By Alex Acks I’ve been reading science fiction and fantasy almost as long as I’ve been able to read, and I’m normally very good at suspending my disbelief. Unfortunately, seven years of university schooling and two degrees have now placed some suspension limits on certain areas—namely geology, landforms, and maps. I tend to notice little things like […]
Read More The Science of Desert PlanetsMan Plus by Frederik Pohl My rating: 3 of 5 stars Read for the 12 Awards in 12 Months Challenge and the SF Masterworks Reading Challenge and Science Fiction Masterworks Reading Club here on Goodreads. This novel won the 1976 Nebula Award. Some books stand up to the vicissitudes of time better than others. I’m […]
Read More Book Review: Man Plus by Frederik PohlBy David Plotz Being an astronaut is not all zero-gravity gymnastics and big blue marble flyovers. There’s also all the time spent repairing the urine collector and hunting for lost screws. Scott Kelly’s delightful new memoir, Endurance: A Year in Space, A Lifetime of Discovery, chronicles the mundane, frustrating, and surprisingly funny reality of life on the […]
Read More Scott Kelly: An Astronaut’s Exit InterviewBy Nicole Mortillaro When we think of Mars, we think of a dry, desolate planet. But beneath the dust of Mars lies frozen water, and a new study has found that erosion is exposing that water ice. Researchers using several satellites, including the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO) and the High Resolution Imaging Science Experiment (HiRISE), have […]
Read More Erosion on Mars Reveals Water Ice: LOTS of It!By Anastasia Stepanova (translated from Russian) … And here we are flying over the uninhabited island of Devon and we observe a strange picture: in the distance below, a few white points swish. Common sense suggests: these are the most dangerous inhabitants of the Arctic – polar bears. But the closer the plane to the middle of the […]
Read More The Mars 160 ProgramBy Himanshu Goenka An unusual star about 550 light-years away in the constellation Pisces is known for its erratic dimming episodes, but it turns out RZ Piscium may also be doing something else not commonly seen. The star may be actively destroying the planets and planetesimals in orbit around it and then consuming the remains. […]
Read More A Cannibal StarBy Mike McCrae Astronomers have produced a clear snapshot of a 2.3 light-year long ‘thread’ snaking around the supermassive black hole at the centre of the Milky Way. The structure itself was discovered back in 2012, but the new image reveals the long line seems to be fairly intimate with the dark heart of our galaxy. […]
Read More There’s a Weird String at the Center of Our GalaxyBy Universe Today In the past decade, the rate at which extra-solar planets have been discovered and characterized has increased prodigiously. Because of this, the question of when we might explore these distant planets directly has repeatedly come up. In addition, the age-old question of what we might find once we get there – i.e. […]
Read More The Genesis Project Plans to Use Robots to Seed the Galaxy With Life“The Ganymede ocean is believed to contain more water than Europa’s,” says Olivier Witasse, a project scientist working on ESA’s future Jupiter Icy Moon Explorer (JUICE). “Six times more water in Ganymede’s ocean than in Earth’s ocean, and three times more than Europa.” Read the full article at Daily Galaxy.
Read More Ganymede: Jupiter’s Secret
