astronomy

Saturn has 62 moons. One of them is Enceladus, which on first glance doesn’t look like much – kind of like a huge galactic golf ball. But this small moon, about the size of England, is a lot more interesting that you might imagine. Enceladus provides almost all of the material that makes up Saturn's E Ring. 

"It turns out that this whole ring is material that came, ultimately, from the moon itself," says astronomy contributor, Jean Creighton. 

Many of the star constellations we see from the Northern Hemisphere have names that derive from Greek myths and legends.

Astronomer and Greece-native, Jean Creighton, knows both the science and the myths. One such tale is the story of the Corona Borealis constellation, also known as the Northern Crown.

“There was a huge battle between the Minoans and the Athenians, and the Athenians lost. So the king, Minos, said, ‘Okay. As your punishment, you’re going to be sending seven young women and seven young men to Crete to feed the Minotaur,’” says Creighton

Astronomers were excited to learn of the discovery of a new object in the Kuiper Belt recently. The Kuiper Belt is a distant part of the solar system, past the orbit of Neptune, estimated at more than 4 billion miles from the sun. 

The belt is believed to contain comets, icy bodies, dwarf planets and asteroids. Since the Kuiper Belt is relatively distant, it's difficult to know exactly what the object is or even get basic facts like size. 

Every month Lake Effect contributor Jean Creighton discusses new and exciting happenings in the world of astronomy and astrophysics, but this month we’re taking a bit of a look back.

In July of 1976, the American Viking shuttle had a soft landing on Mars to capture a 20 second video before going silent, most likely due to a dust storm.

"I don't think they understood at that time truly how magnificent it was, because it was two decades before we were able to do that again," says the director of the UW-Milwaukee Manfred Olson Planetarium, Jean Creighton.

On July 4th, NASA’s Juno spacecraft will enter orbit around Jupiter, and it's been a long time in the making. An Atlas V rocket launched with the Juno spacecraft from Cape Canaveral, Florida on August 5, 2011. It's five-year, 400 million mile voyage to Jupiter will soon have it orbiting the planet to investigate its origin.

Every month we talk with astronomer Jean Creighton about goings on in the night sky. 

This month, she talks with us about how to wrap your head around the night vista you have – or how to wrap the night vista around your head:

Jean Creighton directs the Manfred Olson Planetarium at UW-Milwaukee.

There aren’t many scientists who are out and out celebrities.

Steven Hawking might qualify but otherwise it’s a pretty short list. And there certainly aren’t many scientists today who would command a performance at the Riverside Theater.

Explaining complex concepts or theories to a general audience can be tricky. It's a problem many experts face when trying to describe their work. How do you explain it in a way that makes it understandable, without dumbing it down? 

Longtime Lake Effect contributor Jean Creighton is pretty good at doing that when it comes to astronomy. Not only does she help visitors at the Manfred Olson Planetarium, she's also been helping the Lake Effect team understand how the universe works for almost a decade and.

Despite the winter-like conditions to the west of us, we know that warmer weather is on its way. And with warmer weather comes a new spring sky to gaze at.

Astronomy contributor Jean Creighton notes that the Big Dipper and Cassiopeia are circumpolar, or visible in our latitude year round, but will change positions to be closer to the horizon.

News of the discovery of gravitational waves dominated the news a couple of weeks ago, and UWM scientists were among those who played a large role in that discovery.

Our astronomy contributor and the director of the Manfred Olson Planetarium, Jean Creighton, was not only excited about the discovery for its scientific importance, but also personal significance.

What do two black holes sound like when they collide? Not much. But just detecting it is the first step in unlocking some of the biggest mysteries of our universe.

A century ago, Albert Einstein predicted the presence of gravitational waves - ripples in spacetime created by catastrophic events. Yesterday, researchers from UWM and around the world confirmed their existence with the help of LIGO, a gravitational wave detector that senses those ripples as they pass.

It’s always exciting when new scientific discoveries are announced. It’s even exciting to talk about scientific discoveries that aren't yet confirmed. Such is the case for the potential ninth planet that astronomers have been theorizing about based on observations of the solar system.