I’m still thinking… Really? Really?! Someone thought it was a good idea to let me write next to these cool people? But I take it as a great opportunity to learn a lot about how to get great science news out to people who want it. This will also, hopefully, help me to accomplish one of my personal goals to “Share science with everyone.“

That being said, my AstroJargon of the Week series is going to become more of an AstroJargon of the when-Nicole-gets-to-it sort of thing, and all the other usual personal ramblings will continue here.

Now, I have to get un-behind on a jazillion emails and other things… what else is new?

Tomorrow is a special blogging event… Ada Lovelace Day! I’m looking forward to reading all kinds of stories of trailblazing ladies in science and technology. My own post will go up tonight! It’s not too late to pledge if you want to write about a woman that has inspired you.

Also debuting tomorrow is a project by the lovely Heidi Anderson, SheThought.com. This is going to be a great place to discuss women, skepticism, and science. See you there!

When the carnival players first showed up, I was lost in a beautiful, idyllic world called Pandora, inhabited by those tall, blue Na’vi and lots of fantastic (and fluorescent) creatures. But as I stepped out of the theatre labeled “Avatar”, leaving my 3-D glasses at the door, I came back to the real world (and my inbox) to remember that our universe is pretty wonderful as well. And this is exactly the point made at Martian Chronicles, our first stop at the carnival, who tells us How to Cure the Avatar Blues; so head there to take some time to wonder at Earth’s own beauty to start.

Our planet itself is by far not the only source of wonder. Go outside on a clear night and just gaze up at the treasures of the universe. The objects may be distant, but the beauty can be experienced first-hand. How big is space, really? Get a bit of a feel for it at Astroblog, where you can see The Southern Cross in Stereo and find out what it would look like if you “hopped over” to Alpha Centauri.

Humans have begun to reach out into this vast ocean of space. Kentucky Space takes us to a new center at Morehead State University which is Creating Kentucky’s Future in Space”. As NASA’s space shuttle approaches retirement, you can celebrate its achievements by participating in a Fan’s Choice Poll for Space Shuttle Commemorative Patch at collectSPACE. The lovely Astropixie celebrates human spaceflight as well as we wait for Hubble in 3-D to obliterate Avatar 3-D’s box office performance. (Well, we can hope!) But in order to get the public in general to care as much about spaceflight as we do here at the carnival, it’ll take some marketing savvy, as discussed in TED Friday: Rebranding Space and Education at Habitation Intention. We should just be sure to avoid any Risks of Manmade Sun Explosions as described at Next Big Future as we move along.

There is one man that we have been celebrating pretty specifically for a year now who realized the beauty and grandeur of our solar system: Galileo Galilei. Revisit Galileo’s Discovery of the Moons of Jupiter at Steve’s Astro Corner. Today, we know much more about those tiny points of light as they are extreme, and sometimes violent, worlds of their own. Visit volcanic Io in great detail with a paper on Verifying a new model of Io’s atmosphere by simulating multi-spectral observations at the Gish Bar Times. And once you are bowled over by that, check out Another dose of Martian awesomeness by the Bad Astronomer, with some truly breathtaking, high-resolution images of sand dunes from a neighboring world. Go explore Mars from the ground through the camera of Opportunity with The Road to Endeavor as she says Farewell, Marquette. Don’t forget to break out your red/blue 3-D glasses for the full experience!

Like the characters of Avatar, let us take our journey through our fantastic and awe-inspiring universe to the stars. You can fly to Messier 80 with Simostronomy, where we re-discover T Scorpii, Our Long Lost Friend. Just watch out for supernovae on your journey, as We Are All in the Gutter tells us about
A new, bigger kind of boom. Nevertheless, a supernova is still a pretty thing from a safe distance. We’re reminded that the universe is truly large enough to entertain us for a very long time as the Spacewriter shows us A Cosmos of Galactic Content. Our universe can be entirely bizzare with even just A Simple Look at Black Holes and Their Affect on Light and Mass at Weirdwarp. But it’s not so weird, as the Q & A of the Day at ChandraBlog reassures us that we’re not actually inside a black hole.

