“Shades of Ignorance” by CraftLass (Interview)

In this very special Astroengine.com (and long overdue) post, I had the great fortune to catch up with singer/song writer CraftLass who wrote a very cool song about science, ignorance and the general state of society. I am particularly honored as CraftLass was inspired by my blog (amongst others) when she wrote this wonderfully catchy tune. As you can tell by the link below, she has a huge talent — follow her (yep, she’s one of my favorite tweeps) and hopefully you’ll get the chance...

Posted by Ian O'Neill on August 1st, 2010

Compex Magnetic Eruption W...

Solar Dynamics Observatory view of the solar disk shortly after eruption (NASA). This morning, at 08:55 UT, NASA’s Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO) detected a C3-class flare erupt inside a sunspot cluster. 100,000 kilometers away, deep within the solar atmosphere (the corona), an extended magnetic field filled with cool plasma forming a dark ribbon across the face of the sun (a feature known...

Posted by Ian O'Neill on August 1st, 2010

Military “Black Ops&...

The Aram Chaos region of Mars, as seen by the HiRISE camera on board NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (NASA) There’s a military operation on Mars! How do we know this? Psychics — or “military grade remote viewers” as they like to be called — “saw” it, and their vision corroborated a Mars satellite photo that shows “man-made domes,” “pipelines”...

Posted by Ian O'Neill on July 26th, 2010

Earth is no Longer ‘...

For this special little planet, today has been a very big day. Although we’ve speculated that planets the size of Earth must exist elsewhere in the cosmos, it wasn’t until one of the co-investigators working with the Kepler Space Telescope said he had statistical evidence that worlds of the approximate size of Earth appear to dominate our Milky Way. We now know Earth isn’t unique. Alas,...

Posted by Ian O'Neill on July 26th, 2010

Did the Cosmos Deliver a G...

While enjoying a cricket county match, two spectators were apparently treated to one of the rarest of cosmic events: a meteorite falling from the sky, landing right in front of them. The “dark” rock, measuring 5 inches wide, broke in two on impact. Amazingly, a piece hit one of the witnesses. “One piece bounced up and hit me in the chest and the other ended up against the boundary...

Posted by Ian O'Neill on July 19th, 2010

Strasbourg July Lightning...

A bolt of lightning strikes over Strasbourg, France (Ian O'Neill) As you may have noticed, things have been rather quiet on Astroengine of late. This is partly due to my pan-European trek and my work on Discovery News, but mainly due to my horrid affliction of procrastination. Hence why I’m late in posting this pretty awesome picture of a lightning bolt blasting across the French skies. What...

Posted by Ian O'Neill on June 13th, 2010

Hayabusa Re-Entry Video: S...

There’s not a lot to add to this video, it’s too awesome. It was captured by NASA’s converted DC-8 jet that was flying over Australia when the Japanese Hayabusa spacecraft broke up during re-entry. I’ll let the video do the rest of the talking: Oh yes, and that little dot ahead of the falling debris? That’s the sample return capsule before it was found int he Outback...

Posted by Ian O'Neill on June 13th, 2010

Hayabusa Returns to Earth ...

Hayabusa re-enters over the Australian Outback, generating a bright fireball (screen grabs from the JAXA video feed) Staring hard at the live streaming video of the black Australian skies, I was hoping to see a faint streak of light glide across the camera’s field of view. But no, it wasn’t that subtle. Shortly after 9:51 am EDT on Sunday morning (or, for me, a far more civilized 2:51...

Posted by Ian O'Neill on June 3rd, 2010

Jupiter Got Smacked, Again...

Quite frankly, I’m stunned. An Australian amateur astronomer has just observed his second ‘once-in-a-lifetime’ event: an impact in the atmosphere of Jupiter. Phil Plait was very quick to get the news out, describing it as a “major coincidence,” and he ain’t wrong! Anthony Wesley’s first event was the famous July 2009 observation of what was thought to have...

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