Sat February 19, 11
Early Saturday's thoughts of a [mature] astronomer
Every year here in Garching there is a workshop organized by the International Max Planck Research School for Astrophysics (IMPRS for short). The purpose is to give the chance to brilliant undergraduate students to participate to the IMPRS programme and get a PhD in Astrophysics in one of the most actives campuses in Europe and [...]
Thu February 17, 11
Last call for WISE
Today (Feb 17, 2011) at 20h UT I sent the command to turn off the WISE telemetry transmitter. No further telemetry passes are currently planned. The telescope interface flange temperature has risen to 184.1 K (from 73.5 K) due to looking at the Earth for half the orbit since we stopped the survey scans [...]
Mon February 14, 11
A Valentine night with Tempel-1 ?
Today is the night of Valentine day, I am not particularly romantic but I always tried to do something special for this day. Unfortunately, this year Valentine day is a disaster since I have several deadlines including an important paper which needs to be submitted before midnight. At 11:00pm, my student and I found out [...]
Thu February 10, 11
Cosmic Diary Blog hosted at the SETI Institute
An important update for our readers. You may have noticed a lack of activity over the few days on this blog and a significant change in the speed access of this blog.
The Cosmic Diary web site is now hosted at the SETI Institute. We will make a few changes in the design which should improve [...]
Wed February 2, 11
A landslide of Kepler Exoplanet Candidates
There will be a before and after Kepler Era in astronomy. Today, with the release of 1,202 exoplanet candidates from data collected with the Kepler spacecraft over 140 days of observation, we have just entered in a new age of astronomy.The Kepler spacecraft is the 10th NASA Discovery mission launched in March 2009 which was [...]
Tue February 1, 11
WISE is shutting down
WISE has completed its survey of the main belt of asteroids and is going into hibernation mode today. While it is sad to see a functioning space infrared telescope shut down, WISE has observed the whole sky - twice! - and is pushing the confusion limit in its shortest band, so the value of [...]
Sat January 29, 11
Wasting tax payer's money?
Couple of days ago I came across a YouTube video that has become an instant hit among the scientist, especially PhD students. It has been made by couple of scientists doing laboratory research on Alzheimer's Disease. The video is called ‘Bad Project' and it features a graduate student who has been given ‘project straight from [...]
Wed January 26, 11
Annular solar eclipse from space
This is the annular eclipse of the Sun viewed from space! This X-ray photo was acquired by solar physics satellite “Hinode” on 4 Janunary 2011. The dark disk in front of the Sun (solar corona) is the moon.
Tue January 25, 11
Virtual Telescope Live Observing Session - First Light
Right now I am really excited, Gianluca Masi with his Virtual Telescope is sharing first light with his new set up for the Virtual Telescope, and there are some amazing images coming through right now!
Here are some of the images, with no image processing , just raw images from the new Telescope, Gianluca has just [...]
Mon January 10, 11
Kepler-10b – The first unambiguous rocky exoplanet
It is done. The Kepler team finally announced the discovery of its first terrestrial exoplanet. A referred journal, accepted in the Astrophysical journal (link soon here) by Natalie Bataldha and a large number of colleagues, describes this new member of the exoplanet family. This is the 519th known exoplanet based on the Extra-solar Planets [...]