Don’t forget to share the wonders of the universe with those around you. One great way to do this is through astrophotography. WillGator.com tells us about the Astronomy Photographer of the Year 2010 contest, which is sure to serve up even more wonderous astronomical goodness. Another way to share the cosmos is actually with humor! The Angry Astronomer is starting a series on Astronomer Humor, so do check that out. (Are you taking submissions, Jon?) And finally, get a chuckle at an amusing out-take from next week’s Cheap Astronomy podcast. Someone with audio skills really needs to auto-tune/remix that for some real fun.

I hope you enjoyed this week’s tour of the cosmos and realize just a bit that the real world is often more marvelous than anything we can dream up with our fiction.

Photo credits: The Suss-Man on Flickr, Kara Allyson on Flickr, Hubblesite.org, saturn.jpl.nasa.gov, NRAO/AUI, Space Ritual on Flickr

Okay, I’m kidding, I LOVE those cool Canadian skeptics, and they are coming together for a new borg… I mean, blog collective called Skeptic North.  It includes writing from very cool people such as Steve Thoms, Kimberly Hebert, Kennedy Goodkey, Desiree Schell, and lots more.  Also, check out the video section over on the right!  They even have an interview with Canada’s own Daniel Loxton, who is probably the nicest skeptic in the world.  Pretty cool stuff, so go get your parka add them to your feed reader.

Domo kun: Okay, I see this one pop up a LOT. I think I used the kitten chasing graphic once? Seriously, there are many more relevant sites that come up under a search for this.

Magnetic reversals 2012: Okay, that just makes me smile. People are finding a scientific answer to their 2012 doomsday questions.  Again, I am by no means one of the top references on this question, but I’m glad to know I can help.

Naked barbies having sex: I don’t want to know why someone would be searching for this… nevertheless… my blog will not disappoint.  (SFW, sort of.)

Noisy astronomer dance costume: Whoever searched for that… you rock. Is this what you were looking for? And you can find actual dancing pictures at our official Bellydance Club at UVa website! Yes, yes, I need to update it… shhhh…….

Mad female scientist: This one came up a while ago. Again, I wonder what makes one search for that, and how they get to me.  I’m not really bent on world domination.  Well… maybe a little.

Dancing crackers: While I would love to see that, alas, I don’t think One Astronomer’s Noise can help you there.  Oh wait… sort of.

The internet is a funny, funny thing.

Other tidbits… I’ll be on the road to New York, then a plane to Valdosta, GA, with my brother this week. Our little boy is going off to grad school! Will be leaving the laptop at home, but bringing the brand new iPhone.  Carnival of Space 108 is up at Starts with a Bang!  Oh, and look to the right to see that I’ve got a new author on this blog, someone you may know as my hilarious and geeky boyfriend. He’s always to first to catch my typos, so I’ve made him an official editor.  He may even start writing his own posts, so stay tuned…

So what’s been going on?

• Carnivals #95 and #96 have been posted and are great reads. Ian O’Neill was kind enough to include me very late in the latter carnival. You can always count on me to bring some tasty Virginia wine! Seriously, go catch up on all the great astronomy and space news. Thanks again to the now 10 years old Universe Today for organizing this weekly dish o’ space!
• Alice’s AstroInfo has moved! Make sure to check your bookmarks and feeds and links!
• SarahAskew reminds us that this is a big week for astronomy during this great International Year of Astronomy! Unfortunately, this is my busy time, but some of these events are not to be missed. One of the events, “Around the World in 80 Telescopes,” will feature my favorite destinations/radio telescopes: The Very Large Array at 2:20 PM EDT and the Green Bank Telescope at 3:00 PM EDT. There will also be a webcast from ALMA in Chile at 11:00 AM EDT.
• Charlottesville now has Google Street View! And just in time for this amusing post on Google “ghosts and aliens” by Evan Bernstein at the SGU Rogues Gallery.
• A fireball was sighted a few hours to the north east of Charlottesville, and the debate still rages over whether this was a large meteor or a part of the Soyuz second stage. More data are needed, though meteor is becoming the favored explanation.
• Texas: Doomed.
• BSG has finally ended. Yes, I have some issues with the final episode, as epic as it was. I will just point you to some great commentary by carr2d2 on Skepchick, since I agree with much of what she says. SPOILERS, of course. In addition to my philosophical views, it’s just lazy story-telling.

