Feb. 15, 2012
Titan and Rhea Craters appear well defined on icy Rhea in front of the hazy orb of the much larger moon Titan in this Cassini spacecraft view of these two Saturn moons. Lit terrain seen here is on the...
View ArticleMars Science Laboratory launch
2. Mars Science Laboratory and Its Journey to Mars The Golden Age of the robotic exploration of Mars will continue when the Mars Science Laboratory (MSL) touches down this August. The Mars community...
View ArticleAlvin submarine diagram
4. Alvin Returns Ever since 1964, many of the most transformative deep sea scientific findings have been brought to you by Alvin, the lovable 6-foot titanium sphere that carried scientists miles...
View ArticleLake Vostok Antarctica
3. The Subglacial Lakes of Antarctica Mars has seen a lot of action over the last decade, but other destinations in the Solar System may be even more attractive sites for astrobiological exploration....
View ArticleFeb. 17, 2012
Supernova Remnant Using NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope, astronomers have solved a longstanding mystery on the type of star, or so-called progenitor, which caused a supernova seen in a nearby galaxy. The...
View ArticleSynthetic life
5. Synthetic Life Ok, so a synthetic microbe may not fall strictly in the realm of exploration, but it is one of the holy grails of astrobiology – one that would change how we understand life’s origins...
View ArticleKepler exoplanet
6. Extrasolar Planets NASA’s Kepler Mission – a quest to identify extrasolar planets in their respective stars’ habitable zone – is changing the way we think about the universe in near real time. Over...
View ArticleAlvin submarine robotic arm
In the spirit of the recent spate of “what to look for in 2012” lists – those all-important drivers of January magazine issues – I’ve assembled six exploration/astrobiology-related items that should...
View ArticleHamloft
Neurotic Neuroscience Zoloft parodies on YouTube such as this one reinvigorate historical tensions between brain-based and psychological explanations of depression. By the 1970’s the theory had taken...
View ArticleFeb. 21, 2012
Fastest Black Hole Wind This artist's impression shows a binary system containing a stellar-mass black hole called IGR J17091-3624, or IGR J17091 for short. The strong gravity of the black hole, on the...
View ArticlePuyehue-Cordón Caulle, Chile
It has been almost a month since the last Vulcan's View, so it seemed like it was time to break out another round of excellent images of volcanoes seen from space. This isn't a summary of all the...
View ArticleKilauea, Hawai'i
Kilauea, Hawai'i Like clockwork, Kilauea's nearly 30-year eruption continues onward. This NASA image (above) shows the degassing Halema`uma`u summit crater nested inside the summit caldera. Kilueua has...
View ArticleKizimen, Russia
Kizimen, Russia We end this Vulcan's View with three views of volcanoes in Kamchatka. The first is of Kizimen, a fairly simple-looking volcano that has been producing explosive eruptions and small lava...
View ArticleTinakula, Solomon Islands
Tinakula, Solomon Islands One of the major advantages to remote sensing is that it is very difficult to hide a volcanic eruption. Even as recently as a few hundred years ago, a major eruption could...
View ArticleBezymianny, Russia
Bezymianny, Russia Some of the volcanoes of Kamchatka are so close together they are practically built on top of each other. Bezymianny sits on the side of the larger volcano, Kamen*, which itself is...
View ArticleFeb. 24, 2012
Star Bomb NASA's Hubble Telescope captured an image of Eta Carinae. This image consists of ultraviolet and visible light images from the High Resolution Channel of Hubble's Advanced Camera for Surveys....
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