What a week for noble births! Last Thursday marked the 200th birthdays for both Charles Darwin and Abraham Lincoln, and today marks the 445th year since the Feb. 15, 1564 birth of Galileo Galilei, the inventor of the telescope, whose controversial astronomy views landed him on house arrest for the final 19 years of his life. Galileo, a devout Catholic, ran into [...]
Two teams with United States participation are angling to build the next-generation telescope, which will peer at the very edges of the universe, into galaxies that were created immediately after the Big Bang. And as a citizen of a country that’s learning how to tighten its belt, I’m going to suggest they get together [...]
NASA’s Fermi telescope has discovered 12 previously unseen pulsars — the tip of the iceberg, researchers say — and has the potential to unlock new secrets of supernova explosions. The Fermi/LAT collaboration announced the discovery of 12 pulsars on Tuesday that have never been observed before, along with 17 that were previously identified by their [...]
It’s a wonderful thing when kids are invited to get excited about science. And with the launch of the space shuttle Endeavor on Friday, NASA is throwing open the door. As it heads to the International Space Station, Endeavor will be toting living things besides seven astronauts: butterfly larvae, young spiders, and the nectar and [...]
