• Pic of the Week: Starship Prepares for a Future Flight

    The image above shows the SpaceX Ship 25 rocket from above as it tested it engines on June 26, 2023. Presumably, Elon Musk was tweeting out this and other such shots, but given the restrictions placed on Twitter these days, you may not be able to acquire this on your own without an account. As…

  • Profile: COSMIC

    COSMIC, also known as the Commensal Open-Source Multimode Interferometer Cluster, is part of the search for extraterrestrial intelligence (SETI) by attempting to find technosignatures using the National Science Foundation’s Karl G. Jansky Very Large Array (VLA) in New Mexico. This new project is a joint venture between the SETI Institute and the National Radio Astronomy…

  • Space Stories: Ingenuity Mars Helicopter is Back, Reclaiming More Water on the ISS, and Directly Imaging an Exoplanet

    Here are some recent stories of interest. —NASA: “NASA’s Ingenuity Mars Helicopter Phones Home“ The 52nd flight of NASA’s Ingenuity Mars Helicopter is now in the official mission logbook as a success. The flight took place back on April 26, but mission controllers at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California lost contact with the helicopter as it…

  • Space Quote: NASA’s Mars Simulator Has Long-term Guests

    “They are about to embark on an analog mission that encompasses operations, logistics, and research of living and working on Mars. The importance of this study cannot be overstated…NASA scientists will learn critical insights on the physical and behavioral aspects of a mission on Mars.” -Statement by Judith Hayes, NASA’s Chief Science Officer in the…

  • A Success for Virgin Galactic

    Last Thursday, Virgin Galactic successfully brought paying customers to space, or at least to the edge of space. In this case, it was three Italians, an instructor, and two pilots. You can watch a video of the flight here. Below is the statement by Virgin Galactic’s CEO: Tourist flights (at $450,000 per seat) are expected…

  • ESA’s Euclid Space Telescope Safely Launched

    Earier today, the European Space Agency’s (ESA) Euclid Space Telescope was safely launched from Cape Canaveral on a Space X Falcon 9 rocket (though the original plan was to use a Russian Soyuz rocket until the invasion nixed that idea). The space telescope is destined for the Sun-Earth Lagrange point 2 (L2), which is an…

  • Pondering ‘Oumuamua on International Asteroid Day

    On International Asteroid Day, I thought it was worth revisiting an earlier video from Cool Worlds Lab on the first detected asteroid from outside our solar system. The video, “‘Oumuamua: An Interstellar Visitor,” notes that scientists have never seen an asteroid within our solar system with these cigar-shaped dimension. Scientists now believe that more that…

  • Pic of the Week: Solar Flare X1 from AR2994 in ‘Motion’

    This week’s image is one of the finalist photos in the 2023 Astronomy Photographer of the Year shortlist held by the Royal Museums Greenwich. Check out the site for other fascinating finalist images. Here is a little more about this solar flare image from photographer Miguel Claro taken in the Dark Sky Alqueva region, Évora…

  • Study Findings: Drift of Earth’s Pole Confirms Groundwater Depletion as a Significant Contributor to Global Sea Level Rise 1993–2010

    Geophysical Research Letters (plain language) abstract: Melting of polar ice sheets and mountain glaciers has been understood as a main cause of sea level rise associated with contemporary climate warming. It has been proposed that an important anthropogenic contribution is sea level rise due to groundwater depletion resulting from irrigation. A climate model estimate for…

  • Space Stories: Launch of the Euclid Space Telescope, Mercury Flyby, and a Super Hot Brown Dwarf

    Here are some recent stories of interest. —NASA/JPL: “NASA to Provide Coverage for Launch of ESA ‘Dark Universe’ Mission“ The ESA (European Space Agency) and SpaceX are targeting no earlier than 11:11 a.m. EDT (8:11 a.m. PDT) Saturday, July 1, to launch the Euclid spacecraft. Euclid is an ESA mission with contributions from NASA that will shed…