Religions would squirm

Recent evidence suggests Europa has enough oxygen for life.
The global ocean on Jupiter’s moon Europa contains about twice the liquid water of all the Earth’s oceans combined. New research suggests that there may be plenty of oxygen available in that ocean to support life, a hundred times more oxygen than previously estimated.
The research says [...]

Thank you, Hubble

So it hasn’t escaped my notice that my hit count has been treading absurdly high in the past couple days. And it equally hasn’t been missed that most of the views are devoted to my Hubble contest post. Well, it turns out I’m a bit late, but the reason is that NASA has released new [...]

Like a big pizza pie

Apologies for the lame post title.
I was walking down my semi-rural road this evening and noticed that I could see most of the way down it. The reason was that the moon was lighting my way rather efficiently. Using that as inspiration – and because the beginning of another semester brings a lot of work [...]

Life is beautiful

Thanks to the wonder that is LASIK, I can now see very well. I had the surgery done about 18 months ago when I had horrific vision. It brought me to 20/25 vision, which was a decrease from my contacts. Over time, my vision deteriorated a bit, which is normal, especially for someone as young [...]

More exoplanets

They keep findin’ ‘em.
In the search for Earth-like planets, astronomers zeroed in Tuesday on two places that look awfully familiar to home. One is close to the right size. The other is in the right place.
European researchers said they not only found the smallest exoplanet ever, called Gliese 581 e, but realized that a neighboring [...]

It can’t be the hand of God

This is a photo of Pulsar B1509 taken by NASA’s Chandra X-ray observatory. There is a poll which is attached to the article on this image.
What do you think is captured on the recently released NASA photograph?

The hand of God

A natural stellar formation

“A natural stellar formation” is leading because the poll has been crashed by [...]

Hubble Contest

The Hubble image contest has been completed. The winner, by a landslide, is the Interacting Galaxies. I can only presume, humbly, that it was my endorsement of this image that made it the winner.
Arp 274 is a pair of galaxies. Drawn together by their gravity, they are starting to interact. The spiral shapes of these [...]

Cool Hubble contest

NASA is asking the public to vote on what Hubble should image next.
The U.S. space agency is inviting the public to vote for one of six candidate astronomical objects for Hubble to observe in honor of the International Year of Astronomy, which began this month. The options, which Hubble has not previously photographed, range from [...]

Tendril in the Night

Because I like it.

A mystery? It must have been God.

Astronomers have detected a lour roar from faraway space.
ARCADE’s mission was to search the sky for faint signs of heat from the first generation of stars, but instead they heard a roar from the distant reaches of the universe.
“The universe really threw us a curve,” Kogut said. “Instead of the faint signal we hoped to [...]