Carnival of Space #342

See before you the Carnival of Space #342!  If you’d like to know more about the CoS, visit the Carnival of Space page.

From runaway pulsar stories to the youngest object we know about, flying around the moon and Cepheid variables (in Spanish) including boulders on Mars or crushed by pulsars, and boiling stars, our Carnival articles are the usual variety and scope from bloggers across the spacer blogosphere.

Welcome to the Carnival!

Cosmos: A Spacetime Odyssey
CC Petersen | The Spacewriter’s Ramblings

In 1980, the first Cosmos series aired on PBS and I was mesmerized by it. Each Sunday night we would settle down in front of the TV and travel through space and time, on a journey led by the late Dr. Carl Sagan. He co-wrote Cosmos with Ann Druyan and…

Kickstarter: Space Pioneer – Review (Part 1)
Jeff Miller | Everyday Spacer

I looked over the kickstarter for Space Pioneer. It is a space game that claims to be a real time strategy game that uses real physics (except for FTL and the like). They are working with a number of scientists to get the…
It’s All About Action!

Running at Breakneck Speed With Open Arms
Lucia Pavan | Chandra X-Ray Observatory

INTEGRAL is an ESA satellite in operation since 2002, sensitive mainly to X-ray and gamma-ray bands. The satellite has been accumulating data since the beginning of the mission, providing information on an always-growing number of X-ray emitters. It is thanks to this ability that new objects are continuously discovered. A large fraction of the sources that INTEGRAL has found still lacks any physical classification, a perfect area for…

Runaway Pulsar Firing an Extraordinary Jet
Megan Watzke | Chandra X-Ray Observatory

An extraordinary jet trailing behind a runaway pulsar is seen in this composite image that contains data from NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory (purple), radio data from the Australia Compact Telescope Array (green), and optical data from the 2MASS survey (red, green, and blue). The pulsar – a spinning neutron star – and its tail are found in the lower right of this image (mouse over the image for a labeled version). The tail stretches for 37 light years , making it the longest…

Supernova Exposes Universe’s Youngest X-ray Binary
Allen Versfeld | Urban Astronomer

Supernova explosion reveals an X-ray binary that’s not only the youngest known object of its class, but one of the youngest astronomical objects of any kind

Fly Around the Moon
Nicole Gugliucci | CosmoQuest

LADEE, the Lunar Atmosphere and Dust Environment Explorer, is on an extended mission to explore the tenuous, fleeting “atmosphere” around the Moon. It is analyzing samples of lunar dust and using spectrometers to monitor the changes and composition of the dust and material near the lunar surface. It is not an imaging mission, but missions managers decided to bring back some images anyway from the spacecraft’s star tracker. This camera is wide field and not very high-resolution, as it is used to orient the spacecraft with respect to the stars in the sky while it…

Las estrellas Cefeidas y la variabilidad estelar
Fran Sevilla | Vega 0.0

Why are Cepheids variable stars important? In this article we explain the importance of this kind of star for modern cosmology [The article is written in spanish]

Boulders Provide New Clues to Ancient Ocean on Mars
Paul Scott Anderson | The Meridiani Journal

The possibility of an ancient Martian ocean is an enticing one, and there has been growing evidence that it did indeed exist (dubbed Oceanus Borealis), covering most of the northern hemisphere, and about a third of the planet, billions of years ago. Now, some new observations of boulders in what likely used to be the ocean bottom have given scientists additional clues as to what this ocean was like, it was…

Asteroid Swarm ‘Pounded’ Pulsar Star, Causing Changes Visible From Earth
Elizabeth Howell | Universe Today

When you throw a bunch of rock and debris at a rapidly spinning star, what happens? A new study suggests that so-called pulsar stars change their dizzying spin rate as asteroids fall into the gaseous mass. This conclusion comes from observations of one pulsar (PSR J0738-4042) that is being “pounded” with…

Stars Boil Before They Blow Up, Says NuSTAR
Jason Major | Universe Today

Supernovas are some of the most energetic and powerful events in the observable Universe. Briefly outshining entire galaxies, they are the final, dying outbursts of stars several times more massive than our Sun. And while we know supernovas are responsible for creating the heavy elements necessary for everything from planets to people to power tools, scientists have long struggled to determine the mechanics behind the sudden…

Intelligent Alien Life Could Be Found by 2040
Brian Wang | Next Big Future

SETI researcher sees a good chance of finding intelligent alien life by 2040

New Scientist Reviews and Puts China’s Space Program in Perspective
Brian Wang | Next Big Future

New Scientist had a review of China’s Space Program

Cambodia 2014: Assessment of the Night Sky Seeing and Light Pollution in Visited Places in Cambodia
Stefan Lamoureux | Links Through Space

Follow us in our Astronomy trip through Cambodia. A series of 6 posts on Astronomy in Cambodia. Please enjoy the posts and pictures here on Links Through Space.

Stay tuned for the coming week as we add any articles joining the carnival late.