Carnival of Space #216


Vega 0.0 offers a brief presentation of  the Delta Aurigids meteor shower, a minor meteor shower that will be visible at begining of October.

From things we will soon see in the sky to things we can’t, Chandra blog answers the question: how can we detect black holes?

Bringing astronomy a little closer to home, We Are All in the Gutter’s Niall adds a new facet to Chicago’s iconic skyscrapers by explaining the role the city’s skyline played in 20th Century astronomy.

On the planetary side of things, The Next Big Future looks at Exoplanetsat and other cubesat and chipsat missions. The first exoplanetsat should launch in 2012

Ian O’Neill borders on the indecent with nude planets. If a large gas giant drifts too close to its star, it might have its thick atmosphere stripped, leaving its bare, rocky core.

To get to the planets, The Next Big Future considers lasers over rockets. Sander Olson’s interview with with Jordin Kare of Lasermotive looks at how laser propulsion could open up space access.

From visible light lasers to faster than light neutrinos. Physicists at CERN recently announced that they had measured the speed of a beam of neutrinos as being just slightly above c – the speed of light in a vacuum.  Allen Versfeld at Urban Astronomer looks at what this could mean, possible ways their conclusions could be false, and why we should be careful about predicting the end of the theory of relativity.

As a fitting close to this week’s carnival, Paul Spudis suggests we start arguing about the right things. Namely, What are we doing in space and why are we doing it?


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