Category Archives: Science
Redirect: “The Impact of Sally Ride’s Contributions in Space and Education”
On Friday, May 17, 2013, we held at the National Air and Space Museum here in Washington, D.C., a wonderful program on Sally Ride and her place in the history of spaceflight and science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) education. … Continue reading
Wednesday’s Book Review: “Near-Earth Objects: Finding Them Before They Find Us”
Near-Earth Objects: Finding Them Before They Find Us. By Donald H. Yeomans. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2012. Hardcover with dust jacket. ISBN: 978-0-691-14929-5. 200 pages. 20 half tones. 19 line illus. 6 tables. 6 x 9 in. $24.94 USD. … Continue reading
Redirect: “The Top 5 Underrated Sci-Fi Movie Masterpieces”
There is an excellent post available here on the “The Top 5 Underrated Sci-Fi Movie Masterpieces.” Many of these received broad release and did not do as well at the box office as the major studios would like. Others had limited … Continue reading
Exoplanets: The Kepler-62 System Compared to Our Solar System
This is so cool. This graphic diagram comes courtesy of the stunning Kepler mission searching for extra-solar planets. Here is the description of this poster: The diagram compares the planets of the inner solar system to Kepler-62, a five-planet system … Continue reading
Is Space Tourism Soon to Become a Reality?
With the successful test flight of Virgin Galactic’s SpaceShipTwo (SS2) at the end of April, 2013, we are one step closer to commercial space tourism. This is not orbital tourism, of course, but the ability to fly above 100 km … Continue reading
Wednesday’s Book Review: “Geographies of Mars: Seeing and Knowing the Red Planet”
Geographies of Mars: Seeing and Knowing the Red Planet. By K. Maria D. Lane. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2011. Illustrations, acknowledgments, notes, bibliography, index. 266 pages. Hardcover with dust jacket. ISBN: 978-0-226-47078-8. $45.00. Mars has long held a special … Continue reading
Greetings Earthlings, This Day Belongs to the Planet and All Who Live Here
It’s time to stop and ponder the needs of the Earth on this beautiful spring morning. April 22 is Earth Day. In commemoration, I have highlighted a blog post I wrote a few years ago about the photograph of the … Continue reading
Demoting Pluto
I would like to revisit in this blog post the 2006 decision of the International Astronomical Union (IAU) demoting Pluto as the Solar System’s ninth planet to “minor planetary” status. It caused a furor both inside the astronomical community and … Continue reading
A New Moon Race?
It’s amazing when you think about it. One might think that there is a new race to the Moon underway, this time with robotic spacecraft rather than astronauts and cosmonauts. There has been a small armada of space probes sent … Continue reading
