NAI Member Receives Sagan Medal

G. Jeffrey Taylor from NAI’s University of Hawai’i Team is the recipient of the 2008 Carl Sagan Medal for Excellence in Public Communication in Planetary Science. The Sagan Medal, presented by the American Astronomical Society (AAS) on an (almost) annual basis, was established by AAS’s Division for Planetary Sciences to recognize and honor outstanding communication by an active planetary scientist to the general public. Recipients are scientists whose efforts have significantly contributed to a public understanding of, and enthusiasm for, planetary science. Please join NAI...

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May 27, 2008 / Posted by: Daniella Scalice

A Quartet of Stars

Evgenya Shkolnik of NAI’s University of Hawai’i Team reported this week at AAS in Austin that she and her colleagues have discovered an extremely rare quartet of stars orbiting each other within a region smaller than Jupiter’s orbit around the Sun. Did they originate in this configuration or were they forced together by a dense disk of gas in their youth?

January 11, 2008 / Posted by: Shige Abe

Binary Stars in the Orion Nebula

Researchers from NAI’s University of Hawai’i Team have a new paper in Astronomical Journal describing a major survey of visual binaries toward the Orion Nebula Cluster. Using images from the NASA Hubble Space Telescope, the team performed analyses of over 75 binaries, including 55 new discoveries.

Source: [Link]

November 28, 2007 / Posted by: Shige Abe

A Geobiological Perspective on the Emergence of Animal Life

Researchers from NAI’s University of Hawai’i Team and their colleagues have a new paper in Geobiology reviewing recent work on the climatic, geochemical, and ecological events that preceded animal fossils, considering their portent for metazoan evolution. They also consider recent published research on the nature and chronology of the earliest fossil record of metazoans, and on the molecular-based analysis that yielded dates older than the last 35 million years of the Precambrian for the appearance of major animal groups.

Source: [Link]

November 14, 2007 / Posted by: Shige Abe

The First Astrobiologist Astronaut?

Kim Binstead from NAI’s University of Hawai’i Team, just back from a Mars Society-sponsored simulated mission to Mars in the Canadian High Arctic, says she plans to respond to NASA’s recent call for astronaut candidates. Good Luck Kim!

Source: [Link]

September 28, 2007 / Posted by: Shige Abe

Astrobiology in the Comics

Today’s “Prickly City” comic strip features the work of Norbert Schorghofer of NAI’s University of Hawai’i Team. Apparently, understanding the history of ice ages on Mars doesn’t have a positive effect!

Source: [Link]

September 24, 2007 / Posted by: Shige Abe

Direct Observation of Magnetic Field on Tau Bootis

An international team of researchers including NAI Postdoctoral Fellow Evgenya Shkolnik of the University of Hawai’i Team publish their observation in this month’s Royal Astronomical Society Letters of a magnetic field at the surface of star Tau Bootis, which is orbited by a giant planet every three days. The magnetic field’s intensity is similar to that of the Sun, but the star and the planet are tidally locked, possibly producing the observed magnetic knots.

Source: [Link]

December 11, 2006 / Posted by: Shige Abe

NAI Researchers Search for Meteorites in Antarctica

Follow along as scientists from NAI’s University of Hawai’i Team go on expedition with the NSF/NASA – sponsored Antarctic Search for Meteorites (ANSMET) program. View photos, read about the team and their mission, and stay current with regular dispatches from the “Streets of McMurdo.â€� The ANSMET program enables researchers to collect meteorites in Antarctica first hand for scientific study. Over 75% of meteorites are recovered from Antarctica, and more than 15,000 samples have been supplied to over 400 scientists in 32 countries over the last 30 years.

Source: [Link]

December 6, 2006 / Posted by: Shige Abe