Category: Discussion
Kepler is Sick and Resting: “Mountain View, we have a problem”
"Mountain View, we have a problem..." NASA Kepler Manager at NASA Ames, Mountain View announced today that they interrupted the science operation of the spacecraft, due an issue with one of the reaction wheels. Kepler is equipped with four reaction wheels ...
An update on the Siding Spring Observatory
A short followup of my post sent last night with a good news through an official announcement by the Australian National University posted today. In a nutshell, no telescopes have suffered major damages from the bush fire, but the astronomer's lodge, the ...
Siding Spring Observatory is being threatened by a bush fire.
This is definitely not the kind of news that astronomers like reading about... The Siding Spring Observatory in New South Wales, Australia, is currently threatened by a large uncontroled bush fire. Siding Spring Observatory part of Australian National University (ANU) is home of several ...
Live-Tweets of Jim Green Presentation at OPAG
A few days ago, I received in my email the following message from the Division for Planetary Sciences. Community Urged To Hear NASA's Jim Green Presentation On 10 January There has been much discussion of NASA's Planetary Science Division (PSD) budget in ...
End of world predictions: a wasted moment of our collective resources
It is amazing the amount of money and time wasted in 2012 on this "end of the world" prediction. We can blame ignorance of the people or sensationalism from the media, but we should also discuss the role of educated ...
China joined the interplanetary club by successfully imaging the asteroid Toutatis
This exceptional result was brought to my attention late on Friday evening, but it clearly deserves a short post on this blog. Chang'E 2, a chinese mission dedicated to the exploration of the moon was recycled to explore the Near-Earth ...
Third day of the 2012 AGU Fall Meeting tomorrow, Wednesday December 5, and I anticipate another busy day. Julie Castillo from Jet Propulsion Laboratory and myself organized a session on the internal structure and composition of small solar system bodies ...
On November 26 2012, I gave a lecture at a UC-Berkeley for the course "Ethics for Astronomers" led by Paul Kalas, Professor in this university and colleague of mine for several years. I think this kind of courses is extremely ...
New NASA Institute – The NASA-Armstrong Space Exploration Institute?
NASA made a request for input to name the new NASA Science and Exploration Institute. You can propose your own name on this web site. I just submitted a proposed name for this virtual institute, which will include other destinations beyond the ...
No Detection of a Scar on Jupiter in the NIR
Some news about the Jupiter flash which was detected on September 10. I reported the absence of detection in the visible light from data collected by amateur astronomers. Glenn Orton, a colleague from the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, sent me yesterday ...