Review: NASA’s Moonbase Alpha.

 
    
  It’s hard to weld in a spacesuit… This week, we take a look at Moonbase Alpha. No, this isn’t a resurrection of the 70’s TV series Space: 1999 re-imagined, but NASA’s new online interactive game. We’ve been playing it for a few weeks now since its release in early July. Just how does its authenticity, educational use, [...]

AstroEvent of the Week: Spotting Iridium Flares.

 
Photo by Author.  
   Looking up at the dawn or dusk skies, it’s not uncommon to see a satellite brighten, flare up, and the abruptly disappear from view. What you’ve just seen is an Iridium flare, a glint of sunlight off of a refrigerator sized satellite panel. Motorola launched this series of 66 communications satellites in 1997 [...]

Review: The Calculus Diaries by Jennifer Ouellette.

 
      There’s a wonderful anecdote told by Stephen Hawking about the completion of A Brief History of Time. His publisher admonished him not to include any mathematical equations, stating that each subsequent equation would cut the sales of the book by half.

Review: Denialism by Michael Specter.

 
What’s the harm? This is the statement often echoed in today’s world anytime an exception is raised to pseudoscience. The current atmosphere in society seems to be that there’s no danger in at least supplanting science with sorcery, as long as we don’t apply both to the same rigorous standards… or is something more ominous [...]

Astro event: A Close Planetary Conjunction.

 
   The dusk planetary action continues this week with a close conjunction of the planets Mars and Venus. Our two nearest planetary neighbors in space have been playing a game of apparent cat and mouse in the dusk skies, approaching each other within two degrees of arc July 31st, receding, and then approaching again. Closest [...]

The 2010 Rhysling Anthology.

 
   This week, we present to you that most vaunted of science fiction awards: The 2010 Ryslings, as presented within the 2010 Rhysling Anthology: The Best Science Fiction, Fantasy and Horror Poetry of 2009 as selected by the Science Fiction Poetry Association and edited by Jaime Lee Moyer.

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