Don’t forget– "Monster of the Milky Way" is on PBS tonight at 8:00 local time!
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About Bad Astronomy
If you went to BadAstronomy.com and found yourself here, never fear: the BA Blog has moved to its new home at Discover Blogs. The original BA site (with the Moon Hoax debunking and all that) is still online, too.
Phil Plait, the creator of Bad Astronomy, is an astronomer, lecturer, and author. After ten years working on Hubble Space Telescope and six more working on astronomy education, he struck out on his own as a writer. He has written two books, dozens of magazine articles, and 12 bazillion blog articles. He is a skeptic, and fights misuses of science as well as praising the wonder of real science.
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Death from the Skies!
Order a copy of Death from the Skies! from Amazon, Barnes and Noble, or Borders.
"If things worked the way I wanted them to, any reporter about to do another 'sensational' story on deadly meteors would consult this volume, and bang! common sense would find its way into the news. How strange would that world be?"
-- Adam Savage, Mythbusters"Reading this book is like getting punched in the face by Carl Sagan. Frightening, but oddly exhilarating."
-- Daniel H. Wilson, author of How to Survive a Robot Uprising -
IYA 2009
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DISCOVERmagazine.com: Latest Articles on Space - DISCOVER Blogs: The Loom
October 31st, 2006 at 6:53 pm
I doubt that PBS is broadcasted via Astra 1D…
October 31st, 2006 at 7:01 pm
Would that have been on at 8:00pm Eastern time?
Missed it!
Is it on again?
October 31st, 2006 at 7:23 pm
I just finished watching it (7:00 p.m. CST). Pretty good - I would have liked to have seen those graphics on a BIG screen though. Kinda psychedelic at times. Lots of eating terms, which Neil deGrasse Tyson seemed to like talking about in his usual animated way. I especially liked Andrea Ghez. I found the explanations with the graphics to be very helpful - I feel I understand black holes better. So, thumbs up, imo.
October 31st, 2006 at 7:52 pm
Woo hoo! Being shown again at 11:00 pm Eastern here. I’m going down to the firehouse to watch it on the big screen TV (used solely for training purposes, of course. Those X-Boxes are just for .. erm .. hand-eye coordination training.).
October 31st, 2006 at 8:21 pm
Excellent, Excellent Show! Very interesting how they found the black hole in our galaxy with the adaptive optics, infrared, etc. Was wondering tho if the blackhole starts eating again and produces the jets of hot gas, what effects it would have if the jets got close to us, or even if they are anywhere close to being pointed at us.
October 31st, 2006 at 8:22 pm
Excellent, Excellent Show! Very interesting how they found the black hole in our galaxy with the adaptive optics, infrared, etc. Was wondering tho if the blackhole starts eating again and produces the jets of hot gas, what effects it would have if the jets got close to us. Are they anywhere close to being pointed at us?
October 31st, 2006 at 8:27 pm
Darn it! I saw your announcement at 8:40… Looks like WHYY isn’t doing a rebroadcast, either.
A show related to our work, and I missed it!
October 31st, 2006 at 8:42 pm
It showed a red dwarf properly collapsing then going supernova. I liked that. When is that “Black Holes: the Other Side of Infinity” planetarium show Phil went to going to get to Houston?? This would be much cooler in a planetarium.
Mason, didn’t they say the black hole in our galaxy probably wouldn’t do much until 10 million years, when our galaxy would merge with Andromeda and form a massive, massive black hole, and then our solar system would probably get flung out of the galaxy? (If I remember correctly. :-/)
October 31st, 2006 at 8:58 pm
its on in 7 minutes (im in cali right down the road from big bad ba)
October 31st, 2006 at 9:18 pm
Absolute dynamite show! How good? I have about half a dozen questions about black holes to ask our local resident astro-prof come next club meeting. Might even offer to spring for the pizza to get her to expound on the subject for awhile…
October 31st, 2006 at 10:05 pm
i’m not going to be able to sleep now, so mind boggling!
October 31st, 2006 at 10:09 pm
Mui fresco!
I missed the first couple of minutes but the rest of it was great.
Just plain cool.
JBS
October 31st, 2006 at 10:57 pm
Amazing! Is it just me getting older (mind you I’m only 22) but are science shows much better now than they were 10 years ago?
