Discovery's last hurrah – Day Two

Tue, 11/02/2010 - 10:10 — Ben Gilliland

Discovery's greatest hits

In which we take a look at some of the greatest missions undertaken by Nasa's greatest Space Shuttle

Despite the Space Shuttle's many (many) failings, it remains something a bit special and totally unique.

It was designed to streak into heavens as a rocket (during which time it accelerates to 28,000km per hour) and then return back to Earth as a glider before touching down on a runway like a commercial airliner. It was one of the aircraft to use digital fly-by-wire technology (meaning that there is no direct mechanical or hydraulic connection between the pilot's control stick and the craft's control surfaces and thrusters).

Also, for any design geeks out there, the typeface used on the side of the orbiter is Helvetica!

What small, red, a bit dim and very, very old? (Clue: It's not an ancestral mentally-challenged Ooopa Loompa)

Fri, 10/22/2010 - 10:08 — Ben Gilliland

It's a galaxy from the dawn of the universe!

Thirteen billion years is a long time to wait to be noticed but, for UDFy-38135539 (which we’ll call Bob for convenience), the wait has finally paid off and Bob is now a record breaker.
Bob is the tiny little dot that you (might) be able to see hiding in the middle of that circle on the right. It may not look like much, but that slightly red-tinged dot is officially the most distant galaxy ever recorded.
It is red because its light has been slogging its way across the universe for more than 13billion years and, in doing so, its wavelength has become stretched until (from where we are looking at it) it moved into the red end of the spectrum. This colour change is called ‘redshift’ and more shift the red has, the further away the object is.

Hubble captures cosmic hit and run

Fri, 10/15/2010 - 11:00 — Ben Gilliland

There's no hiding from anything these days!

It’s got to be pretty cool being an asteroid. You are as ancient as the stars and custodian to their most intimate secrets. You are the guardian of rich treasures that can reveal secrets about the formation of the solar system and you cruise the vastness of space, bearing witness to wonders of a sort that we poor Earth-tethered humans can only dream of.

It’s got to suck then when, halfway through another of your magnificent interplanetary tours, and minding your own business you are suddenly smashed into by another asteroid (probably uninsured) that wasn’t paying attention to where it was going.

Dying star fires cosmic cannonball...

Tue, 06/22/2010 - 10:16 — Ben Gilliland

...and creates glorious stellar art

If stars were like humans, when they reached the end of their lives they would slow down, gradually shine a little less bright and then die quietly tucked away in a cosmic nursing home. Fortunately (for those of us who can enjoy the results) stars die in a slightly more spectacular fashion From white dwarfs and red giants, black holes to pulsars, a star’s death can result in an entire pantheon of interstellar weirdness. The beautiful image to right is the result of star that exploded as a supernova more than 5,000 years ago. The explosion created an artistic masterpiece painted with stellar gases and launched a cosmic bullet and an epic cannonball.

hubble space telescope