• Space Stories: NASA Probes the Northern Lights, India Announces New Telescopes, and Titan May Be a Moon Merger

    Here are some recent space-related stories of interest. —Space.com “NASA Launches Twin Rocket Missions from Alaska to Study Mysterious Black Auroras“ NASA launched two rockets from Alaska this week to learn more about the electrical “circuitry” within auroras, the colorful light shows that occur when solar wind collides with Earth’s atmosphere. The missions saw two suborbital…

  • Space Quote: An Odd Solar System

    “The paradigm of planet formation is that we have rocky inner planets very close to the stars, like in our solar system…This is the first time in which we have a rocky planet so far away from its host star, and after these gas-rich planets.” -Statement by Thomas Wilson, an assistant professor in the department…

  • Carnegie Astronomy Lecture Series

    If you are stuck inside with the winter weather and looking for something to do, you can either head to sunny California to attend the March Carnegie Astronomy Lectures Series at The Huntington in San Marino or watch them on YouTube. This will be a series of four lectures. On March 2nd, the first lecture…

  • Launch of Crew-12 to ISS Goes Without a Hitch

    The International Space Station’s (ISS) Crew-12 is safely on its way. As NASA Administrator Isaacman noted: With Crew-12 safely on orbit, America and our international partners once again demonstrated the professionalism, preparation, and teamwork required for human spaceflight. The launch carried NASA astronauts Jessica Meir and Jack Hathaway, European Space Agency (ESA) astronaut Sophie Adenot,…

  • Pic of the Week: Another View of the Milky Way

    The image above was released late last year. It shows the Milky Way galaxy in radio-color captured by astronomers from the International Centre of Radio Astronomy Research (ICRAR). All of this was part of the GaLactic and Extragalactic All-sky MWA (GLEAM) and GLEAM-X (GLEAM eXtended) surveys conducted over 28 nights in 2013 and 2014 as…

  • When is the Next Starship Launch?

    Mr. Musk seems to move like a weather vane regarding where SpaceX is going next, but whether SpaceX is heading for the Moon or Mars it still needs a functioning Starship. First the confusion. For all of Musk’s ongoing criticism of a Moon mission, it appears he is finally focusing on Artemis III. On Sunday,…

  • A Day in Astronomy: The Death of Eugène Michel Antoniadi

    On this day in 1944, Greek-French astronomer Eugène Michel Antoniadi passed away in Paris, France. Mr. Antoniadi was one of the astronomers that battled the idea of a civilization creating canals on the surface of Mars, putting him at odds with American astronomer Percival Lowell. While he was initially open to the idea, he later…

  • Space Stories: Cell Phones in Space, Good News in the Chilean Desert, and Moving Martian Water

    Here are some recent space-related stories of interest. —Mashable: “NASA Clears the iPhone to go to Space“ Apple’s iPhone may be one of the most popular phones on Earth, but it’s about to start conquering space as well. According to NASA administrator Jared Isaacman, NASA astronauts are now cleared to take smartphones into space, starting with…

  • Space Tourism Ends for Now at Blue Origin

    If you didn’t find your way into orbit yet, your chances to do so in the near future have dropped precipitously. Blue Origin is ending its New Shepard rocket flights for tourists starting immediately. The pause will last for at least two years while the company focuses on the upcoming Artemis III lunar mission. In…

  • Space Quote: More Space Cuts, This Time in the United Kingdom

    “The UK punches above its weight in scientific impact and in space-related industry. This should be a national success story, but instead we are facing the possibility of unsettling and destabilizing threats to funding for cutting-edge science. STFC, the research council responsible for astrophysics, along with particle physics and nuclear physics, is expecting future budgets…