• UFOs: If You See One, Report It

    Uncle Sam is starting up a new website so the public can report UFOs, or Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena (UAP) to use the politically correct term. The Pentagon’s All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office (AARO) is building the website, which notes: AARO will be accepting reports from current or former U.S. Government employees, service members, or contractors with…

  • Space Quote: SpaceX Has a Long List of Corrective Actions Before the Next Starship Launch

    “The final mishap investigation report cited a total of sixty-three (63) corrective actions for SpaceX to implement. These included actions to address redesigns of vehicle hardware to prevent leaks and fires, redesign of the launch pad to increase its robustness, incorporation of additional reviews in the design process, additional analysis and testing of safety critical…

  • Space Stories: Strange Asteroid Behavior, Another Earth in Our Solar System, and the Study of Galaxy Clusters

    Here are some recent stories of interest. —Futurism: “Something Weird is Going On with the Asteroid NASA Smashed“ Nearly a year ago, NASA successfully smashed an asteroid for the first time, in a landmark test to see whether we could divert a killer space rock before disaster — but now, the asteroid in question is behaving…

  • The Pragyan Rover is Sleeping on the Moon

    After a few weeks of work, India’s Pragyan rover on the Moon’s south pole was put to sleep last weekend to sit out the long lunar evening. It accomplished all of its goals, according to a Tweet from the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO): We shall know in a few weeks whether the little lander…

  • Pic of the Week: Cosmic Smokescreen

    This week’s image is from the Hubble Space Telescope. It shows a fantastic array of colors from a portion of NGC 6530, which is about 4,350 light-years from Earth. Here is more about this image from the European Space Agency (ESA): A portion of the open cluster NGC 6530 appears as a roiling wall of…

  • RIP: Marilyn Lovell, Wife of Apollo 13 Commander

    Marilyn Lovell died on August 27th in Lake Forest, Illinois at the age of 93. She is the wife of astronaut James A. Lovell Jr., who commanded the troubled Apollo 13 mission. You can read her full obituary at the Washington Post site. I just wanted to highlight one interesting piece from the obituary. It…

  • Planetary Society’s Day of Action

    On September 17 and 18, the Planetary Society holds its Day of Action to advocate for space issues before Congress. For those who already registered for the event, they can expect: Online and in-person advocacy training from The Planetary Society’s space policy team; A minimum of three meetings with congressional offices booked for you by…

  • India Has Been Busy – It Now Heads for the Sun

    Over the weekend, India launched another important space mission. The mission of the Aditya-L1 spacecraft is to spend four months studying the outer layers of the Sun. The Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) is overseeing the mission, which will come to rest at the L1 Lagrange point from where it will observe the Sun. For…

  • Space Quote: Has the JWST Changed Astronomy Forever?

    “Physicists and astronomers are starting to get the sense that something may be really wrong. It’s not just that some of us believe we might have to rethink the standard model of cosmology; we might also have to change the way we think about some of the most basic features of our universe — a…

  • Video: More on the Importance of Exomoons

    If you watched my earlier post on Cool Worlds Lab’s missed opportunity on an exomoon proposal with the James Webb Space Telescope, then you will enjoy this updated video where Assistant Professor of Astronomy David Kipping provides five reasons that the study of exomoons is so important. I do not want to give too much…