June 14, 2013 at 6:04 pm
Well, it happened again, guys! The 222nd biannual meeting of the American Astronomical Society (AAS) held at the Indiana Convention Center, that’s what. For those of you not in the loop, the American Astronomical Society is a professional society for astronomers devoted to promoting astronomy and like sciences as well as enhancing education. We’ve covered previous meetings and will definitely be involved in future ones – you can learn more about AAS press conferences, read Sara’s wrap-up of the last meeting, follow Maggie’s adventures at the 2011 AAS meeting in Seattle, or even listen to our podcast from a meeting in 2010.
This year, however, had a particularly special treat for everyone. On Monday, June 3rd, and Tuesday, June 4th, anyone with the gusto and interest could come to the meeting and attend special talks and events for public and amateur astronomers. To celebrate this, the Indiana Astronomical Society held a star party on June 3rd to get everyone ready for the exciting news unleashed in the following days. Now for the meat and potatoes…
Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/University of Wisconsin
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June 10, 2013 at 2:00 pm
Another school year has come and gone – as has another RealWorld/InWorld (RWIW) Engineering Design Challenge, this year sponsored by the James Webb Space Telescope. I last wrote about this awesome student program in November – and since then we’ve had InWorld Q&A’s with James Webb Space Telescope project members, the presentation and evaluation of the six finalist teams’ projects – and had the winning team out to NASA Goddard to present their work and tour our facilities here.
The Six Finalists, Credit: NIA
RWIW is a terrific Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) project, developed by teacher Sharon Bowers, that allows teams of middle and high school students to solve engineering problems rooted in real life. The Real World portion of RWIW takes place in the classroom – and at the end of that unit, students can elect to move into a virtual world much like Second Life. The cool thing about the InWorld portion of this project, is that the student teams don’t have to be geographically located in the same place. In fact, when the winning team came out to Goddard to present their project, it was actually the first time they’d presented it while all being in the same room together! One of the other finalist teams had members spread out all over the US as well as a team member in Germany!
In this year’s RWIW engineering design challenge, teams chose between coming up with new mirror or a new sunshield design for the James Webb Space Telescope, as well as an associated spin-off technology. The winning team chose to develop a sunshield design, and their spinoff was a starshield.
Here are some screenshots of their presentation:
Credit: NIA
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June 7, 2013 at 5:13 pm
Hello Blueshifters! Prepare to join me on a few blogs this summer as I explore the infinite out here at the Goddard Space Flight Center. “Who are you?” you ask. Jason McCracken, meanderer extraordinaire and intern magnificent!
I was born and raised in Rockford, IL, where I became heavily involved in gaming and rock climbing. As soon as I could hold a controller in my hand you found one there and the second I got a hold of a D20 I never stopped rolling. And I’ve never felt more alive than climbing on an arête, slipping off into a 20-foot whipper. And I’ve never been more mind-blown then when I stare off into space and wonder at the amazingly impossible things that are going on.
It’s all fun and games until you get an arrow to the knee….
Credit: Jason McCracken
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May 31, 2013 at 2:26 pm
In our latest entry in the What’s This? series, we posted a mysterious image and asked for people to guess what they were looking at.
So what is this tall thing in NASA Goddard’s cleanroom?
We had a lot of great guesses – a number of people guessed it was a stand of some sort. Or a Russian rocket gyro nose piece. Or the secondary mirror boom for JWST. Or a UV lamp. Or a “nose-picker.” Or where the NASA 8-ball team stores their pool cues. We even had someone ask if it was cheating if it was his budget that pays for what goes on top of it. (Yes, Scott, it is!)
But the only person to get it right (though we don’t know how much inside info they had), was Anthony Cotto, who said it was a “massive theodilite stand.”
The full answer is that it’s a metrology tower. (Metrology, simply put, is the science of measurement.) In this case, techs put theodolites (which are precision instruments for measuring angles) on the towers and then measure positions on hardware, much like surveying, but with more emphasis on all three dimensions rather than just two. The red object nearby is another metrology tower, just shorter. Many towers are height-adjustable. With several theodolites on different towers, positions on things like science instruments and mounting points on space hardware can be measured with pretty amazing precision, down to thousandths of an inch.
Many thanks to Paul Geithner for this explanation.
And congrats to Anthony for guessing the correct answer!
May 29, 2013 at 3:23 pm
Click to listen! (11MB MP3, right-click to save)
Transcript (Text, PDF)
A college friend of Maggie’s, Dr. Eric Mamajek, discovered a cool potential exoplanet system that might also have a ring system – we reported on it last January after the American Astronomical Society exhibit. We checked with Eric a year later to talk more about his discovery, any updates, and the art done of his potential exoplanet system by Ron Miller, who we also recently interviewed (part one, part two).
Here is Ron Miller’s artwork, showing one possibility of what this system might look like.
