• Pic of the Week: Anniversary Image from JWST

    This amazing image was released by NASA earlier this week in celebration of the James Webb Space Telescope’s (JWST) one year anniversary. It shows the Rho Ophiuchi cloud complex, which is the closest star-forming region to Earth. Here is more from NASA: Webb’s image shows a region containing approximately 50 young stars, all of them…

  • Where is This? July 12, 2023 Quiz

    Take a look at the image above. Can you determine where this image originated? Take a guess and then check your answer by going to the “Where is This? The Answer Sheet” page.

  • A Day in Astronomy: The Anniversary of JWST

    Tomorrow, July 12th, is the first anniversary of the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST). As a result, NASA has a few events planned that you may want to attend. Here is the schedule from NASA: 6 a.m.: Release of a new Webb image online Webb mission experts will be available to conduct live, remote interviews with broadcast…

  • More on AI & Astronomy: This Time Google’s Bard

    This past Sunday, 60 Minutes had a segment on Google and artificial intelligence (AI) called Exploring the human-like side of artificial intelligence at Google. Part of the discussion covered Google’s new AI chat bot Bard. And while the creative output of Bard was impressive, it was a little too creative when asked asked about economics.…

  • Space Quote: Did Harvard Professor Avi Loeb Find Evidence of Intelligent Alien Life?

    “Our findings open a new frontier in astronomy of studying what lies outside the solar system through microscopes rather than telescopes.” -Statement by Harvard Professor Avi Loeb to USAToday regarding his recent recovery of what is believed to be fragments of an asteroid from outside our solar system that crashed into the Earth back in…

  • A Day in Astronomy: The Beginning of Radio Astronomy

    On this day in 1933, American physicist and radio engineer Karl Guthe Jansky created the science of radio astronomy by publishing “”Radio Waves From Outside the Solar System” discussing his discovery that radio waves were emanating from the center of the Milky Way galaxy. Unfortunately, Mr. Jansky was not a trained astronomer, so he was…

  • Safety Concerns Are Not a Personal Insult

    If you go to the OceanGate Expeditions website, home of the recently lost Titan submersible, you will notice two statements that say it all: A PR blurb for interested tourists: “95% of the Earth’s ocean is unexplored. You can change that.” And the current status of the expeditions for interested tourists: “OceanGate has suspended all…

  • 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…