Mauna Kea is an enormous, exinct volcano on Hawaii’s Big Island, and one of the best places on Earth to do astronomy (if you ask them, the best one). In fact, the summit of the mountain hosts one of the world’s most renowned observatories. What makes it so special, other than that it looks like this?
Continue reading “The heavens above Mauna Kea – Tales from Hawaii: Part 2”
The atmosphere of a planet holds the keys to make it habitable, so we need to look at them to figure if exoplanets are habitable. They are too far to send probes to measure them directly like we do with Mars or Jupiter’s moons, but scientists can study them from right here, looking at how they block light.
It’s not all about location: planets need a lot of things to go right to harbor life. Continue reading What makes a planet habitable
There’s a beautiful country, with forests and deserts, vast salt lakes and tall mountains. A country where driving can be mortally dangerous. A country where your new plasma TV won’t last very long. ¡Bienvenidos a Bolivia! A plasma screen is basically a bunch of small neon lamps. They work by passing an electric current through a container full of gas (like, you guessed it, neon!): … Continue reading No country for plasma TVs
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