• Podcast: Interview with William Shatner

    On this week’s StarTalk Radio podcast, Neil deGrasse Tyson interviewed William Shatner (aka Captain Kirk) about his acting career and recent trip into space on a Blue Origin rocket. If you saw the Amazon Prime show called Shatner in Space, you have seen the Blue Origin drama (or the infomercial, if you prefer). In his…

  • Chinese Satellite Close Call

    Orbiting the Earth is complicated enough without the Russians and other creating new obstacles. China recently learned about these hazards when one of its science satellites came close to colliding with debris created last November from a Russian anti-satellite test. China’s satellite missed the debris by about 48 feet, which the Chinese government called “extremely…

  • Television: Updates on Star Trek

    If you are a Trekkie, you will want to stay abreast of some of the new and returning Star Trek series. I have provided some dates for your calendar. — Star Trek: Discovery: Season 4 returns with new episodes on February 10th after taking a short break. Here is the trailer for the season. You…

  • NASA and MIT Found More Than 5,000 Exoplanet Candidates

    The volume of possible new worlds continues to expand with the work of the MIT-led NASA mission to observe the heavens for potential exoplanet candidates. Since 2018, the Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS) program has been monitoring stars for temporary drops in brightness caused by planetary transits (the mapping of the initial two years of viewing…

  • NASA’s Travel Agency

    If you are getting tired of staying home these days, NASA has some fun destinations in mind for you. Late last year, NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) put together “Visions of the Future” to show you where the space agency hopes to go someday. You may not want to pack just yet, but whether it…

  • Pic of the Week: SpaceX Dragon Approaches the ISS

    This week’s picture shows SpaceX’s Crew Dragon Endeavour carrying Crew-2 to the International Space Stations (ISS) in April 2021 as seen through a window of the docked SpaceX Crew Dragon Resilience. The Resilience brought Crew-1 to the ISS in November 2020. You can read more about the ISS and the SpaceX mission here.

  • How Many Satellites Are Too Many?

    You may have remembered my earlier post showing all of the items already in orbit around the Earth. Well, it appears Elon Musk believes we can handle billions of satellites in low Earth orbit (LEO). And while the current number of orbiting satellites is only in the thousands, Mr. Musk’s SpaceX has already placed 1,700…

  • Whatever Happened to Mars-One?

    I remember the image above from Mars One and thinking that maybe the private sector could find an innovative way to beat governments to Mars. I also remember the profiles of individuals volunteering for a one-way trip to Mars to be part of the proposed Martian colony. So much for that idea. Mars One ran…

  • Where is This?: The January 17, 2022 Quiz

    Take a look at the image above. Can you determine where in the solar system this image originated? Take a guess and then check your answer by going to the menu and selecting the “Where is this?” page.

  • Dead End: No Life Found in Martian Rock

    A 4-billion-year-old meteorite from Mars did not show any signs of life, according to The Guardian newspaper. That said, the 4-pound rock found in Antarctica in 1984 that presumably broke off of Mars’ surface billions of years ago does have compounds that could lead to life. More samples should be on their way if NASA’s…