In a bad mood last week (post conference blues seems as good an excuse as any) I was rather scathing about a proposal for the UK to build two new habitat modules for the International Space Station. It’s something of an embarrassment that the British flag is on the side of the station, although we [...]
Read More...Posts made in January, 2008
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So I log in to discover that Phil has linked to me, with the top post being something only of interest to us British folk. Obviously, if you are from the UK you should Save Astronomy, but perhaps the rest of you might want to check out what it feels like to observe on top [...]
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Speaking of the funding crisis in British astronomy, it’s time for an update on the situation. First, a quick recap; the body which is responsible for funding all of British astronomy and astrophysics, the STFC, announced an £80 million shortfall in its budget. While initially I (and many others) blamed the non-astronomical bits of STFC, [...]
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According to Universe Today, a group of scientists are proposing two British modules for the International Space Station. The total cost is apparently $1 billion, and few details are given as to what we’d gain.
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So British astronomy is in complete crisis (see Save Astronomy for details) because of a lack of £80 million ($160 million [...] -
As the AAS coverage continues to trickle on, Pamela has posted a long interview she did with Jordan (from Galaxy Zoo) and I. You can catch the whole thing here; I think Pamela may win the award for the hardest opening question of all time.
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I’m very excited by the flyby of NASA’s MESSENGER spacecraft past Mercury which happened a couple of days ago. The first of three flybys by this, the first spacecraft to visit the innermost planet for more than thirty years, should have included our first look at one of the few major parts of the solar [...]
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One final piece of news from the AAS – I’ve written up some intriguing Spitzer observations here. The route to writing this story started with a conversation in a bar about 1 in the morning, thus confirming that it’s always the social side of the meeting that’s most important.
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I’ve just returned from Texas to find that the world may be ending. Patrick’s beloved Woodstock typewriter, owned since he was nine and used for every one of his books, is finally giving up the ghost. With only his two middle fingers, he could type accurately on it at 90 words a minute and it [...]
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The AAS group liveblog over at Astronomy Cast has done a fantastic job of providing all the news from the conference. Phil Plait caught up with me earlier and asked me about the Galaxy Zoo cosmology results we announced today; you can see the result below. I think we should have found more light, and [...]
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This morning has been insanely busy; rewriting my talk which I’m giving tomorrow in the light of the results of the Galaxy Zoo bias study hasn’t helped. (You can see the latest here.) I did manage to sit in on an excellent press conference this morning though; the highlight was the results from the STAGES [...]
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