OrbitalHub

March 21, 2009

Carnival of Space #95

Greetings from Toronto! Welcome to the second edition of the Carnival of Space hosted by OrbitalHub.

Credits: Karen Wehrstein

For this edition of the carnival, Centauri Dreams sends Prospects for Red Dwarf ‘Earths’. Paul Gilster analyzes a new paper by Greg Laughlin and Ryan Montgomery that looks at whether Earth-class planets might be found in the habitable zone around red dwarfs. These stars make up over 70 percent of the galactic population, so such a result would mean vast numbers of potentially habitable planets.

At Astroblog, Ian Musgrave presents another chapter from Galileo’s The Starry Messenger. Ian has published a series of posts in honor of the International Year of Astronomy, and the 400th anniversary of Galileo peering through a telescope at the heavens.

The Lounge of the Lab Lemming warns us about a new speculative market in The habitable planet bubble. Read about how certain characteristics of the terrestrial planets determine the price of these planets. The post has an interesting conclusion: ‘Compared to this planetary overvaluation, the housing bubble is imperceptible.’

Ethan Siegel at Starts With A Bang! presents The Hunt for Planet X: New Worlds and the Fate of Pluto. This is a very detailed book about the Solar System, its history, and the neighborhood around our Sun. Thank Ethan for sharing this with us!

At Dynamics of Cats, Steinn Sigurdsson presents discoveries made by the Fermi Gamma-ray Telescope and the implications they have for astrophysics research.

We also have a post from Chandra’s blog. Check out the post for an update on the From Earth to the Universe project.

It seems that Big Bang Needs Your Help. Shortcomings with the Big Bang Theory have led to fixes like inflation and ‘dark energy.’ Other ideas include a cyclic Universe and even a changing speed of light. Read all about it at A Babe in the Universe.

At The Spacewriter’s Ramblings, discover what you can find in the skies if you look deep in A Space Oddity. Read an interesting analysis of an image released by the European Southern Observatory.

Credits: NASA

Philip Plait a.k.a. the Bad Astronomer presents a snapshot of a galactic doom. NGC 6240, which used to be two galaxies, is now in the process of becoming one. The message is clear… stay away from the colliding cores of two merging galaxies.

Paul Scott Anderson, from The Meridiani Journal, tells us that the Opportunity MER has caught its first glimpse of the Endeavour crater. Opportunity is now about twelve kilometers away from the crater. A 3-D image, captured by Opportunity and showing in great detail the small crater Resolution, is up at The Road To Endeavour.

Everybody was so excited about the launch of Space Shuttle Discovery STS-119, especially after many postponements of the mission. The S6 truss segment with the remaining solar arrays made it to the International Space Station. But this was not the highlight! Ian O’Neill from astroENGINE has all the details for you. A bat attached itself to the external tank of the Space Shuttle. The bat also got a name… Brian, and there is a foundation set up in its memory.

There are many speculations about the fate of this unfortunate little guy. My guess is that it got its tongue stuck on the external tank… triple bat dare! What a way to go.

Credits: NASA

Planned for launch in 2013, the James Webb Space Telescope is the next generation space telescope, the successor of Hubble. Nancy Atkinson, writer for Universe Today, has an Q&A with Dr. John Mather on JWST. Dr. Mather is co-recipient of the 2006 Nobel Prize in Physics for his work with the Cosmic Background Explorer (COBE).

Down to Earth now…

Bruce Cordell at 21st Century Waves presents Public Attitudes and Prospects for Global Temperature Control.

Brian Wang at Next Big Future gives an update on research done by General Fusion. The goal of the company is to build small fusion reactors that can produce around 100 megawatts of power. The company claims plants would cost around US$50 million, allowing them to generate electricity at about four cents per kilowatt-hour.

Music of the Spheres reports on Space Expo 2009, an upcoming event that may be of interest to New England space enthusiasts. It will be held at Bradley Airport, Connecticut on March 29.

Ryan Anderson at Martian Chronicles has been blogging about astrogeology. At Martian Chronicles, you can read an interesting post about the geology of the Grand Canyon, among other posts.

From Astropixie, Amanda Bauer describes the tides on the Thames river in London.

Alice at AstroInfo tells us how to get a set of Planets Cards and discusses the challenges faced by someone who is teaching science.

Thanks to everyone who submitted entries to this edition of the Carnival of Space. For more details on the Carnival of Space and past editions, you can check out the Carnival of Space page at Universe Today.