• Video: Check Out Aeon Astronomy & Space Travel Videos

    Aeon is a website of ideas run by Aeon Media. It’s mission is to explore and communicate knowledge that addresses our shared need to make sense of the world. While it covers quite a few topics, I wanted to highlight some of its videos on astronomy and space travel. Below are just a few I…

  • Don’t Miss the Northern Lights

    Tonight you can still capture the Northern Lights here in the U.S. After an 11-year absence. The solar event will have the greatest show in the Ohio River Valley through the Midwest and into the Pacific Northwest (see CNN map below). Amazingly, the show was seen as far south as Florida yesterday evening. The good…

  • Space Quote: Congressional Appeal for More NASA Funding

    “An improved appropriation for FY 2025 of $9 billion for SMD will give the agency the necessary resources to pursue Decadal priorities such as the Earth System Observatory, Geophysical Dynamics Constellation, Habitable Worlds Observatory, and Mars Sample Return, while maintaining our nation’s highly-skilled workforce and fleet of operating and developing spacecraft including the Chandra X-Ray…

  • Pic of the Week: Little Dumbbell Nebula

    This week’s image comes from the NASA/European Space Agency’s Hubble Space Telescope. It shows what is called the Little Dumbbell Nebula, more formally called  Messier 76, M76, or NGC 650/651, which is about 3,400 light-years away. The image is being shared as part of the celebration of Hubble’s 34th anniversary, which is discussed in this…

  • TESS is Back Online

    As of May 3, NASA’s Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS) was functioning again after flipping into safe mode back on April 23. NASA shared this info regarding the shutdown: The operations team determined this latest safe mode was triggered by a failure to properly unload momentum from the spacecraft’s reaction wheels, a routine activity needed…

  • Space Stories: Missing Water on Venus, More About Planet Nine, and Possible Life on an Exoplanet

    Here are some recent stories of interest. —University of Colorado at Boulder: “Venus Has Almost No Water: A New Study May Reveal Why“ Planetary scientists at the University of Colorado Boulder have discovered how Venus, Earth’s scalding and uninhabitable neighbor, became so dry. The new study fills in a big gap in what the researchers call…

  • Boeing Needs Just One More Day

    Today was supposed to be the day that Boeing launched a crewed capsule to the International Space Station (ISS), but things did not go according to plan (again). Two hours before the planned launch a valve issue on the Atlas V rocket’s second stage put everything on hold. A launch as early as tomorrow is…

  • China Returns to the Far Side of the Moon

    Last Friday, China launched the Chang’e-6 lunar probe towards the moon with the goal of returning the first lunar soil sample from the far side of the Moon. An earlier mission in 2020, Chang’e-5, successfully returned lunar soil samples from the near side of the Moon for the first time in 44 years. Before that,…

  • May the 4th be With You

    I will try to watch my two favorites, The Empire Strikes Back and Rogue One.

  • Audit Report: Is NASA Ready for Artemis II?

    The NASA Office of Inspector General (OIG) issued an audit report earlier this week, NASA’s Readiness for the Artemis II Crewed Mission to Lunar Orbit, that expressed concerns about problems with the Artemis I test flight mission in late 2022. For example, the report noted: …the Artemis I test flight revealed critical issues that need…