US men's soccer team surprises all!

congratulations to the US men's national soccer team, who have made it into their first ever FIFA international tournament final!! the confederations cup is currently happening in south africa in preparation for next year's world cup! the US succeeded in pulling off one of the most incredible upsets in recent history by defeating the current european champions, spain, 2-0 in the semi-final wednesday night! as you can imagine - i'm thrilled!!

there has been some controversy about holding the world cup in south africa: doubt as to whether they could construct all the necessary stadiums, handle the massive number of people who will come to watch the games, manage the violence reported around the region, etc... but it seems at this point as though everything is coming together successfully!

the big picture has a nice series of photos from south africa over the recent weeks in honor of the confederations cup!




the final of the confederations cup will be played this sunday: the US against Brasil!!!

a quote for today

“the art of living does not consist in preserving and clinging to a particular mood of happiness, but in allowing happiness to change its form without being disappointed by the change, for happiness, like a child, must be allowed to grow up.”

- charles morgan

jupiter and the speed of light

in this sixty symbols video about jupiter, professor mike merrifield and i talk about how the first measurement of the speed of light were taken using jupiter's moons, how to remember the names of the galilean moons, the crashing of comet shoemaker-levy 9 into jupiter, and more!

what did you have for breakfast?

the US supplies all sorts of silly types of cereal: lucky charms, cinnamon toast crunch, count chocula, etc... most of these cereals have a ridiculous amount of sugar in them, but i got reminiscent the other day thinking about them.

then i received this video from brady, the guy making the sixty symbols videos, and i realize that a lot of scientists in nottingham eat corn flakes for breakfast!?



today i had strawberries and a piece of toast. what did you have for breakfast?

carnival of space #108

head over to starts with a bang for this week's plethora of space reading at the 108th carnival of space!!

burning bananas

from the test tube video series comes a very interesting short video about research being conducted on bananas! there's an excess of banana peels available in several african countries that are just going to waste. could these banana peels be used as an efficient energy source when burned?

long days and short nights

england is known for its rainy weather and dreary days, but one thing i forgot to consider before i moved here is just how far north it lies on the earth! nottingham sits at a latitude of almost 53° north of the equator. due to the tilt of earth on its axis, when the north pole is facing towards the sun (summer in the northern hemisphere), the sky doesnt really get dark until well after 10pm and the begins to get light again before 4am!



i realize places even farther north get less, or no dark time, but i've never lived in a place where i experience this and i have to say - it's weird! when i wake up and feel light pouring in my system and think to myself - oh, it must be about time to wake up - but then open my eyes and see that's its only 4:30 am!?! maybe it should make me happy that i have so many more hours to continue sleeping, but i've been having a hard time getting back to sleep in such brightness (even with my eye cover, but that does help).

anyway, all this complaining is mostly to say that i'm very excited to celebrate the solstice tonight because that means the nights will start getting longer again in the northern hemisphere. yay!!

some friends are having a party and our goal is to watch the sun sloooowly set and then stay awake to watch it rise again!

happy solstice!

if you think i'm cute....

i sent my niece a present recently ;)

the whirlpool galaxy in the far-infrared!

last month we watched the successful launch of the herschel and planck telescopes aboard an ariane 5 rocket! they have since been traveling to their destination at L2 orbit (about 4 times farther from the earth than the moon). while traveling, scientists have been remotely calibrating the various systems inside the telescopes, and today they released the "first light" image from Herschel!!

this is one of my favorite galaxies, the whirlpool galaxy (M51), seen in far infrared light (160 microns, 100 microns and 70 microns) at higher resolution than ever before!


at these wavelengths, we are looking at the radiation from warm and cold dust and gas that live in the galaxy. the redder regions show colder material. from this gas and dust, new stars will eventually form!!

click here to view a little movie that combines the optical and new far-infrared images of M51! its interesting to me that the central region glows so bright with stars in the optical, but is still unresolved in the far-infrared that only sees dust and gas.