The Gamma-Ray Large Area Space Telescope, or GLAST, was launched into Earth orbit just a week ago (I’ve written about it a zillion times). What with all the stuff going on in space right now it might feel hard to keep up with GLAST, but then today’s a happy day for you: GLAST has a blog!

It’s written by Steve Ritz, the GLAST Project Scientist, so he has some passing familiarity with what’s what on the observatory. He’s been keeping it fairly up-to-date, with a list of what GLAST is doing right now (going through testing before turning on the main instruments).

I’ll put it on my daily checklist to make sure I know what’s going on. You should too. When GLAST starts doing science there’ll be plenty to talk about.

Some people are just made of awesome.

This is the coolest thing I have seen in a long time (well, besides Phoenix, the GLAST launch, the last Hubble image… but you understand where I’m going with this).

And it’s pronounced goo-mee, not guhm-ee. It’s German for "rubber" (or eraser). Danke.

Tip o’ the insulin shot to io9.

I never know if repeating these posts helps or not. Oh well. I’m doing it anyway.

I’m doing another live video chat starting at 15:00 Mountain Time (21:00 UT) on Sunday June 15. I’ve embedded the stream below; if you see glare off my bald(ing) head, then we’re live. I urge you to go to the UStream page, though, so you can participate in the chat room (or find/use an IRC client you like; the server is chat1.ustream.tv and the room is #bad-astronomy). If you want to change your nickname there, type "/nick Billie Piper" (or whatever) in the text field.

Some potential topics for the chat: Hubble servicing mission, GLAST, organic compounds in meteorites, TAM 6. A search on this blog will turn up lots of things on these and other subjects!

I’ll be doing another live video chat starting at 15:00 Mountain Time (21:00 UT) on Sunday June 15. I’ve embedded the stream below; if you see/hear me getsiculating wildly, then we’re live. I urge you to go to the UStream page, though, so you can participate in the chat room (or find/use an IRC client you like; the server is chat1.ustream.tv and the room is #bad-astronomy). If you want to change your nickname there, type "/nick Steve Moffat" (or whatever) in the text field.

Some potential topics for the chat: Hubble servicing mission, GLAST, organic compounds in meteorites, TAM 6. A search on this blog will turn up lots of things on these and other subjects!

So lots of stuff from around the web:

1) GLAST launched! Yay!

2) Phoenix’s oven is ready to bake!

3) My good friend and great skeptic Richard Saunders is on an Australian TV show which is bound to be a big hit. Also, congrats to Karen Stollznow for becoming chief at The Skeptic, the magazine of The Australian Skeptics.

4) Objects like Pluto will now be called plutoids. I’m wondering how much more ridiculous this situation can get. Astroprof has more.

5) My friend (and hawt skepchick) Iszi has a podcast with Simon Dunn where they discuss the Sunday inserts in newspapers (it’s OK, they’re comedians). In their second episode, they talk skepticism and Iszi says I am very huggable (this happens about 16:50 into the ‘cast). I feel that this hasn’t been confirmed to a certain enough degree, and am volunteering to do more research with her as necessary. If you like their podcast, they have a Facebook group for it.

UPDATE: GLAST has launched, and is in orbit! The solar arrays have deployed, and everything looks great. Phew! It’s been a long road to space, but it’s finally there. It’ll be some days before the scientific instruments are switched on, but I’ll have more news as it develops — including the new name for GLAST.

GLAST may yet launch today, at 12:05 Eastern (15 minutes from now as I write this). I found a live video feed, and I’m Twittering it. I’m streaming NASA live and chatting on my UStream page; go there and join the fun!

GLAST, an ambitious gamma-ray astronomy mission, has been the victim of a seemingly unending series of launch delays… but those may finally be over. GLAST is scheduled to launch no earlier than 11:45 a.m. Eastern time (15:45 UT) Wednesday, June 11. I have no idea if it will actually get off the ground or not, but I’ll be watching just in case. I’ll be live-Twittering the event, and it will be broadcast on NASA TV as well. If I can get my act together tomorrow I might even do a live video stream. We’ll see.