Lightening bugs lost in light pollution

This evening I’m going avoid saying anything too profound or educational. My evening was spent eating grilled foods, and drinking things I’m sure weren’t healthy as I kicked back with many of the other faculty and their spouses. There is a magical hour here in our middle-class suburban...

Cosmic Backlighting: The Cosmic Microwave Background

This is the second part in what I had originally seen as a two part series on what may be the neatest tools in astronomy’s tool belt for indirectly examining the stuff of the universe. I say originally thought, because as I sit here writing, I’m thinking this is going to evolve into three parts....

9th Carnival of Space

The 9th Carnival of Space is up at the Planetary Societ Weblog, which is written by Emily Lakdawalla.

All your words

I just want to drop you, my gentle readers, a message to say that yes, I do read all your comments. Sometimes (like this week), I get frustrated that I don’t have the time to respond to all of you. I want to write in response to all your emails, but doing everything is sometimes an impossible balancing...

Gravitational Lenses: Making the invisible detectable

Astronomers on Earth are limited in how they can look at the universe. We basically have three tools. We can detect light across a broad spectrum of colors. We can capture high energy particles – cosmic rays – that are flung at us from distant events. We can also potentially measure gravity waves...