Group items tagged

"The Hubble space telescope has captured an image of a "barred spiral" galaxy that could help us better understand our own Milky Way. Most of the known spiral galaxies fall into this "barred" category - which are defined by the pronounced bar structure across their centres. The presence of this structure may be an indication of a galaxy's age"

"Astronomers are worried. It's not some new unexplained mystery of the universe or the upcoming launch of a space telescope that is unnerving them, though. The problems they currently face are much more down-to-Earth - and the future of space exploration hangs in the balance. The anxiety stems from the fact that astronomy, especially space-based astronomy, is just plain expensive. And with federal budgets tightening, the government will be less and less able to make huge investments in big science projects. "We may see in the next decade or so an end to the search for the laws of nature which will not be resumed again in our own lifetimes," warned Nobel Prize-winning physicist Steven Weinberg in January during the American Astronomical Society meeting in Austin, Texas."

""I think that when people see Pluto (during the New Horizons flyby), they're going to figure out what a lot of planetary scientists have already figured out," Stern said. "Is that the outer solar system is teeming with small planets ... (Pluto) is admittedly a new "species" of planet if you will." "It's as if we had traveled the world and only found large dogs like the Labrador and never found the Chihuahuas. Well, would we say they're not dogs just because there's too many of them and we can't keep track of their names and they are smaller?""

"The Why Files is a good website that I discovered in a Classroom 2.0 discussion. The Why Files is a resource designed for students to learn about the science of stories in the news. The Why Files doesn't cover every news story, just the stories that have clear connections to science concepts. For example, one of the stories on the front page over the weekend was about the start of Hurricane Season. The story goes on to explain in text, image, and video the science of hurricane formation."