Global Spin

If you’re in Southern California on January 5th, you might get a chance to see two space stations in the sky at the same time. (Pretty cool, right?) If it’s clear enough, and if I’ve read the magnitudes and times and directions correctly on Heavens Above, here’s what I’ll be doing that night: At 5:00pm [...]

Posted by Chris in Space on January 4th, 2012 | Comments Off

I had to post this in response to the flurry of rumors around NASA’s announcement that this Thursday they will “discuss an astrobiology finding that will impact the search for evidence of extraterrestrial life.” The rule is simple: When you tell a child anything, they will ignore most of it and leave only the words [...]

Posted by Chris in Family, Space on November 30th, 2010 | Comments Off

Today is Ada Lovelace Day, a celebration of women in tech. Ada was a mathematician and the world’s first programmer; in the mid-19th Century she wrote technical documentation and programs for Charles Babbage’s Analytical Engine. This year, Suw Charman-Anderson made a pledge: “I will publish a blog post on Tuesday 24th March about a woman [...]

Posted by Chris in Feminism, Space, Technology on March 24th, 2009 | Comments Off

I was pleasantly surprised to discover that the National Space Society has donated telescopes to students in over 20 countries as part of the Permission to Dream project. The project page posted photos of a recent star party in Nepal, featuring one of the donated telescopes: Click through to the Permission to Dream project page [...]

Posted by Chris in Space, To Help, World on October 27th, 2008 | Comments Off

The Solar System’s planetary roll call just got longer. From today’s Astronomy Picture of the Day: One of the strangest objects in the outer Solar System was classified as a dwarf planet last week and given the name Haumea. This designation makes Haumea the fifth designated dwarf planet after Pluto, Ceres, Eris, and Makemake. Haumea’s [...]

Posted by Chris in News, Science, Space on September 23rd, 2008 | Comments Off