It’s day one of the American Astronomical Society meeting, being held this week in Austin, Texas. Most of us from the colder climes are enjoying the little bits of shirtsleeve weather we’re having here, even though we’re mostly inside for talks and presentations.
The big news conference today was about the Hubble Space Telescope refurbishing mission, currently scheduled for later this year. Astronaut John Grunsfeld talked us through the mission sequence, and then demonstrated with a pair of astronaut gloves just how tough it’s going to be to accomplish parts of the mission.
There are other news stories being reported here today. As is my usual practice I’ll put some links here to them; later on I’ll be posting a little video about the meeting and how it’s going so far. Suffice to say, I’m psyched! It’s a week of great astronomy and cool topics! This pic shows just HOW psyched…
TheSpacewriter and the Bad Astronomer and the Astronaut Gloves
Here are today’s news stories:
The National Optical Astronomy Observatory has a stunning new image the Cygnus Loop, a supernova remnant in the constellation Cygnus. Check it out!
Elizabeth McGrath of the University of California, Santa Cruz, gave a very interesting presentation about some of the first massive galaxies to form in the universe. This is a very hot area of study right now as astronomers try to trace the evolution of structure (galaxies) in the cosmos.
NASA’s Swift Satellite and Gemini Observatory are jointly probing a gamma-ray burst (GRB 070714B) that was detected in July, 2007. This work has put the age of the explosion farther back than astronomers previously thought short-burst GRBs were occurring.
You can read here about mysterious “blue blobs” in space seen by Hubble Space Telescope.These are orphaned clusters of stars near larger galaxies.
Finally, astronomers at Rutgers and Penn State universities have discovered galaxies in the distant universe that are ancestors of our own Milky Way Galaxy.
Up until a couple of days ago we were shivering under some pretty cold temps up here in New England. The other night we took the trash out and it was about 10 below zero (F)—cold enough to literally take your breath away. The sky was quite clear that night, and the stars were stunningly beautiful. Mars was like a red beacon…The next day I walked out to get the mail and noticed the ice in the driveway. It reminded me of pictures I’d seen of ice fields on the worlds of the outer solar system. Out there ice doesn’t so much melt off the surfaces of those worlds, but it sublimates—it turns from ice crystals into a gas without going through that pesky liquid phase we see here on Earth.
Oh, there is liquid water out there at the outer worlds. At least, that’s the working hypothesis deduced from various observations. And, how else do you explain what looks like deposits of fresh ice that have somehow oozed up through cracks on the surfaces of places like Enceladus, Europa and Pluto’s moon Charon? It’s only a matter of time before the existence of all those cold oceans are confirmed. And, when I read about them, I can certainly sympathize with the idea of cold—especially after the bitterly cold weather we had last week. However, I am reminded that 10 below zero here on Earth would be a pretty warm day on Mars or Enceladus or Tethys or Pluto or Charon— so we have it pretty good here at home.
Speaking of cold and ice and outer solar system, here’s the latest installment of my ongoing vodcast series. It features an observation made at Gemini Observatory that I wrote about a few months ago, and an image I worked on with the PR folks at Gemini. Come on—let’s go visit some ice worlds!
To see this video here, you need to tell your browser not to block active content, or you need to get the Flash player. RSS readers who can’t access the video can download it here.
