THE INTERNET ENCYCLOPEDIA OF SCIENCE
ENCYCLOPEDIA OF ALTERNATIVE ENERGY AND SUSTAINABLE LIVING
My interview with Adam Lee Davies for the Star Trek issue of Little White Lies
Children's Encyclopedia of Science
DAVID'S BOOKS
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LATEST SPACE & SCIENCE NEWS
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Cool find in hunt for exoplanets (Dec 4, 2009) Astronomers have published an image of the coolest planet outside our solar system that has been pictured directly. The new find is more similar to our own Solar System than prior pictured exoplanets, in terms of the parent star's type and the planet's size. However, the surface temperature is a scorching 280-370C, and could still prove to be a brown dwarf star. Read more. Source: BBC
Death of rare giant star sheds light on cosmic past (Dec 3, 2009) An enormous explosion observed in 2007 was the death of one of the most massive stars known in the universe, new calculations suggest. Similar blasts may have polluted the early universe with heavy elements, altering its evolution. A team of astronomers led by Avishay Gal-Yam of the Weizmann Institute of Science in Rehovot, Israel, detected the explosion in a dwarf galaxy on 6 April 2007. Read more. Source: New Scientist
Both of NASA's Mars orbiters are down for the count (Dec 2, 2009) The Red Planet is experiencing a partial radio blackout this week, as both of NASA's Mars orbiters have been felled by technical glitches. Until one of the probes can be brought back online later this week, the outages will delay operation of the twin Mars rovers, which use the orbiters to efficiently relay data back to Earth. Read more. Source: New Scientist
Scientists explain puzzling lake asymmetry on Titan (Dec 1, 2009) Researchers at the California Institute of Technology, NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, and other institutions suggest that the eccentricity of Saturn's orbit around the Sun may be responsible for the unusually uneven distribution of lakes over the northern and southern polar regions of the planet's largest moon, Titan. A paper describing the theory appears in the Nov. 29 advance online edition of Nature Geoscience. Read more. Source: NASA/JPL
Large Hadron Collider sets world energy record (Nov 30, 2009) The Large Hadron Collider experiment on the French-Swiss border has set a new world record for energy. The LHC pushed the energy of its particle beams beyond one trillion electron volts, making it the world's highest energy particle accelerator. The previous record was held by the Tevatron particle accelerator in Chicago. Read more. Source: BBC
Early Snowball Earth may have melted to a mudball (Nov 29, 2009) The idea that Earth was entirely frozen over about 700 million years ago – the so-called Snowball Earth hypothesis – poses one small problem: how did our planet thaw out? The conundrum could be explained if the Earth was more mudball than snowball. Read more. Source: New Scientist
Herschel telescope 'fingerprints' colossal star (Nov 28, 2009) The death throes of the biggest star known to science have been observed by Europe's new space telescope, Herschel. The observatory, launched in May, has subjected VY Canis Majoris, to a detailed spectroscopic analysis. It has allowed Herschel to identify the different types of molecules and atoms that swirl away from the star which is 30 to 40 times as massive as our Sun. Read more. Source: BBC
Energetic gamma rays spotted from 'microquasar' (Nov 27, 2009) After decades of searching, astronomers have confirmed that a gluttonous stellar remnant that glows brightly in X-rays can create high-energy gamma rays as well. The tiny powerhouse could serve as a nearby laboratory to study how particles are accelerated in the universe's biggest black holes. Cygnus X-3, a pair of objects that sit some 30,000 light years from Earth, has long been a puzzle. Read more. Source: New Scientist
Watching a cannibal galaxy dine (Nov 26, 2009) A new technique using near-infrared images, obtained with ESO’s 3.58-meter New Technology Telescope, allows astronomers to see through the dust lanes of the giant cannibal galaxy Centaurus A, unveiling its “last meal” in unprecedented detail – a smaller spiral galaxy, currently twisted and warped. This amazing image also shows thousands of star clusters churning inside Centaurus A. Read more. Source: ESO
Milky Way's building blocks still sparkle in the sky (Nov 26, 2009) They are glittering baubles in the sky. More than 150 globular clusters are known. Most were thought to have a simple make-up, with all their stars formed of the same primordial mixture of hydrogen and helium gas.Now it seems that globular clusters of stars may be remnants of small galaxies that merged to form the Milky Way. Read more. Source: New Scientist
Numerous "tramp" stars adrift in intergalactic space could await discovery (Nov 25, 2009) A new study investigating the disruptive effects of galaxies merging or tugging on each other shows that there should be numerous stars thrown from their habitual confines during such interactions and into intergalactic space. From a planet encircling one of those lonely stars, the heavens would make for pretty dull viewing. Read more. Source: Scientific American
