Last Monday Stephen Hawking gave a lecture at the George Washington University for the 50th anniversary of NASA. There he discussed the chance of a contact between our civilization and an…

Just a couple of quick news stories: In keeping with the theme of 2010, that humans should be ashamed of themselves, Stephen Hawking, it seems, is generally pessimistic about man. In a recently…

How often do you hear a song featuring Bill Nye? Well, often-- it's part of his shtick.  But to hear him remixed with 3 other science populist greats, that's a treat.  It's "We Are All…

Absolutely stunning photos are now being released from NASA's new telescope, the Solar Dynamics Observatory. Over the course of its five-year mission, it will study the sun's magnetic field and also…

The exoplanet GJ 436b has left scientists confused after defying their assumptions about the composition of its atmosphere. Neptune-sized planets as hot as 800 Kelvin -- about 1,000 degrees…

The ESO's VISTA telescope has captured a stunning new image of the Cat's Paw Nebula - NGC 6334. The view in the infrared is strikingly different from that in visible light. With dust obscuring the…

I just received edition 1.1 of the "TubeSat Personal Satellite Kit Assembly Guide".  Rather than reprinting the entire 50-page instruction set, I decided to rewrite it as "Building Tubey, the…

A new study in the Journal of Geophysical Research suggest that solar wind may charge polar lunar craters to hundreds of volts as it flows over natural obstructions on the moon. The findings are…

With little fanfare, NASA released on online simulation of spacewalking, the ISS, and real science in space.  Real physics, real challenges, no sissified arcade-y action or twitch gaming. …

I read with interest and excitement a very lightweight preprint on the Cornell preprint arxiv this afternoon. Although I usually skip reading papers on subjects I know little about (Cosmology), the…