Image courtesy of Ron Miller
Image courtesy of Ron Miller
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May 28, 2013 at 4:14 pm
We haven’t had a What’s This? in a long time! This one is a little different than the previous ones we’ve done. Your hint is that this image is from our giant cleanroom at NASA Goddard. So check it out and try to figure out… what’s this object?
Post your guesses as comments to this post, comment on our Facebook wall, or tweet them to us (@NASAblueshift) with the #whatsthis hashtag.
We’ll reveal the answer at the end of the week, and we’ll also post the names of those who guessed correctly!
Please note: Comments on the NASA Blueshift blog are moderated, and we’ll approve them as quickly as we can during business hours on business days.
May 15, 2013 at 5:01 pm
Click to listen! (12MB MP3, right-click to save)
Transcript (Text, PDF)
This is the second part of our interview with space artist, Ron Miller. He’s an author, illustrator, former art director for the National Air & Space Museum’s Albert Einstein planetarium, and his work is truly inspirational! Here is Part 1 of our interview where we talk about how he got into the digital medium, his philosophy on space art, and how he researches his pieces. In Part 2, we talk more about exoplanets, and look at and discuss specific pieces of his art. We followed these episodes about space art with an interview with Dr. Eric Mamajek, whose discovery of a potential exoplanet system was visualized by Ron Miller.
Below you’ll find the art we discuss in the podcast.
These pieces have very realistically rendered nebulae which we thought resembled real Hubble data.
“Rogue Planet” Image Courtesy of Ron Miller
This one is an artist’s impression of planets orbiting a pulsar. The first exoplanet system discovered was one around a pulsar. Dr. Aleksander Wolszczan from Penn State was one of the scientists who made this discovery. He was an astronomy professor of both Eric Mamajek (whose own exoplanet discovery we discuss in this podcast) and Blueshift’s Maggie Masetti, not long after his discovery.
Image Courtesy of Ron Miller
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May 10, 2013 at 3:24 pm
Blueshift has covered the bad science in movies. In today’s “Blueshift Ponders,” we asked several of our colleagues:
What’s one misconception in astronomy drives you crazy?
Here are are their answers! What are yours? Tell us yours either in the comments, or on Facebook or Twitter!
Korey Haynes: The “dark” side of the moon misnomer. It’s just the far side! But I think the misleading terms people use contribute to why it’s so hard for most people to understand how the moon moves with respect to us and the sun. Maybe we need to launch a campaign to make Gary Larson more famous than Pink Floyd?
The far side of the moon, Credit: Apollo 16 Crew, NASA
Brian Williams: The misconception that drives me crazy is how people view scientists in general from a societal standpoint. The “stereotypical” scientists are socially awkward geeks (usually male) who could easily be picked out of a crowd of “normal” people. Television shows and movies don’t do anything to help here, with shows like The Big Bang Theory (which I do generally like, but still) reinforcing these stereotypes to the extreme (4 nerdy scientists who hang out with a pretty blonde girl). As funny as shows like this are, the fallacy being promoted is that you can be cool or you can be smart, but you can’t be both. In truth, we’re just like everyone else, and some of us are actually pretty cool people. :)
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May 6, 2013 at 5:55 pm
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Transcript (Text, PDF)
Blueshift recently interviewed space artist Ron Miller. Not only is he an amazingly talented illustrator, but he’s also the author, consultant, and former art director for the National Air & Space Museum’s Albert Einstein planetarium. He’s written and illustrated many books, one of which, “Out of the Cradle,” is a classic and a huge inspiration to our generation.
We recently came across his art illustrating a news article about an unusual exoplanet system which might actually have a ring system like Saturn’s. This led us to Ron and resulted in a two part podcast all about his extraordinary work. This is part 1. You’ll find examples of Ron’s art below. You can also listen to the second part of this interview with Ron, and a follow-up interview with Dr. Eric Mamajek about a potential exoplanet system that he discovered and Ron visualized.
Artist impression of Kepler 47c.
Image Courtesy of Ron Miller
Artist impression of the birth of KOI 55-01 and KOI 55-02.
Image Courtesy of Ron Miller
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April 25, 2013 at 4:12 pm
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Transcript (Text, PDF)
Dust – on Earth, it’s a nuisance. But in space, it’s a valuable natural resource, a raw material essential to the formation of nearly any object imaginable. NASA Postdoctoral Fellow Dr. Christina Richey studies interstellar dust grains through laboratory-created analogs, comparing the properties of simulated stardust to data from missions like SOFIA, Spitzer, and Herschel. This hands-on approach gives Christina and other researchers unique insight into the building blocks of stars, planets, and even life. This research complements observational data, computer simulations, and other studies of how objects form and work in space. In this interview, Blueshift spoke to Christina about her research as well as her adventures outside the lab, looking for life in exceptionally hostile environments.
Credit: Christina Richey
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