Meteorite Smashes Through Roof of Doctor's Office (Video)
A meteorite came through the roof of a doctor's office in Lorton, Virginia, USA. No one was hurt, but a hole was punched through the roof and ceiling. "It came through the roof, through the fire wall through the ceiling and hit the floor," said Dr. Frank Ciampi in this video from WUSA [...]
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Universe Today Guide to the Messier Objects
Well, Tammy's done it again. Remember the Universe Today Guide to the Constellations? Well now Tammy has completed another monster volume. The Universe Today Guide to the Messier Objects. This is a guide to all 110 Messier Objects, from M1 (the Crab Nebula) to M110 (a satellite galaxy to Andromeda), and everything in between.
In addition [...]
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NASA Unveils Personal Aircraft
Forget about jetpacks or flying cars. How about your own personal stealth aircraft? NASA has unveiled the Puffin, an experimental electrically propelled, super-quiet, tilt-rotor, hover-capable one-man aircraft. According to Scientific American, the 3.7-meter-long, 4.1-meter-wingspan craft is designed with lightweight carbon-fiber composites to weigh in at 135 kilograms (not including 45 kilograms [...]
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Misbehaving Mobile Edition
Hey everyone, I updated the design of Universe Today to support mobile devices, but it sounds like it was a little overaggressive and displayed the mobile version to regular browsers. I've stripped it back so it should be displaying to iPods, iPhones and Android browsers right now.
If you're seeing the mobile edition and don't [...]
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Airborne Observatory Passes Next Stage of Testing
If you've ever been out observing and the clouds roll in, undoubtedly you've thought, "If I could only get above all of these stupid clouds, the sky would look great!" Well, NASA's Stratospheric Observatory for Infrared Astronomy (SOFIA) is capable of doing just that: SOFIA is an infrared telescope mounted on a 747SP airliner that [...]
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Solar Flares Can Now Be Predicted More Accurately
We all like to know in advance what the weather is going to be like, and space weather is no different. However, predicting solar storms from the sun — which can disrupt satellites and even ground-based technologies — has been difficult. But now scientists say magnetic loops breaking inside the sun provide [...]
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No Word Yet From Phoenix; Spirit's Days May be Numbered
Not a peep yet from the Phoenix lander. The Mars Odyssey orbiter has completed all 30 relay overflights of the Phoenix landing site that were scheduled for Jan. 18 to 21, and heard nothing from the lander. Additional listening campaigns will be conducted in February and March. NASA has said repeatedly that hearing from [...]
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Hydrogen Gas Cannons Could Launch Payloads to Orbit (w/video)
To get something into space right now, you need a rocket. You also need a lot of money, as the current going rate for getting something into orbit is about $5,000 a pound ($11,000 per kg). But what if you could, instead, do away with the rocket and still get your payload to space, for [...]
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Where In The Universe #88
It’s time once again for another Where In The Universe Challenge. Test your visual knowledge of the cosmos by naming where in the Universe this image was taken and give yourself extra points if you can name the spacecraft responsible for this picture. Post your guesses in the comments section, and check back on later [...]
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The Sound of Saturn's Rings
This wonderful video was posted by Jennifer Ouellette on Discovery News, and I just had to share it. The sounds are actual recordings picked up by the Cassini spacecraft. I have heard the eerie audio before, but never had previously seen it paired up with moving images from the mission. The radio [...]
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China To Launch Space Station in 2010 or 2011
China is planning to launch their own space station, named Tiangong, by the end of 2010 or beginning of 2011. There have been a few instances where information about the station surfaces briefly over the past few years about the development of the space station. Specific details on the program are not being release in [...]
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NASA's Bargain Basement Artifact Sale
If there were to be an advertisement from NASA for this initiative, it would read as follows: "NASA's Bargain Basement – Get your artifacts now! For a limited time only, "Crazy Charlie Bolden" is slashing prices at NASA for artifacts from historic space missions!! Act within the next 90 days and pay only shipping!!!"
If you [...]
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Asteroids Zipping Too Close to Earth Can Experience Seismic Activity
An asteroid's orbit can be altered if it travels in the vicinity of Earth. But astronomers are finding the effects Earth has on space rocks go far beyond just orbital alterations. Richard Binzel of MIT says that Earth has considerable influence on asteroids — and from a distance much larger than previously thought. [...]
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HiRISE Makes Your Wishes Comes True
The HiRISE science team is now taking requests! A new web tool called HiWish is now available for the high-resolution camera on the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter which allows the public to suggest a location on Mars where the HiRISE instrument should take an image. If you don't have a particular location, you can use [...]
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Listen to the Music of the Spheres
Pythagoras, the Greek mathematician and philosopher, is credited with saying, "There is geometry in the humming of the strings. There is music in the spacing of the spheres." This idea of the "Music of the Spheres" has endured over the centuries, ultimately informing how Kepler visualized the movements of the planets, which led him to [...]
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Stunning New Look at the Cat's Paw Nebula
This striking new image shows the vast cloud of gas and dust known as the Cat’s Paw Nebula or NGC 6334. This glowing nebula resembles a gigantic pawprint of a celestial cat out on an errand across the Universe. This complex region of gas and dust, where numerous massive stars are born, lies near the [...]
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Asteroid Collision May Have Created Comet-like Object
A strange comet-like object discovered on January 6, 2010 may actually be the result of a collision between two asteroids. Lincoln Near-Earth Asteroid Research (LINEAR) sky survey in New Mexico spotted an object in the asteroid belt, called P/2010 A that looked "fuzzy," with a tail like a comet rather than a speck of [...]
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Eclipse Sunspots Signal Increased Activity
Astrophotographers capturing the recent annular solar eclipse on January 15, 2010 got an added bonus: upon closer inspection, they found sunspot 1040 also showed up on their images, too. "We didn't mean to catch sunspots in our Jaffna Eclipse expedition, nor did we plan to," said Prasanna Deshapriya, one of the members [...]
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Climate Vs. Weather Video
It happens every winter, and even more so during the recent cold snap here in the US: frequently people say, "Well, so much for global warming! Guess that's not an issue anymore!" But there's only one way to respond to that: "WRONG."
I was going to write an article about the difference [...]