Category: Science
Students asked by NASA to name new Mars Rover … what could possibly go wrong?
Red rover, red rover, send a stupid name for Mars 2020 right over! Yes, NASA is rather bravely asking students to propose a name for its next Mars rover mission. Hmmm. Darth McSith-Face, anyone? Red Robbie the Planet Destroyer? Dalek-Bucket Donald? Come on, get your frack on and let’s be creative, here! Starting Tuesday 3rd […]
NASA gives Arecibo Observatory $19m to help fight Earth-destroying asteroids (science news).
NASA awarded the University of Central Florida Arecibo Observatory the four-year grant to find and track near-Earth objects (NEO) that pose a potential hazard to Earth, as well as being candidates for future space missions (including mining). “The S-band planetary radar system on the 305-m William E. Gordon telescope at Arecibo Observatory is the most […]
The Real World Of Victorian Steampunk by Simon Webb (book review).
What author Simon Webb makes apparent in the introduction to his book, ‘The Real World Of Victorian Steampunk’ is that the Victorian period and steampunk are inextricably linked way beyond Science Fiction. Hardly surprising when you look at his title and the scientific advancement at that time. However, there are examples like ‘Pavane’ (1968) by […]
Could a monstrous solar flare burn out all of Earth’s technology? (science video).
The hyper-large solar storm of 1859 – also also known as the Carrington Event – was a monstrous solar coronal mass ejection which struck Earth’s magnetosphere wiping out early electrical power stations and telegraph systems. If a solar storm of this magnitude hit today it could send us back temporarily to the stone age. How […]
Photographing The Deep Sky: Images In Time And Space by Chris Baker (book review).
Look at the cover of Chris Baker’s book, ‘Photographing The Deep Sky: Images In Time And Space’, and tell me you aren’t tempted purely by the cover. Baker owns a telescope observatory in Spain and all the photographs in this book are taken there or in the viscinity. The book is divided between nebulas and […]
Am I Overthinking This? by Michelle Rial (book review).
Now am I overthinking here? Michelle Rial’s book ‘Am I Overthinking This?’ on a page flick test is an assortment of photographic and simple art pages, some of it purporting to be the bell-shaped averages graph. When you read, the text is actually very simple but it is supposed to be. Are you sure you […]
NASA’s asteroid bounty bounce (science news).
After months grappling with the rugged reality of asteroid Bennu’s surface, the team leading NASA’s first asteroid sample return mission has selected four potential sites for the Origins, Spectral Interpretation, Resource Identification, Security-Regolith Explorer (OSIRIS-REx) spacecraft to “tag” its cosmic dance partner. Since its arrival in December 2018, the OSIRIS-REx spacecraft has mapped the entire […]
Your next career move … asteroid miner (video documentary).
Your next career move might be asteroid miner … this video documentary looks at how the tech is progressing and how near we are to hoovering up the vast amounts of mineral riches and rare minerals just floating out there in space. Some serious money is going into this and the new asteroid mining industry […]
Cutting Edge Science by Colin Barras (book review).
If you want a ready book on the current advances in science then look no further than Colin Barras’ book ‘Cutting Edge Science’. Even when I first started reading it, I thought this ought to be a biannual book to show how modern advances are going. An annual might be pushing it though. There are […]
Why intelligent life could be hiding out there in the galaxy (and probably is) (science documentary).
Answering the question of are we alone has turned out to be a bit more difficult than was originally envisioned when SETI first began decades ago. At first it was a matter of looking for giant omni-directional beacons blasting out high energy messages, much like what we saw in the movie contact. But as we’ve […]
