• Space Quote: Understanding NASA Interplanetary Transmissions and Applying it to SETI

    ”Based on data from the last 20 years, we found that if an extraterrestrial intelligence were in a location that could observe the alignment of Earth and Mars, there’s a 77% chance that they would be in the path of one of our transmissions — orders of magnitude more likely than being in a random…

  • Study Findings: Core Metamorphism Controls the Dynamic Habitability of Mid-sized Ocean Worlds—The Case of Ceres

    Science Advances abstract of the study findings: Ceres’s surface mineralogy and density structure indicate an aqueous past. Observations from the Dawn mission revealed that Ceres likely hosted a global subsurface ocean in its early history, which was the site of pervasive aqueous alteration of accreted material. Subsurface environmental constraints inferred from Ceres’s surface mineralogy, combined with…

  • Pic of the Week: Hurricane Erin in the Caribbean Sea

    This week’s image is from the NASA Earth Observatory. It shows Hurricane Erin, the first Atlantic hurricane in the 2025 season, as it travels through the Caribbean Sea earlier this week. The image below labels the various islands in the image.

  • We Welcome S/2025 U1 to the Family of Moons

    Uranus has a new moon. Voyager missed it, but the James Webb Space Telescope discovered it earlier this year. Named S/2025 U1 for the time being, it is the 29th known moon of Uranus. It is also quite small, being only six miles in diameter. Even the Martian Deimos is 7.5 miles in diameter. Given…

  • The Future of AI and the Human Race

    A recent episode of Real Time with Bill Maher included an interview with Tristan Harris, the executive director and co-founder of the Center for Humane Technology. The topic was the growing role of artificial intelligence (AI) in our society, and it started to be pretty scary after Bill Maher asked about the “AI uncontrolled ability”…

  • Space Stories: New Glenn’s Martian Probes, AI Space Doctors, and Questions About a Mission to Uranus

    Here are some recent space-related stories of interest. —Space.com: “Blue Origin’s 2nd New Glenn Rocket Launch will Fly Twin NASA Mars Probes to Space on Sep. 29“ Blue Origin is gearing up for the second-ever launch of its powerful New Glenn rocket, which will loft NASA’s ESCAPADE mission to Mars. The company says it has been…

  • A Day in Astronomy: The Discovery of Phobos

    On this day in 1877, American astronomer Asaph Hall discovered the Martian moon Phobos while at the US Naval Observatory in Washington, D.C. He had discovered Mar’s other moon Deimos six days earlier. Oddly enough, the idea of two moons orbiting Mars was first proposed in 1726 by Jonathan Swift in his tale Gulliver’s Travels.…

  • Astronomy Question: Star Trek Cameos

    Multiple Choice: What Seinfeld actor had a cameo on Star Trek: Voyager? A. Jason Alexander B. Jerry SeinfeldC. Julia Louis-DreyfusD. Michael Richards Take a guess and then check your answer by going to the “Astronomy Question Answer Sheet” page.

  • Americans Still Believe in Returning to the Moon and Visiting Mars

    With all of the current chaos related to NASA funding, one might think America has moved away from its previous support for space missions. However, a poll reported last month by CBS News tells a different story. As shown in the image above, 67 percent of Americans polled by CBS News and YouGov are in…

  • Pic of the Week: Student-Designed Artemis II Posters

    The above image is one of 24 winning posters designed by students at the School of Visual Arts (SVA) in New York City. The contest, sponsored by SVA and NASA, is called The Artemis II/Earthrise Poster Project. All of the posters will be on display next month at the SVA Gramercy Gallery located at 209…