Wednesday, October […]
Welcome to the latest installment of my space science e-mail. A lot has been happening in astronomy lately — enough to keep textbook writers like myself scrambling to keep up with it! I don’t have enough time right now to cover all of it in one e-mail, so some news items will have to wait […]
Dear Friends, How fast can you run a 10K? Last night, NASA’s Deep Impact mission was “running” slightly more than 10 kilometers toward Comet Tempel 1 every single second. And then it crashed into the comet, just as planned, igniting what was almost certainly the biggest July 4 fireworks display in the solar system. Some […]
Dear Friends: A great and easy skywatching opportunity this weekend: Shortly after sunset each evening, the planets Mercury, Venus, and Saturn will appear VERY close together in the sky — on Saturday evening, they’ll be so close that you could cover them all with your thumb at arm’s length, and then they’ll be even closer […]
1. SAVING HUBBLE: Since my last e-mail, Mike Griffin has been appointed and confirmed by Congress as the new Administrator of NASA. I don’t know him personally, but from everything I’ve read he seems like an outstanding choice who might really be able to get NASA out of its current doldrums. As readers of these […]
Dear Friends, The following is one of the occasional math/stats newsletters put together by Bill Briggs and myself. Instructions for subscribing or unsubscribing are at the end of the message. Hope you find it useful. Jeff 1. Tsunami Relief Numbers. The devastating tsunami that swept across the Indian Ocean on December 26, 2005 is surely […]
My apologies for violating my usual rule of sending e-mails only on rare occasions, but this is just too exciting for anyone to miss: The Huygens probe landed successfully on Titan this morning! Check out the “raw images” already posted at http://www.esa.int/SPECIALS/Cassini-Huygens/index.html. Scientists are only just beginning to try to understand what we are seeing, […]
1. THE SIRENS OF TITAN Don’t miss this one: I’d suggest clicking right now on http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov/home/index.cfm to see the countdown to our first landing on the surface of a world in the outer solar system. That’s right — the Huygens probe arrives at Titan on Friday morning. If all goes well, it will collect data […]
1. MOON/JUPITER ECLIPSE FOR EARLY EASTERN RISERS For those of you in the Eastern U.S., the Moon will eclipse (pass in front of) Jupiter shortly before dawn on Dec. 7; for exact times at different locations, see http://science.nasa.gov/headlines/y2004/29nov_moonjupiter.htm. Elsewhere, Jupiter and the Moon will still appear quite close together as a beautiful pair…. Questions you […]
