The Sun and its Danger Zone: The Chromosphere

One of the deeply confusing aspects of our Sun (and other stars) is their temperature structure. Starting in the core, the Sun is millions of degrees kelvin and supports nuclear burning. As you leave the nuclear burning core and climb first into the radiative zone and then the convective zone, the...

Party at the AAS

Tonight there will be a celebration of community building involving cocktails. To get details, just get Out of the Rain. (or look at the card at...

Giving AAS a Face

There is an excellant collection of photos from the conference (including one of yours truly) over at the 808scenezine.com that were taken by Katie Whitman. I’m still running around a bit madly, but I’ll be adding pictures to things. For now, get your photo fix...

“The Universe” on TV

A new player has emerged on the science special scene. The History Channel is premiering “The Universe” tonight. You can watch “The Universe” Tuesdays at 8pm/9c. The first episode is on “The Sun.” Here is what they plan to talk about: “It is a fireball in the sky, a...

All the news you’ll see again: Solar Atmospheric Heating, Tidal Tails, and Crab Nebula Explosion Date

Here’s highlights of the news I’ll be talking about later: Scientists have (again) found new tidal streams of material around the galaxy from a previously unknown, now shredded galaxy Scientists have (again) found a new explanation of how the Sun heats its chromosphere Scientists have (again)...