SOFIA, or the Stratospheric Observatory for Infrared Astronomy, is a modified 747 with a 2.5 meter infrared telescope.
Stay On Target
When communicating science, sometimes the details can get in the way of understanding.
A Thousand Points of Light
With the first 1,000 posts done, it’s time to use the next 1,000 to change the world. Who’s with me?
Lies My Teacher Told Me
The common ideas about black holes are wrong, but that doesn’t mean black holes don’t exist.
You Could Have Died!
Growing up I was a bit of a risk taker. Along with a few of my friends, I occasionally did things that (while very cool) were in retrospect notoriously dangerous. Occasionally my Mom found out about these activities, which worried her to no end. As she put it, “You could have died!” This is absolutely true. Some of the stunts we pulled could have ended in serious injury or death. It is also true that my friends and I survived childhood largely unscathed. The reason I bring this up is because recently there has been a flurry of stories about solar activity in 2012, and the headlines are much the same “You could have died!”
Trust Me, I’m a Scientist
When I was in graduate school, a friend of mine asked about my research. I was studying aspects of black holes in the early universe, so I explained a bit about black holes, the big bang and such in broad terms. Afterwards she shook her head and responded: “Bull poopy.” Our conversation went for a bit longer, with her arguing that I couldn’t possibly know what I was claiming to be true, and me trying to explain how I knew these things, but it was clear that opinions wouldn’t change. The simple fact was that she didn’t trust me. I was either confused or lying, so nothing I said could possibly change her mind.
Science and Non-Science
This video is on RIT’s Escharian Stairwell. The Escharian Stairwell is a stairwell that loops back upon itself. So if you walk up a flight of stairs you find yourself back where you started. It’s inspired by M. C. Escher’s Ascending and Descending. At this point you probably recognize that the stairwell is nonsense. The video was created as the project of an RIT graduate student. It is well done, but clearly not real. Surprisingly (or perhaps not surprisingly) many people think it is.
Measuring the Sun
Last month there was an annular eclipse, but unless you happen to live in Antarctica, you probably didn’t get a chance to see it. You can, however make your own solar observation to measure the size of the Sun. This experiment uses the principle of parallax, and all you need is a sunny window, some cardboard, a pencil, and a tape measure.
NASA Outreach
You may have heard about NASA’s budget woes and how that impacts most of their outreach programs. It means we not only lose programs such as the annual NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory open house and CosmoQuest, but also programs such as the one I worked with this past weekend. It is a project called NASA Science and Technology on the Family Calendar.
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