October 31st, 2006 at 10:58 pm
Nope, never mind. I made the mistake of turning on the discovery channel right now…
October 31st, 2006 at 11:07 pm
CRAAAAAAAAP I missed it!
Ahh well lotsa candy for me and a nice new refreshing episode of House! =D
October 31st, 2006 at 11:31 pm
In the last post about this, BootLadyTeri said the show will be replayed on Thursday.
Overall, I liked it. I didn’t know I got a credit in the end! That was cool. However, they only took a handful of the script changes I recommended. Oh well.
Incidentally, Brian McNamara, the scientist studying the galaxy clusters, is an old buddy of mine. We went to grad school together at UVa. I hardly ever see him anymore, but it was very cool to see him do such a good job onscreen.
November 1st, 2006 at 5:32 am
Good to see I have a second chance to see it; comes on at 1:00am over here.
I guess they gave credit where it was due, eh Phil?
November 1st, 2006 at 7:45 am
Oooooooooooh, this soooooo made my big screen plasma HD worth it…..
November 1st, 2006 at 8:35 am
Story of my life! One show on TV that I actually wanted to see and … major power failure. Whole town blacked out all night!
November 1st, 2006 at 8:46 am
Melusine, if you want to see many of those graphics on a big screen, most were from the “Black Hole” show now in Denver. DMNS’ planetarium is a big screen…
And I was surprised to see Dr Hamilton on so much. I guess I figured he’d just be a consultant behind the scenes. Now when I see him in the halls here at JILA, I’ll have to be suitably wowed…he’s a TV star!
November 1st, 2006 at 10:15 am
@TheMatt
It would be a bit decadent to fly to Denver to see a planetarium show! (Though I wouldn’t mind going to Denver again.) Phil talked about that show some time ago, so I thought it would be at HMNS by now - they’ve got the right screen for it, but it’s yet to arrive. ~sigh~
It must be fun working at JILA; Dr. Hamilton has some useful links on his web page, but some just lose me in a sea of astrophysics. All the commentators exhibited enthusiasm for black hole studies. It must be nerve-wracking when a team has only five nights at Keck and they’ve got to hope the weather cooperates, but the technology now is very cool indeed.
November 1st, 2006 at 2:43 pm
Melusine, I’m not sure if the show is headed to Houston or not. It’s playing in Baton Rouge, but that’s still a heckuva drive just to see a 20 minute show.
November 1st, 2006 at 4:19 pm
Yah, but Phil, I bet once the 20 Minute show is over there are many things to do in Baton Rouge. Now, I have to consider whether the drive is worth it from San Antonio!
November 1st, 2006 at 4:37 pm
John, it’s five hours to Baton Rouge for me. Um, I think I’ll wait to see if it shows up here.
Here is a NY Times article from Feb about the show that I found interesting. More on Andrew Hamilton.
But I do see there’s a Google video: video.google.com/videoplay?docid=6690341106545034815 I haven’t looked at this link since I get the dreaded ACCESS DENIED at work. But it’s no planetarium.
November 1st, 2006 at 4:39 pm
BA wrote: “Incidentally, Brian McNamara, the scientist studying the galaxy clusters, is an old buddy of mine.”
I like how they visually placed you friend and the other scientists on the show in front of colorful backgrounds that symbolized the conditions they were discussing. They even included a little bit of a breeze effect on people’s hair. An arty touch.
November 2nd, 2006 at 1:16 am
If anyone is interested in a very helpful explanation of black holes, time-space dilation, and general relativity for non-physics majors, this half-hour lecture by Professor Wolfson (physicist, teacher) is very interesting. It’s part of a lecture series that one can purchase, but somebody posted this segment for free. It’s really quite good:
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=5860570013701276874
(BTW, the name of the person who posted it is quite vulgar–I didn’t know how to get around that, but the lecture was worth sharing.)
November 2nd, 2006 at 8:48 pm
Dang, I’m working late at Red Top Mountain again. MAybe I can catch the reruns???
GAry 7
November 4th, 2006 at 6:12 pm
I saw the a “familiar” name in the credits as they flew by … thank goodness for TIVO instant replay!! Good Job Phil