Think it takes James Webb Space Telescope money-pit type funding to do (or someday do) astronomy these days? Not so, some astronomers get it done with a lens equivalent to a digital camera. As the…

The winner picture of the Venus transit must be the one below, whose original version can be found here. Thanks Bente Lilya Bye for posting the link on her Facebook page! The picture was taken by…

Tuesday, June 5th, 2012 at 3:03 PM PDT (California), Venus will do something we on Earth will have witnessed for only the eighth since the invention of the telescope - it will cross in front of the…

Today's primer: orbital mechanics, or how we have to manuever to catch debris.  There's a lot of debris in low earth orbit, ranging from paint chips and spare bolts to a heavy toolbox up through…

The Square Kilometre Array telescope will be the world’s largest and most sensitive radio telescope, but it had a bit of a problem most big science projects do not have; multiple countries wanted to…

Is it cheaper to privatize deliveries?  Sure is, that is why UPS and FedEx are doing well and the US Post Office is now advertising that companies should send more junk mail and waste natural…

Shortly after celebrating the tenth anniversary of its time in service, engineers have declared the Envisat satellite lost, following numerous attempts to re-establish contact since April 8th.  …

I've some background in space weather-- the influence of solar activity on Earth and near-Earth orbits.  My new job as a professor at Capitol College has brought me into contact with several…

100 years yesterday, the RMS Titanic struck an iceberg while crossing the North Atlantic and sank, killing over 1500 passengers and crew.  Today, thousands of boats cross the same iceberg-ridden…

On April 5, 2010, the sun spewed a two million-mile-per-hour stream of charged particles toward the magnetosphere, the invisible magnetic fields surrounding Earth. As the particles interacted…