Mind Soup

WASHINGTON – The Hubble Space Telescope has captured the earliest image yet of the universe — just 600 million years after the Big Bang, when the universe was just a toddler. Scientists released the photo Tuesday at a meeting of the American Astronomical Society. It's the most complete picture of the early universe so far, showing galaxies with stars that are already hundreds of millions of years old, along with the unmistakable primordial signs of the first cluster of stars. These young galaxies haven't yet formed their familiar spiral or elliptical shapes and are much smaller and quite blue in color. That's mostly because at this stage, they don't contain many heavy metals, said Garth Illingworth, a University of California, Santa Cruz, astronomy professor who was among those releasing the photo. "We're seeing very small galaxies that are seeds of the great galaxies today," Illingworth said in a news conference. Until NASA's Hubble telescope...

  (CNN) -- It happens only once in a blue moon -- and scientists say a blue moon is exactly what we'll see in the skies this New Year's Eve. Don't expect an azure glow over our lunar satellite, however. The term "blue moon" simply refers to the second full moon in a calendar month, something that hasn't happened on a New Year's Eve for nearly 20 years, NASA says. "December 1990 ended with a blue moon, and many New Year's Eve parties were themed by the event," said Professor Philip Hiscock of the department of folklore at Memorial University of Newfoundland, in Canada. "It was a lot of fun." Most months have just one full moon, because the 29.5-day cycle of the moon matches up pretty well with the length of calendar months. Occasionally, there will be two full moons in a month, something that happens about every 2½ years, NASA says. But a blue moon on December 31 is rare. It is possible for the moon to have a cerulean hue...

This year provided plenty of cosmic eye-openers for astronomers and casual stargazers alike. Neighborhood planets such as Mercury and Jupiter received makeovers in both a scientific and literal sense. The discovery of water on the moon and Mars provided clues to the past, not to mention hints for the future of space exploration. A class of newly-detected "Super-Earth" planets around alien stars may ultimately prove more habitable than Earth. And a growing fleet of existing, new and revived space telescopes promises another stellar year ahead. Here are the stories that stood out: 9. Oddball Objects Earth had a front row seat to a multitude of space objects in 2009, with stunning meteor showers, wayward space rocks buzzing the planet and weird lights in the sky – both natural and man-made. Annual light shows such as the Leonid meteor shower continued to dazzle, but some space rocks came a bit too close for comfort. An asteroid exploded over Indonesia with the force of ...

(CNN) -- NASA said Friday it had discovered water on the moon, opening "a new chapter" that could allow for the development of a lunar space station. The discovery was announced by project scientist Anthony Colaprete at a midday news conference. "I'm here today to tell you that indeed, yes, we found water. And we didn't find just a little bit; we found a significant amount" -- about a dozen, two-gallon bucketfuls, he said, holding up several white plastic containers. The find is based on preliminary data collected when the Lunar Crater Observation and Sensing Satellite, or LCROSS, intentionally crashed October 9 into the permanently shadowed region of Cabeus crater near the moon's south pole. After the satellite struck, a rocket flew through the debris cloud, measuring the amount of water and providing a host of other data, Colaprete said. The project team concentrated on data from the satellite's spectrometers, which provide the best in...

NASA now gives anyone the opportunity to send their name to Mars . Just enter your name, country and zip code into the form, and your name – along with many others – will be included in a microchip on the Mars Science Laboratory rover which will be heading to Mars in 2011. NASA has actually done this before, for example, you could have sent your name to Mars with the Phoenix rover . However, now that this has been found by Reddit , I’m afraid that that list of names sent to Mars will be an odd one indeed. First of all, there’s no captcha, and the form accepts nearly anything, even very long entries. From Reddit’s commenter digitalboy: “ It appears that the input is unbounded. One could then send a somewhat long Base64 encoded binary messages to mars. I’m sure there is SOME bound somewhere but it doesn’t appear to be on the form. I create a 4k first name and it took it as input. What to send…. Perhaps a map to my house? Perhaps the lyrics to my favorite song? Fibonacci sequence? Prime...

WASHINGTON - An odd, greenish backward-flying comet is zipping by Earth this month, as it takes its only trip toward the sun from the farthest edges of the solar system. The comet is called Lulin, and there's a chance it can be seen with the naked eye - far from city lights, astronomers say. But you'll most likely need a telescope, or at least binoculars, to spot it. The best opportunity is just before dawn one-third of the way up the southern sky. It should be near Saturn and two bright stars, Spica and Regula. On Monday at 10:43 p.m. EST, it will be 61 million kilometres from Earth, the closest it will ever get, according to Donald Yeomans, manager of NASA's Near Earth Object program. The story behind the comet is more intriguing than its appearance - the greenish tinge may be hard for many to discern. The colour comes from a type of carbon and cyanogen, a poisonous gas. Lulin was discovered by a Chinese teenager two years ago. It still has many of its original gases - ga...