Tag: Astronomy
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Top 5 places for Seattle skywatchers to see the Perseid meteor shower
Photographer Jeff Berkes captured this picture of a Perseid meteor flashing over Mount Rainier’s right flank in 2013 with the Milky Way filling the night sky. (Credit: Jeff Berkes Photography) The Perseids are traditionally among the most popular meteor showers of the year, and Seattle is traditionally one of the worst places to watch for meteors. Fortunately,…
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NASA picks candidates for new space telescope
Artist’s concept of the Imaging X-ray Polarimetry Explorer (IXPE), one of three finalists selected to be NASA’s newest astrophysics observatory. Credit: NASA NASA has selected three finalists for a new Explorer-class astrophysics satellite mission scheduled to launch by the end of 2020, and two of the proposals aim to fulfill similar goals to an X-ray…
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Stephen Hawking and Russian tycoon Yuri Milner kick off new search for E.T.
Stephen Hawking and Yuri Milner. (Photo courtesy of Hawking Center for Theoretical Cosmology at the University of Cambridge.) Russian high-tech billionaire Yuri Milner teamed up with the world’s most famous scientist, British physicist Stephen Hawking, to announce a new $100 million effort to detect signals from alien civilizations. The Breakthrough Listen initiative was unveiled Monday during a webcast from…
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Fixing Hubble’s blurry vision
STORY WRITTEN FOR ASTRONOMY NOW & USED WITH PERMISSION Hubble’s view of the M100 galactic nucleus before (left) and after (right) repairs to correct the telescope’s deformed mirror. Credit: NASA/STScI/JPL Ed Weiler knew he was about to walk into the lion’s den. It was June 27, 1990, and Weiler, the chief scientist with the Hubble Space Telescope…
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Search for ET continues as Paul Allen-backed telescope hits short-term funding goal
The search for alien life may be back on — at least in the short-term. A group established to raise cash to support the Allen Telescope Array — which shut down in April because of budgetary woes — says it has met its initial $200,000 financing goal. That’s enough to at least get the array…
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SETI off the hook: What if we miss the call from the aliens?
The Paul Allen-backed effort to communicate with alien life has hit a serious financial snag. The SETI Institute, which operates the Allen Telescope Array in northern California, says the government budget crunch has forced the organization to put the search for extraterrestrial intelligence on hold. In 2001, Allen agreed to bankroll the initial construction of…