Richard Leis

Month: September 2008

  • Cities on the Sea

    Head out to sea! Some activists, engineers and technology enthusiasts are hoping to build homes and cities on the high seas, far away from existing governments and deep within a new frontier. The Seasteading ’08 Conference will be held on October 10, 2008.

  • First Beams Circulate the Large Hadron Collider

    Photons take a trip around the Large Hadron Collider for the first time and a University of Arizona researcher speaks to the public about the success. Dr. Elliot Cheu explained just what this complex machine is setting out to do and how it could change the way we understand the universe.

  • Šteins Flyby Animated

    Along with first images, anaglyphs and initial data results from Rosetta’s successful flyby of Asteroid (2867) Šteins, mission team members put together an animation of the flyby: More Information Rosetta Rosetta Blog Press Release: “Steins: A diamond in the sky“ Related Books [amazon-product]0387726721[/amazon-product] [amazon-product]1402025726[/amazon-product] [amazon-product]038777517X[/amazon-product]

  • Šteins Up Close

    Hours after its successful flyby of “the jewel of the solar system”, the robotic traveler Rosetta continues to return data from the encounter. From a point of light discovered in 1969 into a world of new vistas, here is Asteroid (2867) Šteins: At a press conference to announce preliminary results and to show the first…

  • Amazon Video On Demand Arrives

    Credit: Screenshot of Amazon Video On Demand [REVIEW] — Late last year Adobe released an upgrade to their ubiquitous Flash software that enabled higher quality video. In response, overall video streaming quality on the web has improved as various video services have upgraded their offerings. Amazon is the latest to make the leap, turning their…

  • Asteroid (2867) Šteins Flyby Coming

    Rosetta, the European Space Agency (ESA) spacecraft on its way to orbit and deploy a lander on a comet, is now approaching Asteroid (2867) Šteins. The flyby will bring the spacecraft within 800 km of Šteins on Friday evening, September 5, 2008. The ESA will provide a webcast about the event beginning on September 06,…

  • Planetary Provenance – Venus

    Venus is the Earth-that-could-have-been and the Earth-that-still-might-be.  Our so called sister planet orbits second from the Sun. Cloudy, hot, and unhospitable to life as we know it, Venus demonstrates as well as Mars why comparative planetary science can greatly improve understanding of our own planet. The greenhouse effect on Venus results in a poorly understood phenomena…

  • Venus Rises – “Ikarus – Part 1”

    Promotional art from Venus Rises Ikarus Part 1 web series

    Venus Rises, created by writer/director and Executive Producer J. G. Birdsall is especially noteworthy because this is not fan fiction.

  • Planetary Provenance – Mercury

    I will be speaking at the Sunday, September 7 meeting of the Humanist Society of Greater Phoenix about “Images of Mars and Interplanetary Science.” This series of posts in preparation for the event will explore current spacecraft activities in planetary science. After the astronomy revolt that left the solar system with eight planets, four dwarf…