超新星コンデンセート
Supernova Condensate is a blog about our place in the Universe. Of astronomy, chemistry and life in the big bad bubble of academia.
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Invader Xan is a molecular astrophysicist and part-time alien invader, who spends life looking at very small things on very large scales, and trying to better understand the chemistry of interstellar space.
DFTBA ♥
すべての我々は星で作られています。
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Writing this blog is a labour of love, and one which I evidently need a little encouragement towards on occasion. If you like what I write, the best way to show your gratitude would be to fuel my caffeine addiction and buy me a coffee to say thank you. All coffee donations are gratefully accepted!
Category Archives: space
木星
So here’s an interesting little fact. In Chinese and Japanese, Jupiter is known as 木星 which means “wood star” – and I think that’s a wonderful name for it! Interestingly, the name is pure coincidence. Just as our name for the … Continue reading
Ludicrous Speed
So Juno is now safely in orbit around Jupiter, and NASA scientists are triumphant, celebrating it as the “hardest thing NASA’s ever done.” They may not be wrong. No spacecraft has ever passed so close to Jupiter before. Jupiter’s radiation … Continue reading
Like shooting womp rats
It’s pretty late in my currnet part of the world. But all the same, I’m debating whether or not I should sleep at a sensible time. Mostly because it’s not every day that humanity sends robots to other planets. It’s … Continue reading
An item on my wish list: See a sunrise from orbit. Earth’s atmosphere scatters out the blue from sunlight. The scattered light makes the atmosphere look blue, but the sunlight has all of its blue photons scattered out from it, giving it … Continue reading
Winter Wonderland
A few days ago, the Cassini spacecraft, 1.61 billion kilometres away in orbit around Saturn, made its closest ever pass of Saturn’s tiny moon Enceladus. It flew by around 49 km above Enceladus’ south pole – perilously close by astronomical standards. … Continue reading
土星
This is a completely gratutous Saturn system appreciation post. Because Saturn. Images found courtesy of wanderingspace.net
Postcards from Pluto
New Horizons passed Pluto some time ago, but it’s still slowly dripping data back to us. The tiny craft wasn’t optimised for data transfer, so its hard drives are still packed to the gills with exciting discoveries which we’ll all … Continue reading
Twilight on Pluto
It turns out, Pluto has blue skies. And water ice on its surface. Which, at a cursory glance might make it seem a little bit like home. But only a little bit. Some notable experts were a little puzzled to … Continue reading
Snowball Moon
Enceladus is, without question, one of the most interesting locations in our solar system, and for a lot of reasons. Quite simply, this tiny Cronian moon is a mystery. We know what we see, but we have utterly no idea … Continue reading
10 Planets
Humanity has accomplished an impressive amount of solar system exploration. Especially given that it wasn’t too long ago that we knew next to nothing about the other planets in orbit around the Sun, we now have high resolution images and maps … Continue reading
