Archive for March, 2009
We have received information regarding CoRoT, from the mission’s Project Scientist, and BtC collaborator, Malcolm Fridlund. What do you want to read first? The good or the bad news? Maybe we should start from the last to move on to the positive side right afterwards. [ READ MORE ]
Hmmm. It’s a good question actually. Why DOES it matter that we now know some of those twinkling points of light in the night sky are circled by strange, exotic worlds? Why are astronomers spending hours and hours gazing at these distant suns, hoping to glimpse signs of planets spinning around them? And with countless [ READ MORE ]
The stray light inside the telescope was sunlight scattered through baffles at two gaps around the dust cover where the pins holding the dust cover to the sunshade are located. The stray light illuminated an “arc” around the edge of the dust cover opposite the entry points. (Interestingly enough, there are some dust particles on [ READ MORE ]
We’ve all been here walking from one side of the room to the other, eagerly waiting for that special moment, the moment when Kepler peels of its sleep mask and awakes up, beholding the stars ahead, capturing its first light. Well…it looks like Kepler is already slightly opening its dreamy eyes to the Milky Way! [ READ MORE ]
Until today we are, once more, one tribe sitting at the shore of the sea, not knowing what lays beyond it, what unimagined islands, continents, other tribes await us? We simply don’t know, until now all we could do was to think, to dream, to hope. But we have decided to send a scout, one [ READ MORE ]
Just got a message from Kepler Co-Investigator Natalie Batalha, San José State University, informing us that a couple of minor glitches will probably delay “first light” by a couple of days or so. Overall, though, everything is going very well. Looks like we’ll have to wait a bit more…guess it will only entice our curiosity… Stay [ READ MORE ]
As I write these words Kepler has still its sleep mask on and has been, in the last days, dreaming with the future view, with the wonders waiting in the distance, in some sort of REM as calibration tests take place. A good timing to publish the answers provided by Jon Jenkins, Kepler Co-Investigator to [ READ MORE ]
#01 – As you can see, Beyond the Cradle looks diferent…a problem appeared with the previous lay-out, while I try to find a solution for this we’ll keep this as clean as possible and, to be honest, I don’t dislike how it looks now, although I miss my Gagarin… #02 – If you are [ READ MORE ]
I remember well how I got in touch for the first time with Phil Stooke. It was 4 years ago. On those days I had revived my interest for space exploration and was clinging to every site and forum dealing with the MER mission. It was in the days when the Mars Exploration Rover [ READ MORE ]
This afternoon, after yesterday’s delay, expectations were high at Plesetsk cosmodrome in northern Russia, waiting to see if GOCE would finally make it. It did. As I couldn’t, personally, follow the launch, I came running on the first opportunity to check how things went and to post the more recent news, but looks like someone [ READ MORE ]
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