• Resupply Mission to the Space Station Hits a Weather Bump

    The weather in Florida has delayed today’s Northrop Grumman resupply mission to the International Space Station (ISS). In fact, SpaceX is launching the payload for Grumman from the Cape Canaveral Space Force Station rather than the typical launch facility in Virginia. The Northrop Grumman Cygnus cargo spacecraft with its 8,200 pounds of supplies will probably…

  • Podcast: Discussion with Ray Kurzweil

    Neil deGrasse Tyson interviews futurist Ray Kurzweil in this repeat StarTalk episode from November 2022 titled “Could We Someday Liver Forever? With Ray Kurzweil.” It is a heavy conversation about living forever as we integrate technology even more into our lives. Throughout the conversation Neil makes reference to a book coming out in 2023. In…

  • Pic of the Week: View of a Nearby Exoplanet

    This week’s image looks dark and simple, and yet it is an amazing sight provided by NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope (JWST). It shows a directly imaged exoplanets that resides about 12 light-years from us. It is called Epsilon Indi Ab and is several times the mass of Jupiter. Here is an explanation from NASA…

  • More from the Chandra X-ray Observatory

    The images released to celebrate the 25th anniversary of the Chandra X-ray Observatory are too beautiful to be visited only once. Above is another amazing image from the collection showing the Crab Nebula. Here is a little more about this image from NASA: This composite image features the remnant of a supernova explosion, which resembles…

  • Space Stories: Good Time to View the Heavens, Nearby Super-Jupiter, and Spotting Deepfakes

    Here are some recent stories of interest. —Live Science: “Why the 1st Week of August is the Best Time to See ‘Shooting Stars’ and the Milky Way — No Telescope Required“ The arrival of August means two things for stargazers — “shooting stars” and the Milky Way. In 2024, you can see both at the same…

  • The End of the Atlas V Rocket

    Tomorrow’s launch of a classified US Air Force payload will be the last use of the United Launch Alliance (ULA) Atlas V rocket for such missions. It will the rocket’s 100th national security launch. The Atlas rocket, first built in 1957, is America’s longest-serving active rocket. Over the years, the rockets have launched numerous critical…

  • Things To Do: Maine Solar System Model

    If you are looking for something fun in a slightly cooler climate this summer, you may want to venture to the Maine Solar System Model. Its a joint science project created by the University of Maine and northern Maine communities. Built between 1999 and 2003, this model allows you to better understand the distances between…

  • Video: More About Rogue Planets

    Cool Worlds Lab released another great video recently that discusses rogue planets, or planets without a host star, in a video titled “A JuMBO Mystery – This Shouldn’t Happen!” A JuMBO means Jupiter-mass binary objects, which is just part of the story in this video. The presentation starts with a finding from astronomers using the…

  • Space Quote: Microscopic Life on Mars?

    “Cheyava Falls is the most puzzling, complex, and potentially important rock yet investigated by Perseverance…On the one hand, we have our first compelling detection of organic material, distinctive colorful spots indicative of chemical reactions that microbial life could use as an energy source, and clear evidence that water — necessary for life — once passed…

  • Pic of the Week: Celebrating Chandra’s 25th Anniversary

    NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory is celebrating the 25th anniversary of the observatory, which means we get to view quite a few amazing images from over the years, such as the one above called the Bat Shadow. Here is more from NASA on this image explaining the bat connection: In this composite image, several pink and…