Carnival of Space #234
http://www.dearastronomer.com/
Welcome to another installment of The Carnival of Space! Here’s some highlights of space and astronomy news from the past week. We’ve got great stories on black holes, leap seconds, interstellar travel, solar storms, Newt Skywalker’s lunar base plan, and more!
Starting off this week’s Carnival is from Next Big Future, where researchers describe a new system for a society of highly advanced civilizations around a super massive black hole (SMBH), as an advanced Type III “Dyson Sphere,” pointing out an efficient usage of energy for the advanced civilizations. SMBH also works as a sink for waste materials. It would produce 100 million times the power of a dyson sphere around our sun. Check out the full article at: http://nextbigfuture.com/2012/01/type-iii-dyson-sphere-of-highly.html
Next up, Urban Astronomer reports that The Goddard Institute for Space Studies have released their annual global surface temperature report and, unsurprisingly, showed that 2011 was one of the hottest years on record. That puts 9 out of the top ten in the 21st century so far. Read more at: http://www.urban-astronomer.com/Urban-Astronomer-Updates/2011amonghottestyearsonrecord
Coronal Mass ejection from our Sun. Image credit: NASA/SOHO
Links through Space reports on the recent Sun storms and Solar flares. The Sun is exploding CRAZY! Recently, The Sun ejected the strongest solar radiation storm since September, 2005. A very fast CME (Coronal Mass Ejection) slammed into Earth last week. Learn more at: http://linksthroughspace.blogspot.com/2012/01/sun-storms-and-solar-flares-sun-is.html
Ian Musgrave at Astroblog reports that Comet hunters have unexpectedly found an old comet returning, and we might be able to see it! Read Ian’s post at: http://astroblogger.blogspot.com/2012/01/comet-2003-t12-recovered-in-stereo.html
NASA released a new “Blue Marble” image of the western hemisphere this week. This beautiful hi-res image was taken from the recently renamed Suomi NPP satellite. You can view the image, along with a striking and familiar planetary nebulae in a new image of the Helix Nebula over at Starry Critters.
Here’s another article from Next Big Future. Project Bifrost is an ambitious study examining emerging space technologies that could lay the foundation for future interstellar flights and investigates the utility of fission for future space missions. Read the full article at: http://nextbigfuture.com/2012/01/project-bifrost-is-new-study-of-nuclear.html
Artist's rendition of a Lunar base.
Amy Shira Teitel offers her thought’s on Newt Gingrich’s plan to have an American lunar base up and running by the end of his second term in 2020. Amy outlines why a Moon base is a horrible idea, and offers her thoughts on why we shouldn’t take his plans of lunar domination too seriously. Read her post at: http://vintagespace.wordpress.com/2012/01/28/on-newt-gingrich-on-the-moon/
Simostronomy: The stellar astronomy blog offers up two interesting articles. The first, mentions that this year we will add a leap second to the USNO’s clock on June 30. The second post is about the AAVSOnet robotic telescope K35 which is helping to confirm the latest Puckeet Supernova Search discovery, SN 2012N.
For your listening pleasure, Steve Nerlich at Cheap Astronomy offers up a podcast on big stars. Listen at: http://www.cheapastro.com/podcasts/CA136_BigStars.mp3
Next up, Paul Scott Anderson at The Meridiani Journal reports on a new study indicating that planets are the rule rather than the exception, and most stars have planetary systems.
Read more at: http://themeridianijournal.com/2012/01/a-milky-way-full-of-planets/
Rounding out this week’s Carnival of Space, The Chandra Blog offers a teacher guide for ice core records – from volcanoes to supernovas
That’s it for this week’s Carnival of Space! Stay tuned for the next weekly showcase of articles written on the topic of space.
If you have a science/space blog, joining the carnival is a good way to meet members of the space/science blogging community and help your site reach a wider audience.
If you’d like to be a host for the carnival, please send email to [email protected]
Ray Sanders is a Sci-Fi geek, astronomer and blogger. Currently researching variable stars at Arizona State University, he writes for Universe Today, The Planetary Society blog, and his own blog, Dear Astronomer
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