Let's Get Off This Rock Already!
An Author's Adventures in Space Travel, Science Fiction, and Worlds Beyond
An astronomy pop quiz for you: How large does a planet have to be before it can have a natural satellite of its own? It's a trick question, you see. There's no lower limit. In fact, moons aren't just the province of planetary-mass bodies like Jupiter, Pluto, and our own Planet Earth---asteroids have them, too.... Continue Reading →
Not all the worlds in our solar system are created equal. Some are enormous, some are vanishingly small; some are scorching hot, others freezing cold; some (one) are clement to human life, while some (all the rest) are inhospitable deathtraps. And if I may be frank---some are just better than others. For today's post, we... Continue Reading →
Ah, to live in the old Solar System, before our nosy little space probes pushed back the veil and revealed the other planets to be absolute shitholes. Venus was, beneath its clouds, a steamy paradise world full of lush vegetation and primordial beasts; Mars, meanwhile, was one vast desert crisscrossed by canals, pockmarked by the... Continue Reading →
I originally had another topic planned for today---it was written and scheduled, and of course I will still upload it at some point---but then my area had a rare winter storm, blanketing everything in ice and snow, and I thought to myself that it would be appropriate to do a blog post on Europa, one... Continue Reading →
Another short post this week1. Today, we will be exploring what has become a common theme on this blog, or rather a common destination: Neptune. Neptune is indisputably the Spooky Planet. If the Solar System had a haunted house, this would be it---a cold, dark, storm-wracked world made extra fascinating by its sheer remoteness. Only... Continue Reading →
I'm a little late to the party with this one---Ad Astra came out a while ago, now---but I just saw it in theaters, and boy do I have an opinion on it. This image and others are provided here under Fair Use, for purposes of criticism and commentary. Some commentary: this is a great-looking poster.... Continue Reading →
Post by Nic Quattromani: Well, here’s an interesting bit of space news: the Parker Solar Probe is scheduled to launch tomorrow, on August 11. Thus our brave little space probe shall begin its journey to the hottest place within light-years of here. You see, while previous solar observation probes like Ulysses have been content to... Continue Reading →
Post by AJ Rise: Are we alone in this universe? Where are the space aliens? What do they look like? When, if ever, will we get to meet them? These questions all relate to the holy grail of astrobiology: discovering an intelligent alien species. Countless scientists and philosophers have attempted to tackle the question of... Continue Reading →
Post by Nic Quattromani: This week we got a revolutionary new picture of another planet in our solar system, and while it's not the planet with the most interesting surface features (or with surface features at all, actually), we nevertheless have the best view of Neptune since Voyager 2 visited back in 1989. Feast your eyes on... Continue Reading →
Post by Nic Quattromani: In the space colonization crowd there are a few contrarian fellows who see the ever-popular Mars as a cold, irradiated waste of time, and look instead to the sunny real estate just two planets over on Venus. While steamy Venusian jungles and lizard men were long ago replaced by a scorching... