Featured Posts
SPACE.com
26 Oct 2021, 17:58 UTC
Mars helicopter Ingenuity soars through Red Planet's summer air after radio blackout (video)
26 Oct 2021, 17:58 UTC
Starts With a Bang!
26 Oct 2021, 14:03 UTC
For the past 150+ years, the big ones have all missed us. At some point, our good luck will run out.
A giant solar flare is inevitable, and humanity is completely unprepared
26 Oct 2021, 14:03 UTC
For the past 150+ years, the big ones have all missed us. At some point, our good luck will run out.
Centauri Dreams
26 Oct 2021, 09:23 UTC
Back in 2013, Heath Rezabek began developing a series in these pages on a proposal he called Vessel, which he had first presented at the 100 Year Starship Symposium in September of 2012. A librarian and futurist, Rezabek saw the concept as a strategy to preserve both humanity’s cultural as well as biological heritage, with strong echoes of Greg Benford’s Library of Life, which proposed freezing species in threatened environments to save them. In Heath’s case, a productive partnership with frequent Centauri Dreams contributor Nick Nielsen led to articles by both, which produced a series of interesting discussions in the comments.
Planetary Protection in an Interstellar Mode
26 Oct 2021, 09:23 UTC
Back in 2013, Heath Rezabek began developing a series in these pages on a proposal he called Vessel, which he had first presented at the 100 Year Starship Symposium in September of 2012. A librarian and futurist, Rezabek saw the concept as a strategy to preserve both humanity’s cultural as well as biological heritage, with strong echoes of Greg Benford’s Library of Life, which proposed freezing species in threatened environments to save them. In Heath’s case, a productive partnership with frequent Centauri Dreams contributor Nick Nielsen led to articles by both, which produced a series of interesting discussions in the comments.
SPACE.com
25 Oct 2021, 20:00 UTC
The observatory cataloged a star's 'cataclysmic demise'
Hubble telescope spots doomed star that is the 'Rosetta stone' of supernovas
25 Oct 2021, 20:00 UTC
The observatory cataloged a star's 'cataclysmic demise'
Starts With a Bang!
25 Oct 2021, 14:02 UTC
Even if we left today, at the speed of light, we’d never catch up to these galaxies.
94% of the universe’s galaxies are permanently beyond our reach
25 Oct 2021, 14:02 UTC
Even if we left today, at the speed of light, we’d never catch up to these galaxies.
Aeon
25 Oct 2021, 10:00 UTC
Are we alone in the Universe? And if not, should we be excited – or afraid? These questions are as immediate as the latest Netflix hit and as primal as the ancient myths that associated the planets with spirits and gods. In 1686, Bernard le Bovier de Fontenelle, the long-term secretary to the French Academy of Sciences, put an Enlightenment stamp on speculations about alien life with his book Entretiens sur la pluralité des mondes (Conversations on the Plurality of Worlds). In a series of spirited philosophical conversations, he declared that ‘it would be very strange for the Earth to be so well inhabited, and the other planets perfectly solitary’, and argued that alien beings might attempt to communicate with us or even visit us using some advanced form of flight.
The search for alien tech
25 Oct 2021, 10:00 UTC
Are we alone in the Universe? And if not, should we be excited – or afraid? These questions are as immediate as the latest Netflix hit and as primal as the ancient myths that associated the planets with spirits and gods. In 1686, Bernard le Bovier de Fontenelle, the long-term secretary to the French Academy of Sciences, put an Enlightenment stamp on speculations about alien life with his book Entretiens sur la pluralité des mondes (Conversations on the Plurality of Worlds). In a series of spirited philosophical conversations, he declared that ‘it would be very strange for the Earth to be so well inhabited, and the other planets perfectly solitary’, and argued that alien beings might attempt to communicate with us or even visit us using some advanced form of flight.
EarthSky Blog
24 Oct 2021, 11:41 UTC
The main asteroid belt, between Mars and Jupiter, is composed of millions of rocky bodies, from pebbles to worlds the size of dwarf planets. Most are very difficult to see, even with the best telescopes, since they are so small and far away. This month (October 2021), astronomers with the European Southern Observatory (ESO) said they’ve obtained new images of 42 of the largest asteroids. The images show these asteroids with a level of detail not previously achieved by earthly telescopes.
See 42 of the largest asteroids in new images
24 Oct 2021, 11:41 UTC
The main asteroid belt, between Mars and Jupiter, is composed of millions of rocky bodies, from pebbles to worlds the size of dwarf planets. Most are very difficult to see, even with the best telescopes, since they are so small and far away. This month (October 2021), astronomers with the European Southern Observatory (ESO) said they’ve obtained new images of 42 of the largest asteroids. The images show these asteroids with a level of detail not previously achieved by earthly telescopes.
Centauri Dreams
22 Oct 2021, 09:55 UTC
If you could send out a fleet of small lightsails, accelerated to perhaps 20 percent of the speed of light, you could put something of human manufacture into the Alpha Centauri triple star system within about 20 years. So goes, of course, the thinking of Breakthrough Starshot, which continues to investigate whether such a proposal is practicable. As the feasibility study continues, we’ll learn whether the scientists involved have been able to resolve some of the key issues, including especially data return and the need for power onboard to make it happen.
Starlight: Toward an Interstellar Biology
22 Oct 2021, 09:55 UTC
If you could send out a fleet of small lightsails, accelerated to perhaps 20 percent of the speed of light, you could put something of human manufacture into the Alpha Centauri triple star system within about 20 years. So goes, of course, the thinking of Breakthrough Starshot, which continues to investigate whether such a proposal is practicable. As the feasibility study continues, we’ll learn whether the scientists involved have been able to resolve some of the key issues, including especially data return and the need for power onboard to make it happen.
Astronomy Now
21 Oct 2021, 14:11 UTC
The Perseverance Mars rover, after collecting and storing two samples of martian rock and soil from the floor of Jezero Crater, paused 12 September to capture a panoramic view looking toward the South Séítah geologic unit. Made up of 84 enhanced-colour images, the mosaic shows the remnants of an ancient delta formation at top left, where water once flowed into Jezero forming a large lake that may have hosted microbial life. Near the top of the image at far right is the path Perseverance took to reach the photo-shoot location. The imagery was captured by the Mastcam-Z camera, provided by Arizona State University, while the rover was parked on elevated terrain. Click twice on the image below to zoom into the mosaic.
