Io’s Tvashtar Volcano

To get things going again, I thought I’d start posting some of my favorite space images – and what could be better than this animated sequence of 5 images of the plume of Tvashtar volcano on Jupiter’s moon Io: Image Credit: NASA/Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory/Southwest Research Institute This sequence of images was captured […]

Another Extension for Spirit and Opportunity

The twin Mars Exploration Rovers, Spirit and Opportunity, have been given another six-month extension (which will take the mission almost a full year past the original 90-day plan following an earlier five-month extension). The rovers are just emerging from 12-day communications blackout period when Mars passed nearly behind the sun, and have also passed the […]

Elevator:2010

The Spaceward Foundation has announced their Elevator:2010 challenge. Similar to the $10 million Ansari X Prize, the competition is intended to jump-start technologies critical to the creation of a space elevator, and is targeting student groups. The initial 3 competions are for climber prototypes to race up a 60-meter ribbon, developing better materials for the […]

Moon Landing 35th Anniversay

Today marks the 35th anniversary of the Apollo 11 lunar landing – take a look at the incredible compilation information over at the Apollo Lunar Surface Journal and the Project Apollo Archive. Be sure to also check out the this fantastic QuickTime 3D panorama of the Apollo 11 landing site (as well as the one […]

5 Years of SETI@home

The SETI@home site lists May 17 as the 5 year anniversary of the project (although I’m listed as having registered on May 15, 1999). They’ve also just passed the 5,000,000 user mark.

Free Shrimp Thanks to the Mars Rovers!

Remember when Taco Bell offered a free taco to everyone in America if the Mir spacestation crashed into a target floating in the South Pacific? (darn! It missed just to the left…..). Well, Long John Silvers has come through on their promise to give everyone a free Giant Shrimp if NASA found conclusive evidence of […]

Sloan Digital Sky Survey SkyServer

One of the largest astronomy catalogs ever compiled was released to the public yesterday by the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS). Comprised of photometric and spectroscopic observations of the sky gathered during the last two years, this second data release (DR2) offers six terabytes of images and catalogs, including two terabytes in the easy to […]

Challenger, Columbia and Apollo 1

On this, the 18th anniversary of the space shuttle Challenger disaster, a comprehensive timeline of Challenger’s last flight and a similar timeline for the final minutes of the shuttle Columbia’s mission last year. The loss of Challenger and Columbia have both been memorialized on Mars with the landing site of the Spirit Mars Exploration Rover […]

15 Minutes of Fame?

Wow! Out of 4.8 million users, randomly selected as SETI@Home User of the Day for January 22, 2004. Guess I’d better save a screenshot of this posterity…

Thirty-Meter Telescope Funded

Caltech’s Thirty Meter Telescope (formerly known as the California Extremely Large Telescope) has received $17.5 million for a detailed design study from the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation. Construction of the observatory at a yet undetermined site in Hawaii, Chile, or Mexico could be completed by 2012.

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