Tag: michele ferrara

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Free Astronomy Magazine – March-April 2019 Issue Available For Reading And Download

Above: The quasar J043947.08+163415.7 (red) is extremely far away, and its light has been amplified by an intervening galaxy (blue) much closer to Earth. Credit: NASA, ESA, and X. Fan (University of Arizona)

The March-April 2019 issue of Free Astronomy Magazine is available for your reading and downloading pleasure.

To the several NASA and ESA highlights included in this bi-month's issue (including a wonderful collection of Spirit and Opportunity images in celebration of Opportunity's recent end-of-mission status announcement), Michele Ferrara has managed to both (a) make you hopeful about our future as a science-spreading civilization in the galaxy and (b) remind you how far we have to go here on Earth to improve our appreciation of that same galaxy. Hopefully, the Genesis Project (no, not really that one (but sort-of). This other one – besides this issue, see phys.org and universetoday.com) and Orbital Advertising (not going to dignify it with additional links) articles give you deep – and different – pause.

Please download, read, and pass along. Also, check out the many back issues at www.astropublishing.com

astropublishing.com/2FAM2019/ | Direct PDF

Click the Table of Contents image below for a full-size view.

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Free Astronomy Magazine – January-February 2019 Issue Available For Reading And Download

Above: This illustration shows what the TRAPPIST-1 system might look like from a vantage point near planet TRAPPIST-1f (at right). Credit: SETI Institute.

Slightly late to the posting game – the January-February issue of Free Astronomy Magazine is available for your reading and downloading pleasure. Highlights from the original content (h/t Michele Ferrara) include an excellent introduction to panspermia and the wonderful ways in which small, dense solar systems (like TRAPPIST-1, one of the only solar systems with its own website – www.trappist.one) might serve as test beds for better understanding if such an explanation is applicable to ourselves and our Earth – either from a local source (Mars?) or from the greater beyond.

Please download, read, and pass along. Also, check out the many back issues at www.astropublishing.com

astropublishing.com/1FAM2019/ | Direct PDF

Click the Table of Contents image below for a full-size view.

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Out With Upstate, In With More Of The Rest Of The Planet: Free Astronomy Magazine – May/June 2018 Issue For Reading And Download

Above: Marius Hills and a Hole in the Moon. Image Credit: NASA, Lunar Orbiter 2; Inset: Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter.

I am very pleased to mark my new editing contributions to the English-language version of Free Astronomy Magazine, starting with the current May-June 2018 issue. This new role was made possible by Michele Ferrara, Editor-in-Chief of the free and multi-language astronomy magazine that I have been very happily promoting on the CNYO site for several years now – and that I now get to promote here and on the CNYO site with my NASA Solar System Ambassador hat on. A combination of space agency publications (all the heavy hitters – NASA, ESA, ESO, ALMA, and Keck, among others) and original content, FAM has been a wonderful resource for those wanting to take a step beyond observation and into hard science and the many missions that make cutting-edge astronomy and astrophysics possible. It’s not only convenient to have a number of significant articles combined into a single magazine, but the inclusion of informative images and a great layout makes the download and read a no-brainer.

The process started in early April of figuring out what it meant to be providing a bit of translating and editing skills for both the text and the scientific content – that it, it not only has to be correct, you have to make sure it's right as well (let that sink in!). And the timing could not have been better (although that wasn't known until later in April).

Finally, it's a wonderful thing to be able to combine science outreach (which I very much enjoy) with an established brand that is doing more than its share to make astronomy and space science accessible to a considerable part of the global population (we’re talking bimonthly magazines translated into English, Spanish, French, Italian, and Portuguese, with requests for additional translations into other languages scrolling on the main page).

The Table Of Contents for the May-June 2018 issue is reproduced below. Follow links below to the on-screen PDF and downloadable versions. If you enjoy it, please forward along the links and astropublishing.com site.

astropublishing.com/3FAM2018/ | Direct PDF