Phil Plait explains why nuking Mars is a bad idea.
The internet’s “Bad Astronomer” takes to SyFy.com to explain to Elon Musk and everybody else why detonating nuclear bombs on the Martian ice caps would […]
space exploration
Science Art: Weather Delay, by Ferdinand Warren
Click to embiggen From the Smithsonian Institutes’ National Air and Space Museum “Eyewitness to Space” collection, paintings from the years when NASA had fine artists […]
Venus is luring Earth explorers again.
Nature has a quite long piece (and quite sensational headline) on the way Earth’s “evil twin,” Venus, is inspiring a new generation of interplanetary explorers […]
Science Art: Mariner 10 issue of 1975, by Roy Gjerston
Click to embiggen Roy Gjerston was an artist who designed stamps for the US Postal Service and spaceship concept art for General Dynamics. So this […]
The Search for Martian Fettuccine
Science Daily has word from University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign researchers, who instruct us to look for life on Mars by searching out rock formations […]
Science Art: Skylab Artist Concept, 1972
Click to embiggen A house in space, with a big carport. Spaceport. You get the idea. From NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center: This illustration Skylab […]
Virgin Galactic is heading to New Mexico (at last).
The Las Cruces Sun News reports that, after years of planning, Richard Branson has finally announced that his space-tourism company is moving all operations from […]
Eye in the sky will see how carbon really moves (which should make climate science better).
Nature shares details on NASA’s new International Space Station project – a device that can see CO2 in ways that most satellites can’t: The US$110-million […]
Science Art: Perspective Cutaway View of a Rotary Hammering Sample Acquisition Section (Fig. 5) from NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS) 20150003208
Click to embiggen A way NASA plans to get core samples from Mars, the Jovian moon Europa, and beyond – a drill designed to cut […]
SONG: My Batteries
SONG: “My Batteries” [Download] . ARTIST: grant. SOURCE: Jacob Margolis’ Twitter feed, 13 Feb 2019, 3:30 AM “The last message they received…,” as used in […]
China says they’re ready to put solar panels in orbit.
Not the kind on a self-sufficient satellite, but, as Nature tells us, the kind used to beam clean solar power back to Earth: The idea […]
A moment of silence for Opportunity.
The rover was sent on a 90-day mission. It kept operating on Mars for 15 years, 28 miles and 5,000 charge cycles. Today, NASA said […]
SONG: “2014 MU69 (Approach Me)”
SONG: “2014 MU₆₉ (Approach Me)” [Download] . ARTIST: grant. SOURCE: Science News, 30 Dec 2018-1 Jan 2019, “Live updates: New Horizons’ flyby of a distant […]
Science Art: RCA Lunar Communications by James Burns
Click to embiggen Phoning home from the next world over. This is how it looked half a century ago. You can find more James Burns […]
Science Art: A Plunge into Space, book cover, 1890.
Click to embiggen This is the cover of an early science fiction hit, Robert Cromie’s A Plunge into Space, which was in print from 1890 […]