Birthplace of cosmic guitar pinpointed (Nov 24, 2009) It's the biggest guitar in the galaxy. The Guitar pulsar is a stellar corpse that is tearing through interstellar gas and creating a guitar-shaped wake of hot hydrogen (pictured). Its birthplace may now have been found. Read more. Source: New Scientist
Spitzer Telescope observes baby brown dwarfs (Nov 24, 2009) NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope has contributed to the discovery of the youngest brown dwarfs ever observed – a finding that, if confirmed, may solve an astronomical mystery about how these cosmic misfits are formed. Spitzer's infrared camera penetrated the dusty dark cloud Barnard 213 to observe a pair of baby brown dwarfs named SSTB213 J041757 (A and B). Read more. Source: NASA/JPL/Spitzer
Cassini spacecraft sends pictures of Saturn's moon (Nov 23, 2009) NASA has released the latest raw images of Saturn's moon Enceladus, from the Cassini spacecraft's extended mission to the planet and its satellites. The images show the moon's rippling terrain in remarkable clarity. Cassini started transmitting uncalibrated temperature data and images during a flyby on 21 November. Read more. Source: BBC
Icy moon's lakes brim with hearty soup for life (Nov 23, 2009) Saturn's frigid moon Titan may be friendlier to life than previously thought. New calculations suggest Titan's hydrocarbon lakes are loaded with acetylene, a chemical some scientists say could serve as food for cold-resistant organisms. Read more. Source: New Scientist
Large Hadron Collider progress delights researchers (Nov 23, 2009) Researchers working on the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) say they are delighted with the progress made since the machine restarted on Friday. One official said the collider had done more in a few hours than it did in five days of operations last year. The LHC is being used to smash together beams of protons in a bid to shed light on the nature of the Universe. Read more. Source: BBC
Dark galaxy crashing into the Milky Way (Nov 22, 2009) The Milky Way's neighborhood may be teeming with invisible galaxies, one of which appears to be crashing into our own. In 2008, a cloud of hydrogen with a mass then estimated at about 1 million suns was found to be colliding with our galaxy. Now it appears the object, called Smith's Cloud, is massive enough to be a galaxy itself. Read more. Source: New Scientist
Large Hadron Collider restarts after 14 months (Nov 21, 2009) The Large Hadron Collider experiment has re-started after a 14-month hiatus while the machine was being repaired. Engineers have made two stable proton beams circulate in opposite directions around the machine, which is in a tunnel beneath the French-Swiss border. The team may try to increase the £6bn ($10bn) collider's energy to record-breaking levels this weekend. Read more. Source: BBC
Water found in lunar impact likely came from comets (Nov 20, 2009) The mystery of where the Moon's water came from may soon be solved. Evidence from NASA's LCROSS mission suggests much of it was delivered by comets rather than forming on the surface through an interaction with the solar wind. Read more. Source: New Scientist
Ripples in space divide classical and quantum worlds (Nov 19, 2009) Why can't we be in two places at the same time? The simple answer is that it's because large objects appear not to be subject to the same wacky laws of quantum mechanics that rule subatomic particles. But why not – and how big does something have to be for quantum physics no longer to apply? Ripples in spacetime could hold the answer. Read more. Source: New Scientist
How to explore Mars and have fun (Nov 19, 2009) The US space agency needs your help to explore Mars. A NASA website called "Be A Martian" allows users to play games while at the same time sorting through hundreds of thousands of images of the Red Planet. The number of pictures returned by spacecraft since the 1960s is now so big that scientists cannot hope to study them all by themselves. Read more. Source: BBC
LHC nears restart after repairs (Nov 18, 2009) The Large Hadron Collider (LHC) could restart as early as this weekend after more than a year of repairs. But officials have avoided giving an exact date for sending beams of protons around the 27km (17 mile) circular tunnel which houses the collider. The LHC was first switched on in 2008, but had to be shut down when a faulty electrical connection caused one tonne of helium to leak into the tunnel. Read more. Source: BBC
ALMA antennas collect first data (Nov 18, 2009) A team working on the ALMA observatory in Chile have made their first measurements from the telescope's site, located 5,000m up in the Andes. Astronomers and engineers took their first "interferometric" measurements of radio signals – so-called "fringes" – of an astronomical source. This is an important technical step for the ALMA project. Read more. Source: BBC
Keeping the young Earth cosy (Nov 17, 2009) Nitrogen now stored in the planetary crust and mantle may have prevented the early Earth from freezing, scientists suggest. The study lends weight to the idea that on geological timescales atmospheric pressure helps to regulate climate and habitability of Earth-like planets. Read more. Source: Nature
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