Podcast: Another Slacker Chat

We posted a new podcast to the feed a few days ago, full of fascinating insights, knee-slapping humor and Nobel-prize worthy oratory. You can’t miss this episode! If you never listen to a podcast again in your life, it will be OK if you listen to this episode. This is no joke, people, we even included 13 extra minutes FOR FREE. You won’t see an offer like this again. So act now!

Another Slacker Chat (MP3, 32.0MB, 46:27, Show Notes)

Hubble hosed?

Oh noes!

Hubble Space Telescope malfunctions, space shuttle repair mission uncertain, NASA says

The universe, concise and illustrated

From xkcd.

I wanted to post the cartoon in this post but they probably don’t like that.

The 46 billion year part is only off by a factor of 4 or so.

The Lost Episode

We recorded a great show last Tuesday, which I would have posted by now except I had a hard drive fail in my Mac mini and the show was lost. I tried various data recovery options to no avail. I’m bummed — it was a nice show with Doug, Aaron and I. We’ll be back soon!

In the meantime, I was thinking, it’s time to solicit openly what we’ve all been thinking — why is there no asteroid named “slacker” or “slackerastronomy”? We need some ambitious and slightly demented asteroid chaser to step up to the table and name an asteroid after us! Don’t you agree?

The Anthe Arc is pretty cool

Check out the latest from Cassini:

Cassini images reveal the existence of a faint arc of material orbiting with Saturn’s small moon Anthe.

The moon is moving downward and to the right in this perspective. In this image, most of the visible material in the arc lies ahead of Anthe (2 kilometers, 1 mile across) in its orbit. However, over time the moon drifts slowly back and forth with respect to the arc.

The arc extends over about 20 degrees in longitude (about 5.5 percent of Anthe’s orbit) and appears to be associated with a gravitational resonance caused by the moon Mimas. Micrometeoroid impacts on Anthe are the likely source of the arc material.

Video: SOFIA and Hubble

Brief discussions about Sophia and the upcoming Hubble servicing mission from the AAS meeting in Saint Louis. Cameos by Phil Plait (Bad Astronomy) and Mike Simonson (AAVSO).

Also available in MP4 format.