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GAM 2018 Blog
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Astronomy as Community: Easing Loneliness
By Jessica Santascoy Astronomy is a gateway for learning science, says founder and president of Astronomers Without Borders, Mike Simmons. Many people agree and there's data to prove it. Astronomy can also help remedy an issue you might not have thought about: loneliness. Loneliness is an increasing worldwide phenomena, affecting approximately 30% of us in the United States alone. The effects of loneliness are profound. By some estimates, loneliness is as lethal as smoking 15 cigarettes in a day. Loneliness increases vulnerability to depression, anxiety, dementia and cardiovascular disease. It often leads to reduced task performance, impaired reasoning and limited...
Perception Issues
By Grom D. Matthies It does not work. We can't click on the Moon to Like/Dislike, retrieve further information about it or change its color. Selling a plot of lunar surface is or should be a crime, whilst howling at, dancing under or sacrificing something for our natural satellite is just a peculiar entertainment to spend time So, is our natural satellite good for anything? Painting in oil by Luna Steinbusch A teenage member in my widespread patchwork family recently produced an oil painting of the Moon. This made me wonder, if picking up the paintbrush was an artistic way...
Chasing New Horizons, All the Way to Pluto
By Alan Stern I'm a planetary scientist who has specialized in the study of our outer solar system, particularly Pluto, other small planets out there, comets, and the Kuiper Belt. I've had the good fortune to be involved in a lot of space mission teams in my career—29 in total, from suborbital sounding rockets, to Shuttle experiments, to ESA and NASA planetary missions. Of the 29 missions I've been involved in, I've been Principal Investigator of the entire mission or an instrument on the mission on about half. Of those, my favorite, and the one that is probably best known,...
The Hubble Space Telescope at 28
By Ricardo Reis No, that's not a mistake. The Hubble Space Telescope (HST) is turning 28 years old this month. Think about it. That's a whole generation of people that never knew a world without a space telescope! They were born, grew up, graduated, some might have already married and had children – I'd even bet that some are actually working with Hubble data right now! And that's the current lifespan of the most recognizable (and one of the most prolific) telescope in the world. And the most amazing thing? For a telescope that started being planned in the 1960's...
Moon Map for Children
By EuroPlanet Our Moon has many different names. It's called Luna by the Romans, Selene and Artemis by the Greeks, and many other names in other mythologies. It has inspired poets as well as scientists. The most ancient formations of the lunar surface are the 4+ billion year old highlands, and the areas where the surface is so densely covered with craters, that a newly created one surely wipes away a few earlier craters. The large basins and the smallest craters were all scooped out by asteroids and space debris coming from the outer space and hitting the Moon. The...
