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Tags: Stargazing / Leonid Meteor Shower / Meteors / Shooting Stars / Comets / Science Travel / → All Tags
In an Interstellar Burst, Leonid Meteor Shower to Pass Earth on Tuesday
If you find yourself outdoors this Tuesday, November 17, 2009, do yourself a favor and look up. In the right place under the right conditions, you just might be a witness to the Leonid Meteor Shower. Every year at around this time, hundreds of meteors associated with the Comet Tempel-Tuttle streak by the earth, giving observers an amazing show of cosmic activity, and if you've never seen it before, it might be worth the lost sleep.
Tags: Space Tourism / Science Travel / New Mexico Travel / Virgin Galactic / → All Tags
New Mexico's Spaceport America Is Opening For Tours, No Blastoffs Yet
If you’re patiently awaiting the launch of Virgin Galactic, there’s something new to keep you entertained for a little bit. Bulldozers and cranes at Spaceport America in Las Cruces, New Mexico have been moving dirt and rocks around to get things ready for rockets, shuttles, and spaceships. Things have been progressing so well that public tours will begin in December—looks like a great holiday gift.
The tours will require a snazzy hardhat, because of course, it’s a work zone and they don’t want any lawsuits injuries. Visitors will learn all about the history of New Mexico from conquistadors to the state’s future in outer space tourism. The highlight of the tour will be to see the runway and the vertical launch pad up close and personal. Maybe you'll even be able to add your initials if the concrete is still wet.
Tags: Space Tourism / Virgin Galactic / Science Travel / → All Tags
The Best Way To Jumpstart Space Tourism Is...Not To Go To Space?
If you want to be a space tourist today, pretty much your only option is to pay a space tourism company hundreds of millions of dollars to hook you up with the Russians. While that usually works—and it doesn't always—it's hardly what most people mean when they talk about broad-based "space tourism." They mean an industry where space is accessible as a luxury vacation option to a variety of tourists.
A new report on the industry insists that the only way to open up outer space is to start small:
Tags: Volcanoes / National Parks / Science Travel / → All Tags
Things At Yellowstone Aren't As Calm As Once Thought
This month’s copy of National Geographic has some great reading for those headed out to Yellowstone National Park this summer. However, it’s the kind of information that you may not want to hear if you’re a worrywart. Apparently the volcano supervolcano that created one of the country’s best national parks isn’t as sleepy as researchers once thought.
Although researchers aren’t trying to terrify us, there is some evidence that the volcano has been inching upwards in recent years. It’s doming, it’s growing, and researchers refer to it as a caldera at unrest, which sounds a little unsettling to us. Especially when you consider some of the suspected supervolcano eruptions that have taken place in the planet’s history. About 2.1 million years ago an eruption at Yellowstone left a hole in the ground as large as Rhode Island.
For now, researchers seem to agree on one thing: they aren’t sure what will happen and when. An eruption could wipe out much of the human race and next week we could be plunged into a volcanic winter for 100,000 years, or never at all. All we know is we better go see Old Faithful before it's upstaged by something a little more extreme.
Related Stories: [Photo of Mud Volcano at Yellowstone: enyacologne]
· When Yellowstone Explodes [National Geographic]
· Tonga's Underwater Volcano Might Affect the Fiji Beach Scene [Jaunted]
· Science Travel coverage [Jaunted]
Tags: Germany Travel / Train Travel / Berlin / Science Travel / → All Tags
Germany Gets Their Nanotechnology on Track...Train Tracks
For some reason, the combination of trains and science just seems right to us, unless it happens to be Amtrak and then we're looking at the science of bunsen burners and mercury thermometers. This summer, however, Germany is out to show the world a thing or two about their scientific advances in the realms of nanotechnology, life sciences and sustainable energy research with a touring train expedition called the "SciencExpress."
Departing from Berlin's Hauptbahnhof on April 24 and heading straight to Frankfurt before chugging along to complete its seven month journey of over 60 German cities, the SciencExpress is 12 cars long, or over 900 feet, of engineering excellence paired with an interior featuring "...fascinating hands-on-experiments and exhibits from numerous German universities, research institutes and corporations." The train, a "Sonderzug," or special-use train, is the star of the current German Science Year’s public outreach program, with the goal of imagining what our lives will be like in 2020.
Sadly, passengers aren't permitted to hop this baby for a tour of the country, but can visit the parked train in stations around good old Deutschland for free. We'd like to think of it as a mobile and way more advanced Cosi, for those familiar with the typically Midwestern science museum. For those of you intent on doing European tours this summer, check out the train's full station schedule, and save some Euros while still learning a thing or two.
Related Stories:
· Expedition Zukunft [Official Site]
· Science Gets On Tracks [DesignSpotter]
· Train Travel Coverage [Jaunted]
[Image: Expedition Zukunft]
Tags: Museums / Astronomy / Galileo / Science Travel / → All Tags
See the Tool of Galileo's Trade in Philly Tomorrow
After 400 years, even the most ardent patriot might want to stretch his legs. That must be why after over 400 years in Italy, Galileo's beloved telescope is on the road for the first time and staying at Philadelphia's Franklin Institute.
"Galileo, The Medici and the Age of Astronomy" opens tomorrow with help from Florence's Istituto e Museo di Storia della Scienza and runs all summer. For the first two months, the Franklin is running special programs on the weekends, like "World's Cheapest Space Suit," a humorous look at how NASA's sausage is made, and an "Astrolabe Cart" to teach the children about devices slightly more dated than an Apple IIGS. The visiting telescope is one of only two which remain from Galileo's personal lab, and has never left Italy before this year.
Take Amtrak and you'll be just walking distance from the Franklin when you pull into 30th Street Station in Philadelphia. Tickets to the Franklin are $20.75 for adults, $19.75 for seniors and $14 for kids; find 14 other nerds and your tickets are just $14 each.
Related Stories:
· Galileo's telescope, here in Philadelphia [Philadelphia Inquirer]
· Galileo at the Franklin [FI.edu]
· Museums coverage [Jaunted]
[Photo: AP]
Tags: Volcanoes / Beaches / Tonga Travel / Science Travel / → All Tags
Tonga's Underwater Volcano Might Affect the Fiji Beach Scene
If you're looking to suntan on the beaches in Fiji in the very near future, just beware of pumice from a underwater volcano that's been erupting in Tonga. Yes, an underwater volcano in between two of Tonga's volcanic islands has been shooting smoke, steam and ash into the sky, causing scientists to travel to the site today to see what's going on.
Right now the eruptions are not dangerous to any of the coastal villages nearby or to the fishes despite the presence of volcanic ash on the ocean surface. However, neighboring island Fiji could be hit with "large amounts of pumice" on their southern coast islands, making for a very gritty sort of beach day.
The Volcanism Blog has a great satellite shot of what the underwater volcano looks like but for the real shock and awe check out the video above from Live Leak.
Related Stories:
· Tongan inspection team heads to undersea volcano [AP]
Tags: Geek Travel / Knowledge is Power / Science Travel / Summer Festivals / → All Tags
New York City Festival To 'Blind Us With Science'
If your chemistry book is still holding up the leg of your kitchen table, then this festival is probably not for you. However, if you actually learned something a little more scientific during college than the physics of the perfect beer pong game, then you might want to pack your bags. Hitting New York for the second time, the World Science Festival looks to entertain, educate, and enlighten both those with and without high IQs.
