• $10 Billion for Some Martian Rocks?

    A recent ARS Technica article, “NASA’s Mars Sample Return Has a New Price Tag—and it’s Colossal,” discusses the potential plans to retrieve rocks from the Martian surface at a total cost of $10 billion. This has the potential to crowd out other important NASA projects and may need to be reconsidered at a time of…

  • Pic of the Week: Jellyfish Galaxy JO206 

    This week’s image is from the Hubble Space Telescope. It shows the jellyfish galaxy JO206, which is about 700 million light-years away. A close-up of the galaxy iteself is provided below. Here is more about the image from the European Space Agency (ESA): [Galaxy JO206 is] showcasing a colorful star-forming disk surrounded by a pale,…

  • Space Quote: NASA and Another Type of Tourism

    “OceanGate is doing for deep sea exploration, discovery, and research what companies like SpaceX, Blue Origin, World View, and Virgin Galactic are doing for space exploration and discovery…I look forward to supporting OceanGate’s effort to document the Titanic and its role as a deep ocean artificial reef when I join the expedition as a crewmember…

  • Space Stories: Mapping with Pulsars, Rocky Exoplanets, and Words from the Pope

    Here are some recent stories of interest. —Universe Today: “Pulsars Could Help Map the Black Hole at the Center of the Milky Way“ Last year, the Event Horizon Telescope (EHT)—an international consortium of astronomers and observatories—announced they had taken the first images of Sag A*, which came just two years after the release of the first-ever…

  • A Day in Astronomy: Sally Ride and Valentina Tereshkova

    On this day in 1983, astronaut Sally Ride became the first American woman in space, traveling aboard the shuttle Challenger. And 20 years earlier on the same date, Russian cosmonaut Valentina Tereshkova, the first Russian female in space, returned to Earth aboard Vostok 6, after orbiting the planet 48 times. She still remains the only…

  • Podcast: Should We Be Talking to the Stars (or Exoplanets, to be More Precise)?

    I recommend you tune into another episode from The Planetary Society’s podcast Planetary Radio. In the episode, Space Policy Edition: The Policy Implications of Active SETI, we hear a discussion about the advantages and disadvantages of an active SETI program, and whether we can even cease outreach to the neighboring systems given what has already been transmitted and the nature…

  • Virgin: Tourism Wins Over Commercial Cargo

    While Virgin Orbit failed back in April, Virgin Galactic is going strong and planning to start its tourism business in August. But first it has a scientific mission later this month. Here is the word from Virgin Galactic: While carrying satellites into space is no longer on the menu, bringing scientists to space for work…

  • Are We Too Focused on the Goldilocks Zone?

    Astronomers peering into the night sky always talk about exoplanets located in the “Goldilocks Zone,” or “Habitable Zone,” similar to the Earth’s location from the sun. But what if that is too limited? What if we should also be focusing on colder regions as well as exomoons? The new study released this week based on…

  • Pic of the Week: The ISS Transiting the Sun

    This week’s image was taken by French astrophotographer Thierry Legault. It shows the  International Space Station (ISS) transiting the Sun on June 9th. The other three dark objects are sun spots. At the time this image was taken, two NASA astronauts, Stephen Bowen and Warren “Woody” Hoburg, were installing a new solar array on the station.

  • Podcast: Cool Worlds Labs Has Started a Podcast

    In an earlier posting, I noted that the people at Cool Worlds Lab were planning to create a podcast to further share the Lab’s research. Well, that day has come and you can now listen to the first episode with Professor David Kipping interviewing Rebecca Charbonneau, who is a Janksy Fellow at the National Radio…