Have you ever attended a planetarium show at St. Cloud State University? Have you ever gazed upward at the stars on a moonless night, wondering what is up there? Teaching astronomy for over 40 years has embedded in me a continual yearning for "what is new out there."
Founded in 1824, Rensselaer is the oldest technological research university in the English-speaking world. As it approaches its bicentennial anniversary, the Institute continues to be a driving force behind breakthroughs in engineering and science in virtually every arena-from transportation and infrastructure to business, medicine, manufacturing, Big Data, outer space, and cyberspace.
The dream of space exploration is deeply rooted in many of us. We look up and see the stars and wonder what it would be like to soar into the heavens in a spaceship. Now, a company called Elysium Space is promising to make that happen...as a memorial.
Mexico's Silvia Torres-Peimbert is the first Latin American woman to serve as president of the International Astronomical Union, or IAU, thanks to her five-decade scientific career. Torres-Peimbert, born in Mexico City in 1940, is only the second Latin American to lead the IAU - Argentina's Jorge Sahade headed the organization from 1985 to 1988 - and the second female IAU president after France's Catherine Cesarsky, who served from 2006 to 2009.
WAUKESHA, Wis. - Saturn's moon Titan is the only known body besides Earth with standing liquid on its surface. This world is an explorer's paradise NASA is only just beginning to study. And while the moon may resemble an early Earth, it's also terrifyingly alien.
NASA's Astronomy Picture of the Day (APOD) has a University of Arizona connection. The Cassini spacecraft recently snapped this dramatic panorama of Saturn's moon Dione. The high resolution image clearly shows the craters on the moon, which is about 680 miles across.
Last week's Crash Course Astronomy was particularly fun for me, because I love the topic of exoplanets. It's one of my favorite new fields of astronomy. But not my only favorite. Another is brown dwarfs, objects between the masses of planets and stars. I've been fascinated by them since long...
Astronomy is entering an exciting new era of exploration. Extremely large optical telescopes, including the Giant Magellan Telescope ( GMT), which is due to be built in Chile in 2021, will allow studies of stars and galaxies at the dawn of the universe, and will peer at planets similar to ours around distant stars.