Cosmos 1 is officially lost! However, fellow solar sailors, it's not too late to buy a t-shirt. I, however, can't help but focus my attention on this educational BBC News article; I believe I'm having some sort of pavlovian response to that last diagram, but thankfully it seems I'm not the first solar sailing pervert out there.
posted by analogue on Jun 29, 2005 - 15 comments

Nah, it couldn't be... ...could it? Was a prediction previously posted to MeFi partially fulfilled, or was it was just an optical illusion?
posted by Stoatfarm on Jun 18, 2004 - 22 comments

this is the end as we know it. Aussie Bloke describes upcoming catastrophic meteor showers. A mysterious Australian astronomer is ranting about something earth shattering in on the horizon, odd naval fleet movement, strange economic activity and interesting meteor activity. Truth or hoax, What does it all mean?
posted by lsd4all on Jun 3, 2004 - 51 comments

solar system [note: requires anark plugin]
posted by crunchland on Nov 15, 2003 - 14 comments

Become a GLM (Galactic Lord and Master) Your chance to invest in an expanding market (or is it steady state now, I forget), the Universe is up for grabs! Do you have a favourite astral body that you'd like to lay claim to? From Newscientist - Feedback.
posted by asok on Jul 6, 2003 - 5 comments

The Pale Horse Percentage. The demise of civilization has been predicted since it began, but the odds of keeping Planet Earth alive and well are getting worse amid a breakneck pace of scientific advances, according to Martin Rees, Britain's honorary astronomer royal. Rees calculates that the odds of an apocalyptic disaster striking Earth have risen to about 50 percent from 20 percent a hundred years ago.
posted by The Jesse Helms on Jun 9, 2003 - 21 comments

The Two Micron All Sky Survey at IPAC has been completed after 4 years and 5 million images. Detailed infrared images have been mapped into beautiful false color images. Be sure to check out the 2MASS home page at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst. So, what's your favorite astronomy related site or image? (via CNN)
posted by onhazier on Mar 28, 2003 - 5 comments

There's something out there
Target Body: J002E3 Spacecraft (UNCONFIRMED)
Observer Location: Los Angeles, CA
Coordinates: 118°14'27.6''W, 34°03'15.1''N

Since September 5th, the Minor Planet Mailing List (MPML) has been abuzz with speculation about an unidentified 16th- magnitude object. During the next 10 days the object will be moving rapidly across Aries and then Taurus, passing between the Pleiades and Hyades star clusters.
posted by riley370 on Sep 13, 2002 - 29 comments

A computer aided simulation builds a spiral galaxy from its beginning. In all, 390,000 particles were placed in an arrangement similar to a newborn galaxy. The end result after three months is an event that is believed to take billions of years to occur. (animation)
posted by samsara on Aug 7, 2002 - 7 comments

Wot, no black holes? Those wacky boffins in science land have already had a pop at the Higg's boson, but now they're moving on to everybody's favourite theoretical singularity, with a new theory about what happens when a star kicks the astral bucket.
posted by stuporJIX on Jan 26, 2002 - 6 comments

SpaceWeather.com is predicting another aurora showing this weekend due to the sun erupting a coronal mass ejection toward earth on Nov. 22nd. Although I live in the far west Chicago suburbs, others around my area saw the wild aurora showings on October 28th and November 6th. I missed them both because I didn't know about these events (which is why I now subscribe to the SpaceWeather.com mailing list). Had I known, maybe I could have seen this, or this, or maybe this, all from around the midwest! One thing's for sure, I'll be outside this weekend. The sky is very busy this fall!
posted by Sal Amander on Nov 24, 2001 - 9 comments

Bloink! Leonids touchdown in northwest Indiana.
posted by sandor on Nov 20, 2001 - 19 comments

First French woman in space set to go up again. Can Jerry Lewis be far behind?
posted by MAYORBOB on Oct 21, 2001 - 10 comments

Reflections on a Mote of Dust "We succeeded in taking that picture [from deep space], and, if you look at it, you see a dot. That's here. That's home. That's us. On it, everyone you ever heard of, every human being who ever lived, lived out their lives. The aggregate of all our joys and sufferings, thousands of confident religions, ideologies and economic doctrines, every hunter and forager, every hero and coward, every creator and destroyer of civilizations, every king and peasant, every young couple in love, every hopeful child, every mother and father, every inventor and explorer, every teacher of morals, every corrupt politician, every superstar, every supreme leader, every saint and sinner in the history of our species, lived there on a mote of dust, suspended in a sunbeam." Carl Sagan "Pale Blue Dot"
posted by crasspastor on Sep 11, 2001 - 15 comments

$145 million in a search for evidence of Big Bangs! So far the popular vote indicates most are in favor of the spending--whatever the cnn data is worth. Am I the only one who'd prefer it spent on my undergrad work, or even biosciences research?
posted by greyscale on Jul 1, 2001 - 21 comments

It's official. There was life on Mars!!! "I am convinced that this is supporting evidence for the presence of ancient life on Mars,'' said Kathie Thomas-Keprta, an astrobiologist at the space center and the first author of a study appearing Tuesday in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
posted by zeoslap on Feb 26, 2001 - 12 comments

This picture of the Space Shuttle and the ray of "shadow" from the moon is pretty cool. I even think I buy the explanation.
posted by aflakete on Feb 19, 2001 - 15 comments

NEAR shoemaker lands and survives. The NEAR Shoemaker spacecraft touched down on a barren space rock called Eros on Monday, in history’s first attempt to land an object on an asteroid. Scientists said the probe still appeared to be sending signals back to Earth after making contact, hinting that the car-sized probe survived the descent. The speed at impact was between 1.5-1.8 m/s. This marks the first time that a US spacecraft was the first to land on another body of the solar system. And, if the server is back up, it's worth checking out the project's website.
posted by warhol on Feb 12, 2001 - 11 comments

Lucifer's Hammer... misses. Well, ok, maybe it was only his tack-hammer, but the people in London would have hated it... [scroll down to second story]
posted by baylink on Dec 25, 2000 - 2 comments

please lord, make it stop--- just a little quote from red meat. i was looking up the times for the last eclipse of the millenium and thot i'd share. view at your own risk (%*)
posted by ethylene on Dec 24, 2000 - 0 comments

Water found on Jupiter moon "After months and months of wrestling with the data ... we believe there is very strong evidence of a layer of melted water beneath Ganymede's icy surface," said Margaret Kivelson, a space physicist at the University of California, Los Angeles.
posted by owillis on Dec 17, 2000 - 9 comments

Grrrrr! Space.com is a relatively high-profile site that usually promotes science. That is until today when they started listing horoscopes. I guess after securing $50 million in second round funding, they will do anything for hits.
posted by quirked on Aug 7, 2000 - 4 comments