Reading about some of the views coming from the man recently nominated to become NASA's Administrator, Rep. James Bridenstine of Oklahoma, I heard the sound of a door closing. Other doors will surely be opened if he is confirmed by the Senate, but that shutting door happens to be to the gateway to a realm …
Continue reading "Is That the Foundation of NASA I Feel Shifting?"
Reading about some of the views coming from the man recently nominated to become NASA's Administrator, Rep. James Bridenstine of Oklahoma, I heard the sound of a door closing. Other doors will surely be opened if he is confirmed by the Senate, but that shutting door happens to be to the gateway to a realm …
Continue reading "Is That the Foundation of NASA I Feel Shifting?"
The triumphant Cassini mission to Saturn will be coming to an end on September 15, when the spacecraft dives into the planet. Running out of fuel, NASA chose to end the mission that way rather than run the risk of having the vehicle wander and ultimately land on Europa or Enceladus, potentially contaminating two …
The triumphant Cassini mission to Saturn will be coming to an end on September 15, when the spacecraft dives into the planet. Running out of fuel, NASA chose to end the mission that way rather than run the risk of having the vehicle wander and ultimately land on Europa or Enceladus, potentially contaminating two …
White dwarf stars, the remnant cores of low-mass stars that have exhausted all their nuclear fuel, are among the most dense objects in the sky. Their mass is comparable to that of the sun, while their volume is comparable to that of Earth. Very roughly, this means the average density of matter in a …
Continue reading "Of White Dwarfs, "Zombie" Stars and Supernovae Explosions"
White dwarf stars, the remnant cores of low-mass stars that have exhausted all their nuclear fuel, are among the most dense objects in the sky. Their mass is comparable to that of the sun, while their volume is comparable to that of Earth. Very roughly, this means the average density of matter in a …
Continue reading "Of White Dwarfs, "Zombie" Stars and Supernovae Explosions"
Asteroid, we've long been told, started tiny in our protoplanetary disk and only very gradually became more massive through a process of accretion. They collected dust from the gas cloud that surrounded our new star, and then grew larger through collisions with other growing asteroids. But in recent years, a new school of thought …
Continue reading "Primordial Asteroids, And The Stories They Are Telling"
Asteroid, we've long been told, started tiny in our protoplanetary disk and only very gradually became more massive through a process of accretion. They collected dust from the gas cloud that surrounded our new star, and then grew larger through collisions with other growing asteroids. But in recent years, a new school of thought has …
Continue reading "Primordial Asteroids, And The Stories They Are Telling"
I'm taking a little break alongside the Atlantic but can't leave exoplanets et al completely behind. Water worlds are inferred, or known, to be present and perhaps not uncommon in the galaxy. And there is reason to conclude that they may have much more water than Earth. Although 70.8% of all Earth's surface is …
I was moved to weigh in after reading Vice President Mike Pence's comments last week down at the Kennedy Space Center -- a speech that seemed to minimize NASA's performance in recent years (decades?) and to propose a return to a kind of Manifest Destiny way of thinking in space. The speech did not appear …
Continue reading "Has America Really Lost It’s "Lead in Space?""
Many Worlds 