• Pic of the Week: The Hazy Disc of Messier 81

    This week’s space image was captured by the European Space Agency’s (ESA) Euclid space telescope, launched in July 2023. The is the first batch of data being released as part of the space telescope’s mission to map the universe. Here is the ESA’s explanation of what you are seeing: As part of this very large…

  • A Day in Astronomy: Voyager’s Light-Day

    Mark your calendars for one week from today, November 18th, when Voyager 1 will be exactly one light-day away from Earth. After 50 years of traveling through and then out of the solar system, the little spacecraft will be about 16 billion miles away – a distance that takes light one full day to reach.…

  • Space Quote: Full Speed Ahead to the Moon

    “Two years, we went from Apollo 4, an uncrewed mission, to Apollo 11, where our astronauts were landing and walking on the moon here. Let’s not just take the idea that we should be trying to do things on a reasonable timeline means it is inherently unsafe. That’s an insult to everyone that comes to…

  • Space Stories: A Promising Lunar Rover, Pakistani Astronaut on a Chinese Space Station, and Hubble Spots the “Cat’s Tail”

    Here are some recent space-related stories of interest. —Scientific America: “NASA Reveals New Lunar Rover, PROMISE, to Launch to Moon in 2028“ NASA officials on Saturday stressed that the agency is working to speed up testing and development of the hardware that will ensure human missions to the moon. The agency plans to have rovers…

  • Do You Want To Be a NASA Astronaut?

    If you were thinking of traveling to the Moon or Mars anytime soon as a NASA astronaut, you have until December 3rd to put in your application. Here is NASA’s summary of the position:Astronaut candidates will spend approximately two years training on the basic skills required to be an astronaut – from spacewalking and robotics…

  • Study Findings: Rare Reoccurring Ionosphere Disturbances Observed During the Artemis-II Lunar Flyby Voyage

    Geophysical Research Letters abstract of pre-print study findings: The total electron content observations during the Artemis-II Lunar mission revealed rare reoccurring ionospheric perturbations at three different occasions. The launch at 2235 UT on 1 April 2026 from Kennedy Space Center, USA, induced shock-acoustic and gravity wave modulations. Subsequent Apogee Raise Burn performed at 0023 UT…

  • Sci-Fi Quote: Was Anakin the Good Guy?

    “The point I’m making is obvious when one considers other popular, compelling fictional protagonists who commit unspeakable evils; no serious person really thinks that Breaking Bad’s murderous drug dealer Walter White and The Sopranos’ even more murderous gangster Tony Soprano are great role models. Yet when it comes to Anakin, some large number of right-wing…

  • Pic of the Week: The Dementors of Cepheus

    This week’s image is the winning entry from Astronomy magazine’s 2026 Astrophotography Contest. The winning image is titled “The Dementors of Cepheus,” captured by Julien De Winter, Landon Boehm, and Brian Diaz. It was one of about 1,400 entries in the contest. The magazine defines the image in this way: A pair of shadowy, wraithlike…

  • Elon Musk, SpaceX, and the Election

    It would be great if NASA had a number of rocket suppliers run by boring corporate types who competently provided a service and then quietly went home to their families each night. But we don’t. NASA as well as the Department of Defense have become more and more reliant on one erratic man and one…

  • Earthbound Astronauts Get Some Attention

    You are probably familiar with the names Wiseman, Glover, Koch, and Hansen from the Artemis II mission, but how about the names Elder, Ellis, Montgomery, and Spicer. It is not a law firm, but rather the four crew members who just completed 378 days as part of NASA’s simulated Mars mission. Their full names and…