What’s coming up?

• I finished Death from the Skies! Review forthcoming…
• The VAA did a viewing of Expelled… is it worth even writing about?
• The VAA also hosted a great talk last week by J. Anderson Thompson on “Why We Believe in God.” That is worth hearing about.
• Some fun radio astronomy news items… hopefully I’ll get to them before they get too old!
• I love Eureka.  I’ll tell you why.

One final update… this gift made me so happy…

The Pluto Files, autographed by Neil deGrasse Tyson! Thank you, Tim.

And, despite his blog title, the hair is adorable. Very Tom Baker-esque. Also, I’ve added that “Talk nerdy to me” sticker to my Amazon wishlist. Nerd boys FTW.

How can you celebrate? Well there are many ways to do so, starting from just looking up a the night sky or attending a public night at your local observatory. Some of my favorite IYA projects are those that you don’t even need a telescope for. Subscribe to the 365 Days of Astronomy Podcast! Every day, you will be treated to a new host and a new 10-minute show talking about some cool aspect of astronomy. You can even sign up to produce you’re own! Tune in on April 2nd to hear all about my research project from myself and my team members. If you are on Facebook, check out She’s an Astronomer, a group that is letting girls know that there are lots of female astronomers! (Did I mention that we are all gorgeous and fabulous, too?) And, if you were ever curious about the daily lives of professional astronomers, read Cosmic Diaries, a blog about the inner workings of those in the field. A really great bit of outreach is going on with the GalileoScope which will make astronomical observing available to kids all over the world for the low, low price of $10. Give kids the gift of the sky and donate!

So who’s celebrating the IYA? Party on at Space Disco, SarahAskew, Simostronomy, The Space Writer, Professor Astronomy, and Bad Astronomy for each blogger’s take of the astrofestivities. I’m sure there are more I forgot, sorry! A bunch of astro-bloggers are at the American Astronomical Society meeting in Long Beach, so *waves* to you guys and have a beer for me!

And to kick off the New Year, check out the first Carnival of Space of 2009 (#85) at Cheap Astro.

At the moment, I am writing from Boulder, where I am presenting at the URSI meeting at the University of Colorado. This is the meeting of the International Union of Radio Sciences, and includes all kinds of topics, or commissions, such as fields and waves, signals and systems, electromagnetic noise and interference, and, of course, radio astronomy. This, as you may know, is my game ever since I got hooked doing a VLBI project back in 2003. Tomorrow afternoon, my friend and I are presenting on our work with PAPER, the low-frequency array (prototype, so far) to detect hydrogen from the early universe. All throughout the meeting, and certainly once my nerves calm down after presenting, I’ll be taking notes on the cool radio astronomy topics being talked about. Look for summaries and updates here!

Speaking of radio astronomy, check out a great post by the Spacewriter on Radio Pollution, a problem that is just as real to us as spotlights are to optical astronomers.

Ciao!

One way I hope to foster discussion is with the CVille Skeptics blog. A shared blog has been a useful tool for the VAA, an easy, free way to keep in touch and keep current. I’ve started it off with instructions and some links on homeopathy, so check it out, and please join up if you are interested!

Sadly, I’ll be missing the second meeting, the Xmas Celebration! Hope it goes well and I’ll see ya at the next one…