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Earth Wins Game Of Chicken With Sun

admin — Wed, 25 Jan 2012 02:01:04 +0000

Some surprising facts about the potentially dangerous effects of a large solar eruption. And we’re going into a solar maximum, where the possibility of “the big one” exists.

http://www.blottr.com/world/breaking-news/earth-wins-game-chicken-sun

The Noose Around Relativity is Tightening

admin — Wed, 23 Nov 2011 03:31:34 +0000

Interesting article from Michio Kaku, http://bigthink.com/ideas/41222

NASA’S Kepler Discovery Confirms First Planet Orbiting Two Stars

admin — Mon, 26 Sep 2011 01:21:20 +0000

WASHINGTON — The existence of a world with a double sunset, as portrayed in the film Star Wars more than 30 years ago, is now scientific fact. NASA’s Kepler mission has made the first unambiguous detection of a circumbinary planet — a planet orbiting two stars — 200 light-years from Earth.

http://www.nasa.gov/home/hqnews/2011/sep/HQ_11-304_Kepler_Update.html

2011 Metro Richmond Science Fair

admin — Mon, 21 Mar 2011 01:30:09 +0000

RAS recognized two winners at the 2011 Metro Richmond Science Fair on Saturday, March 19.

Terry Barker made the presentation of two $50 checks to Vijay Govindarajan of Godwin High School, for his project “Developing an Alternative Earth-Based Lunar Regolith Simulant for Future Space Exploration,” and to Ashley Hedberg, also from Godwin High, for her project “On the Use of Moon Illumination as a Predictor of Barometric Pressure.”

Vijay took advantage of an intern program last summer at Langley to produce his project. He used a sample of soil from Mauna Kia, Hawaii, to see if it might serve as a more readily available source of simulated Lunar soil. This will help scientists study its effect on future landings on the moon. He used X-ray diffraction results to compare his version to known parameters of Lunar soil.

Ashley studied a piece of folklore to see if it was true that the brightness of the moon is a predictor of impending changes in barometric pressure. She did not find a correlation, but she showed some impressive work on how she went about testing the null hypothesis.

Terry Barker and Russ Hummell represented the club and made the selections.

Is this the end of dark matter?

admin — Fri, 25 Feb 2011 03:59:00 +0000

Dark matter is our best explanation for why galaxies stay together when they don’t seem massive enough to keep up gravitational attraction. But now a largely-dismissed alternative theory has some actual proof backing it up. This could get complicated.

NASA’s Fermi Catches Thunderstorms Hurling Antimatter into Space

admin — Thu, 13 Jan 2011 01:52:19 +0000

Scientists using NASA’s Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope have detected beams of antimatter produced above thunderstorms on Earth, a phenomenon never seen before.

Scientists think the antimatter particles were formed in a terrestrial gamma-ray flash (TGF), a brief burst produced inside thunderstorms and shown to be associated with lightning. It is estimated that about 500 TGFs occur daily worldwide, but most go undetected.

Incredible double treat image

admin — Wed, 05 Jan 2011 00:38:42 +0000

Image of the GIANT solar eclipse, with a special present included!

The LHC–what a great toy

admin — Wed, 10 Nov 2010 23:30:42 +0000

The singularity is here–run http://ow.ly/37PC8

Scientists have said that these temperatures are actually 1 million times hotter than the surface of the sun. http://ow.ly/37PxO #astronomy

A great night at City Point

admin — Mon, 20 Sep 2010 00:58:49 +0000

RAS had three telescopes at the latest skywatch for the Petersburg National Battlefield Park Service at City Point in Hopewell. And it’s a good thing we had as many scopes as we did, because we were surprised by a sizable group of scouts that had come for a rocket and astronomy activity earlier in the day. With parents, we probably had 100-125 viewers in attendance.

It was a beautiful, clear night, with an almost full moon (technically gibbous), and we got lots of ooh’s and aah’s from the audience over the moon views. And one “it looks just like the pictures.” And it did.

Terry Barker, John Raymond, and Purnell Johnson furnished their telescopes. We also showed Albireo (double star), Jupiter, Venus and the Mizar-Alcor pair in the Big Dipper.

The temperature was perfect, and the peeps gave us lots of compliments. It was a great night for us, and for RAS.

Added share button to site

admin — Sun, 20 Jun 2010 15:24:25 +0000

I just added a new link to our web page, in the rightmost column, under Categories. To use it, once you open an article for reading, just click on the Share button. This will take you to a page where you can select a social network to share it with.