Clik here to view.
Alien Planets & Astronomers Behaving Like the Rest of Us
Art, hypothetical, of a planet, debris, and a galaxy Remember a month or so ago, when astronomers running NASA’s Kepler satellite announced they’d release the data on 300 possibly earth-like planets...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Stop the Presses. Please.
The subject line in the e-mail was, “Congratulations, I think….” The message itself said, “Just read about Dark Matter finally outing itself.” “Huh?” I wrote back. “Haven’t you heard??? Dark Matter...
View ArticleClik here to view.
How to Beat a Closed System
Christie wrote a post about the suckiness of power-point presentations and of scientific conferences in general. Conferences are an occupational hazard for science writers: walk into a big-city...
View ArticleClik here to view.
The Scarlet Letters
Back in 1984, when he was a new hire at the Space Telescope Science Institute in Baltimore, David Soderblom got to thinking. STScI was—and still is—the science and operations center for the Hubble...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Abstruse Goose: A Walk on Mars
__________ This reminds me of that idiot, Walt Whitman, who thought his appreciation of the stars was so superior to the learn’d astronomer’s. The guy needed a pie in the face. But here’s the...
View ArticleClik here to view.
That’s One Small Step For Deuterium
The death of Neil Armstrong in August prompted no end of tributes invoking heroism, patriotism, vision, courage, valor, and all sorts of other abstractions. Understandably so. Armstrong’s giant leap...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Chasing Transits
CELESTE: How long this time? LE GENTIL: How long will I be gone? Three years. I swear to you, Celeste, on everything that’s holy: three years, no more. CELESTE: What if you miss it? LE GENTIL: The...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Not Shilling for NASA But Really, This Is Good
Astronomers irritate the hell out of me, NASA’s in particular, not the people but their press releases: never met a superlative they didn’t like, Biggest Black Hole, Farthest Quasar, Youngest Galaxy,...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Ancestral Dreams in NewSpace
Last week when NASA Administrator Charles Bolden addressed the sparsely-attended Humans to Mars Summit in DC, he moved the institutional goalpost past space exploration and toward space settlement....
View ArticleClik here to view.
Giant Stack of Spacecraft
On Saturday I went to the visitor’s center at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, showed my driver’s license, and got a yellow paper badge to hang around my neck. The occasion:...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Yay Philae! Yay Europe, Europe, Europe!
I’ve just about recovered from my trip to Darmstadt, just outside Frankfurt, which was home to mission control for the recent landing of the tiny and now ‘sleeping’ Philae lander onto the surface of...
View ArticleClik here to view.
What Does Today’s Possible Rocket Launch Have to Do With Japanese Pop Music?...
Friday morning, if all goes well, NASA is launching a satellite with the name SMAP. As I write late Thursday night, it’s perched atop a Delta II rocket an hour up the California coast from Santa...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Alien Planets & Astronomers Behaving Like the Rest of Us
Art, hypothetical, of a planet, debris, and a galaxy Remember a month or so ago, when astronomers running NASA’s Kepler satellite announced they’d release the data on 300 possibly earth-like planets...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Stop the Presses. Please.
The subject line in the e-mail was, “Congratulations, I think….” The message itself said, “Just read about Dark Matter finally outing itself.” “Huh?” I wrote back. “Haven’t you heard??? Dark Matter...
View ArticleClik here to view.
How to Beat a Closed System
Christie wrote a post about the suckiness of power-point presentations and of scientific conferences in general. Conferences are an occupational hazard for science writers: walk into a big-city...
View ArticleClik here to view.
The Scarlet Letters
Back in 1984, when he was a new hire at the Space Telescope Science Institute in Baltimore, David Soderblom got to thinking. STScI was—and still is—the science and operations center for the Hubble...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Abstruse Goose: A Walk on Mars
__________ This reminds me of that idiot, Walt Whitman, who thought his appreciation of the stars was so superior to the learn’d astronomer’s. The guy needed a pie in the face. But here’s the...
View ArticleClik here to view.
That’s One Small Step For Deuterium
The death of Neil Armstrong in August prompted no end of tributes invoking heroism, patriotism, vision, courage, valor, and all sorts of other abstractions. Understandably so. Armstrong’s giant leap...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Chasing Transits
CELESTE: How long this time? LE GENTIL: How long will I be gone? Three years. I swear to you, Celeste, on everything that’s holy: three years, no more. CELESTE: What if you miss it? LE GENTIL: The...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Not Shilling for NASA But Really, This Is Good
Astronomers irritate the hell out of me, NASA’s in particular, not the people but their press releases: never met a superlative they didn’t like, Biggest Black Hole, Farthest Quasar, Youngest Galaxy,...
View Article
