During the next decade, some cosmologists say a delicate measurement of primordial light could reveal evidence for the cosmic inflation hypothesis, which proposes that a random, microscopic density…

My Satellite will either save or destroy the Earth. I work as a Daytime Astronomer on the STEREO mission, a pair of identical satellites sent into an Earth-sized solar orbit to stare at the Sun.…

Gamma-ray bursts are the universe's most luminous explosions. Astronomers believe most occur when exotic massive stars run out of nuclear fuel. As a star's core collapses into a black hole, jets of…

Evidence of star birth within a cloud of primordial gas has given astronomers a glimpse of a previously unknown mode of galaxy formation. The cloud, known as the Leo Ring, appears to lack the dark…

I often get the query "what is a good website for astronomy?". My instant answer is "Astronomy Picture of the Day". If you're only going to check one site, choose this. One picture plus a paragraph…

Just a little weekend tidbit, art from the science world. Sometimes, during talks, I'll see art where others see just a data or figure. Here are two cases from a recent conference that I love.…

One of my readers (via Facebook) said he loved my blog but still had no idea what I did.  Good point.  While most career scientists hyperspecialize, I've moved among multiple fields of…

Scientists have used a computer simulation to predict what the very early Universe would have appeared like 500 million years after the Big Bang.  The images, produced by scientists at Durham…

The recent video "Barriers to Innovation" has some great thoughts about the culture of NASA and its barriers to innovation. Arriving from a Johnson Space Center study, the 10 minute video is worth a…

I gave a talk on my dissertation work.  Several of the more senior scientists were amazed at the bonafide science it contained.  They'd had me pinned as someone who did 'service work'--…