Monthly Archives: April 2009

April 30, 2009

Traveling

Since my last post I was sick for over two weeks. Not the swine flu, but something pretty tough. I still have a bit of the cough but the worst is over. The rest of the family had cold symptoms ...

April 30, 2009

Sergio Bertolucci, Director for Research at CERN, comes to ESO to talk about LHC

When I was ten or so, I was already a science enthusiast, even though I certainly did not know what science actually meant (to be honest I cannot say I fully understand it even now). But I remember I was ...

April 28, 2009

At the Planetary Defense Conference in Granada, Spain

Hello, After 25 h of travel, I finally arrived at Granada last Friday to attend the Planetary defense conference: Protecting Earth from Asteroids organized by the International Academy of Astronautics. This is a think-tank conference with a broad and diverse group ...

April 23, 2009

Launch of The Portal To the Universe

Today marks the launch of the long anticipated "Portal to the Universe". On Tuesday (21st April)  Lars Lindberg Christensen gave participants attending the IYA 2009 in Europe session a demonstration of what was planned for the portal, explained how the ...

April 23, 2009

Happy Day to Earth, our only home planet (so far…).

Hello, Today is Earth Day. A lot of actions and initiatives have been taken around the world: cleaning the beaches and the streets, promote green energy to the public and in school, write your representatives to support green legislations, and so ...

April 22, 2009

Earth Day occultation of Venus

I got up early today (April 22) to see the occultation of Venus by the Moon.   The disappearance happened before the Moon had cleared a hill on the Northeast horizon at my house, but the reappearance past the dark ...

April 21, 2009

Kick-off for the ESO proposal review marathon

Hello, Two years ago I was asked to be part of the OPC, the Observing Program Committee, of the ESO (European Southern Observatory). Twice per year, the astronomers submit their proposals to ESO to request telescope time. This is an highly ...

April 21, 2009

Kartini Day

Today, on 21st of April, we in Indonesia commemorate the date as The Day of Kartini. In this day, we celebrate the birth of Raden Ajeng Kartini (Raden Ajeng, or R.A. is aristrocratic title in Javanese culture), and Kartini is ...

April 21, 2009

A new exoplanet approaching the mass of Earth

In the JENAM (European Astronomical Society Meeting), in England ... plenty of wonderful results. Of course, from my point of view, the most important is the announcement by Michael Mayor of a new exoplanet, with an extremely low mass, only ...

April 21, 2009

ELT Writers Workshop, JENAM 2009

Immediately after the press conference by Michel Mayor, the reporters from the press conference were led to a writers workshop being presented on the science behind the Extremely Large Telescope. Some of the subject topics presented were: Take direct images of exo-planets ...