• In Case You Missed It/Video: Missed Opportunity on Exomoons

    A few months back, Assistant Professor of Astronomy David Kipping shared a short video regarding his organization’s failure to secure James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) time to search for exomoons that he knows are there. His organization, Cool Worlds Lab, has done some amazing work studying and publicizing issues related to astronomy. You should visit…

  • Space Stories: Rogue Exoplanets, ISS Power Problems, and Eco-Friendly Airlines

    Here are some recent stories of interest. —Space.com : “400 Earth-size Rogue Planets could be Wandering the Milky Way“ New predictions suggest an upcoming NASA space telescope could spot over 400 Earth-mass worlds hidden throughout the Milky Way that have “gone rogue” and therefore wander our galaxy alone.  Such orphan worlds are thought to start their lives…

  • Future Guests on the ISS and Tiangong Space Station

    The CEO of the South African National Space Agency announced plans to send two female astronauts to the International Space Station (ISS). It is something that the space agency hopes to accomplish in the next two years. This latest announcement appears to be based on Russian efforts to parlay better relations with African nations. The…

  • Video: Another Look at Pluto’s Status as a Planet

    You may enjoy last week’s Astronomy magazine video that is part of This Week in Astronomy with Dave Eicher titled “Is Pluto a Planet?“. The issue on the table is whether scientists were a little too quick to dismiss Pluto’s status under new criteria given that we may have not understood whether the Earth even…

  • Space Quote: Meteorite Hunters

    “We get a piece for our collection and a new meteorite sample for potential research…In turn, they know what they can sell the specimen for because they know what kind of meteorite it is.” -Statement by Alan Rubin, a research geochemist and curator of the University of California, Los Angeles meteorite collection, in a Wall…

  • Travel to Moon and Mars Not Most Important Missions for the Public

    While both Buzz Aldrin and I believe that lunar and Martian colonies are important, it would appear the public has other ideas about NASA’s priorities. The graphic above shows in a recent Pew Research Center study indicates the more Americans are interested in monitoring the Earth’s climate as well as watching for asteroids. Even finding…

  • Pic of the Week/A Day in Astronomy: Moon Landing

    On this day in 1969, the Apollo 11 crew stepped on the Moon for the first time, showing that mankind could actually travel to another world. The image above shows Astronaut Buzz Aldrin preparing the step on the Moon as the second human to ever walk on the lunar surface. Buzz Aldrin has plenty of…

  • Space Stories: More Moon Missions, a Two-Faced Star, and Missing Dark Matter

    Here are some recent stories of interest. —Ars Technica : “NASA Starts Building Ice-hunting Moon Rover“ The search for ice at the Moon’s poles has loomed large in the field of lunar science since an instrument on an Indian satellite discovered water molecules inside shadowed crater floors more than a decade ago. NASA is now assembling a…

  • Russia is also Heading to the Moon

    As noted in an earlier post, India left for the moon’s south pole last week, but it won’t be alone for long. Russia is planning to launch its Luna-25 spacecraft, also called the Luna-Glob-Lander, next month. According to NASA, the mission has two primary scientific objectives at the Moon’s south pole: The last Luna mission…

  • Two Space Probes will be Mothballed

    The delay in the launch of the Psyche spacecraft to visit the asteroid Psyche is having ripple effects on another NASA mission. The $50 million Janus mission with its two probes was supposed to accompany Psyche on the mission to observe two binary asteroid. However, too much time has passed for this separate mission be…