News Round-up, 30 January 2009

30 January 2009

It's Friday! The week is almost over, and two days of relaxation are imminent. But not before the weekly IYA2009 news round-up!

The big news story this week was NASA announcing that members of the public can vote for an object to be imaged by the Hubble Space Telescope during 100 Hours of Astronomy. Predictably this story has been picked up by many sites, including Discovery, Fox News, About.com, Aero-News, ExamineriTWire, and countless others. Even more coverage can be expected during 100 Hours.

Our very own New Media Task Group Chair Pamela Gay was the subject of a story on DenNews.com. Pamela gave an amateur astronomy lecture titled "The Once and Future Role of Citizen Science: The Great Discoveries of Public Astronomers Across History" and impressed those in attendance.

MSNBC.com contributor Dan Roach has put together an informative article about From Earth To The Universe. Spanning ten pages, it shows a healthy sample of FETTU images, along with captions. It's a good taster of FETTU. Seed Magazine have done something similar, albeit with a snazzier interface.

GizMag mentions IYA2009 in the very first sentence of its article about the work of Thomas Harriot and Galileo Galilei. It describes how some historians believe that Harriot may have beaten Galileo by observing sights through a telescope first, and even created excellent maps of the Moon.

The ever-popular Astronomy Picture of the Day adopted an IYA2009-themed image this week. It was mentioned on the Cosmic Diary, and everything.

And finally, a quick plug for the excellent (and free) Communicating Astronomy with the Public Journal, which has just released issue five. Read, and be impressed. That's an order.

 

 Lee Pullen
IYA2009 Staff Writer

 

 

 

 

 

 


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The International Year of Astronomy 2009 is endorsed by the United Nations and the International Council of Science.