Forecasting the End: The Science of Rogue Planets

I’m pleased to report that I had the opportunity to consult on (and occasionally appear in) an astronomy/geoscience/climate science crossover project for the Weather Channel this past year, entitled, Forecasting the End. The show, which premiers this evening, uses extremely-low-probability astronomical or geophysical disasters as a hook to explore and present astronomy, geology, meteorology, and […]

Pluto’s Pain: The Unsung Story of Ceres

Pluto is once again in the press, astronomers having recently discovered a fifth moon about the tiny, icy world. -And, again, Pluto’s official designation as a “dwarf planet” is coming under fire. However, Pluto’s pain really hearkens back to a much older story – one of an unsung planet that stood proudly in the rightful […]

Retrospective: The coolest orbital image of 2011

In case you missed it, nearly a year ago on July 21, 2011, the space shuttle Atlantis was imaged as it began its fiery descent toward Earth. As the final flight of the shuttle fleet, this was truly the last opportunity to grab this sort of image, and somehow the International Space Station Expedition 28 […]

Airships: A century from prototype to spaceflight?

Airships. There’s a certain nostalgic thrill to the streamline, art deco aircraft heyday that nearly was. To the point (and as illustrated above): the Empire State Building’s observation tower was originally intended to serve as a mooring point for airships. Achieving the power of flight by harnessing a buoyant gas is simple, reliable, quiet, low-velocity, […]

Red-Letter Day: NASA Astronauts wanted; NSRC spaceflight giveaway

Today has been quite a big day for aspiring astronauts: NASA Seeks New Wave of Astronauts On one hand, NASA finally opened another selection announcement for the next class of astronauts. Until the end of January 2012, anyone with the grit, drive, and the moxie to put their hat in the ring will be stacked up against the best of […]

Room with a (global) view

When you gaze outside of your spacecraft, what do you see? What’s it really like to be there? With the advent of digital photography in the hands of determined astronauts willing to make time to steal moments to snap images like the above, now we can know. Have a look. Blow the image up with a click. […]

Plans afoot for snaring a space rock

Researchers at the Tsinghua University in Beijing recently published a plan just daring enough to work/make people nervous. After an extensive review of the orbits of thousands of candidate near-Earth objects, the research team headed by Associate Professor Baoyin Hexi identified a small asteroid that with a nudge at the opportune moment would settle into […]

Blues in Space Predicted!

There are a number of other space and spaceflight stories deserving of my attention, but I had to fast-track this one out. Why the rush? Frankly, I’m thrilled, for my previous prediction of blues in space has been proven true! In a fun “home video” piece, NASA Astronaut Ron Garan goes “missing,” and a search […]

Views of a last space shuttle launch

As NASA nears the final launch and retirement of its mainstay Space Shuttle, I think it only fitting to review another final Space Shuttle launch – one made twenty-three years ago. In 1988, the U.S.S.R. launched its own Space Shuttle, the Buran, for what would be the first and last time. Replay camera videos of […]

Remembering VentureStar

With the recent developments in new commercial suborbital spaceplanes, (e.g., XCor’s Lynx, Virgin Galactic’s SpaceShipTwo, Sierra Nevada/SpaceDev’s DreamChaser,) my mind is often turned back toward the premier commercial spaceplane of the late-1990s, which inspired many in my generation toward a career in space science in the first place: the venerable VentureStar. With the VentureStar came […]