Tag Archives: planets

The James Webb Space Telescope Prepares to Peer Past Hubble

Artist's rendering of JWST
Artist’s rendering. Image courtesy NASA.

For two decades, the Earth-orbiting Hubble Space Telescope helped pierce the veil of time, image stellar nurseries and prove that galaxies collide. Now, the James Webb Space Telescope stands poised to take those observations to the next level, making the delicate observations possible only in the cold, dark spaces beyond the moon.

Slated for a 2018 launch date and team-built by 14 countries, 27 states and the District of Columbia, Webb will take astronomers closer to the beginning of time than ever before, granting glimpses of sights long hypothesized but never seen, from the birth of galaxies to light from the very first stars. Join us as we explore…

How the James Webb Space Telescope Will Work

There was Madness to Their Method: The Western World Before the Scientific Method

Cartoon of Mary Toft's doctors.
“My money’s on a lop-eared doe, or perhaps a Britannia Petite.”

One of the many things I enjoy about teaching my university class, Science, Feuds, Scandals and Hoaxes, is the opportunity to explore some of the most outrageous ideas ever to gain traction in the public mind. It’s easy to make fun today, but some of these ideas were grounded in reasoning that, though flawed, eventually gave rise to the right answer. Then again, there’s really no defending those doctors who thought that woman was giving birth to rabbit parts.

10 Things We Thought Were True Before the Scientific Method

Mars in a Nutshell

Think you know everything about Mars. eh?

We live in a golden age of Mars exploration, an era of unprecedented knowledge brought to us by ingenious rovers and probes. Already we have learned that our diminutive neighbor once held water and perhaps life. Future missions will help determine where that water went and seek evidence deep beneath the surface of living creatures. One day, we might even go there ourselves. But how much have you kept up on the latest developments?

How Mars Works

The Other Grand Tour: 10 Stunning Space Stopovers

Fomalhaut b
Image courtesy NASA/ESA.

Cosmos is back, and Neil deGrasse Tyson is tooling around the universe in Carl Sagan’s Ship of the Imagination. But suppose someone handed you the proverbial keys? Where in space and/or time would you go?

If you don’t have a ready answer, never fear. I’ve put together an itinerary that can’t fail, whether your tastes run to science or sightseeing. Sure, we might have to break a few physical laws and grow a few extra senses along the way but, hey, it’s not called the Ship of Literal Reality, is it? So hang your fuzzy planets from the rearview and strap in for a star-spanning tour, a jaunt from the local neighborhood to the unreachably distant (and disproportionately dangerous) corners of the universe, en route to…

10 Space Landmarks We’d Like to Visit

Daydreams about night things (stars, that is)

Orionid, Milky Way, Zodiac light, Venus
Photo by Brocken Inaglory

From antiquity to the present day, everyone from philosophers to scientists to spinners of yarns have claimed that stars can be seen during broad daylight, provided you look at them from the bottoms of mine shafts, tall chimneys, coal pits or cisterns. Folk tales have also described people spotting distant suns in light reflected in dark lake bottoms or deep wells.

Is there any truth to these tales, or are these well-wishers merely moonstruck?

Can You See Stars During the Daytime?