• Space Stories: Earth Similar to Vesta, Comet 3I/ATLAS is from a Strange Cold Place, and a US/China Telescope Battle in South America

    Here are some recent space-related stories. —BBC Sky at Night: “We Were Truly Astonished” – Astronomers Say Earth Formed from the Same Material as Mars“ Planetary scientists say they’ve taken a step closer to solving the mystery of where the material that formed Earth comes from. While Earth resides in the inner Solar System with Mercury,…

  • Space Quote: Houston, We Have Glitter on the Moon

    “Now we’ve go a few very bright particles or fragments or something that go drifting by as we maneuver.” “There’s a whole [bunch] of big ones on my window down there – just bright. It looks like the Fourth of July out of Ron’s window.” -Statements by Apollo 17 Command Module Pilot Ronald Evans and…

  • Martian Rover Worksite Problems

    NASA’s Curiosity Mars rover had some issues two weeks ago while drilling on the Martian surface. On April 25th, the drill became stuck on a piece of rock that would not drop off of the robotic arm. The 28.6 pound rock, nicknamed “Atacama,” was fully attached to the rover. NASA stated this is the first…

  • Sci-Fi Stories: A New Murderbot Book Arrives, Captive’s War Planned for Prime, and Somewhere Our There Coming to Netflix

    Here are a few sci-fi stories of interest. —Winter is Coming: “Book review: Platform Decay is Exactly What We Wanted from Martha Wells’s Murderbot Next“ Platform Decay is the eighth book in Martha Wells’s Murderbot Diaries series, and it gives fans exactly what they love while taking the story in some new directions. If you’ve been…

  • Pic of the Week: The Crescent Earth

    This week’s image is one of more than 12,000 from the Artemis II mission recently released by NASA. This particular shot of the crescent Earth is a whole new way to look at our world from afar. These images are currently available via the Gateway to Astronaut Photography of Earth website, but they are not…

  • Study Findings: Detection of an Atmosphere on a Trans-Neptunian Object Beyond Pluto

    Nature Astronomy abstract of study findings: The only trans-Neptunioan object (TNO) with a detected atmosphere so far is Pluto, which has an average surface pressure of 10 μbar. Investigations of other large (>500 km) TNOs have only been able to establish upper limits of 1–100 nbar. A recent near-infrared study reported methane gas emission from Makemake, although its origin…

  • Space Stories: New Artemis II Photos, JWST Studies Exoplanet Surface, and Japanese Space Sake for Sale

    Here are some recent space-related stories. —ABC News: “NASA Releases More Than 12,000 Images from Historic Artemis II Moon Mission“ Over the weekend, NASA made public more than 12,000 photos from the historic Artemis II lunar mission…Over the course of the mission, NASA released dozens of images of the astronauts, Earth, the moon and even a…

  • May the Fourth Be With You!

    And speaking of Yoda, don’t forget to get your tickets for The Mandalorian and Grogu movie premiering on May 22nd.

  • Astronauts Unite!

    Uniting to support a good cause makes a lot of sense, and a number of astronauts would agree. That is why more than 100 former astronauts have joined to create a nonpartisan organization called Astronauts for America. What do they believe? They support democracy here in America, and have links on their site to the…

  • Space Quote: NASA Budget Hearing and Artemis

    “But for all the Artemis II mission accomplished, how we arrived at it was far from perfect, and the decisions of previous administrations that led to these deficiencies deserves careful reflection. Almost the entirety of [the Space Launch System is repurposed decades-old Space Shuttle hardware. I understand why, the Shuttle program was ending, and it…