Dr. Bruce Campbell, a geophysicist at the Center for Earth and Planetary Studies at the Smithsonian's National Air and Space Museum, is at the National Radio Astronomy Observatory in Green Bank, W. Va., to make a radar map of the Moon. In this video, made in September 2009, Dr. Campbell explains some of the work involved in putting together a detailed radar map of the Moon and why he finds the geology of the Moon so fascinating. [...more]
The newfound world, GJ1214b, is about 6.5 times as massive as the Earth. Its host star, GJ1214, is a small, red type M star about one-fifth the size of the Sun. GJ1214b orbits its star once every 38 hours at a distance of only 1.3 million miles. Astronomers estimate the planet's temperature to be about 400 degrees Fahrenheit. Although warm as an oven, it is still cooler than any other known transiting planet because it orbits a very dim star.
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As its name suggests, the omnimetre was designed to carry out numerous operations of arithmetic and trigonometry, says Peggy Kidwell, curator of mathematics at the Smithsonian. “It has scales for multiplication, division and common logarithms, as well as squares, cubes, and fifth powers of numbers.” In his own words, Sexton called his circular invention a “quite useful and inexpensive slide rule.”
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Recently, researchers from Boston University and the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute in Panama have been taking a closer look at the vibrations that red-eyed treefrog embryos use as cues to trigger early hatching. They discovered that treefrog embryos can evaluate different features of vibrations. [...more]
The Crab Nebula is one of the most studied objects in the night sky. First observed by Chinese astronomers in 1054 A.D., and possibly others, this supernova remnant and its neutron star have become favorite targets for amateur and professional astronomers alike. The Chandra X-Ray Observatory is operated for NASA by the Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory in Cambridge, Mass. [...more]
Dennis W. Kelly has been named director of the Smithsonian’s National Zoo in Washington, D.C., effective Feb. 15, 2010. [...more]
The Smithsonian’s National Zoo’s Reptile Discovery Center welcomed into its collection four chameleon forest dragons (Gonyocephalus chamaeleontinus), also known as chameleon anglehead lizards, as hatchlings on Nov. 11. [...more]
The Smithsonian’s National Air and Space Museum recently obtained two monumental instruments on loan from NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center. [...more]
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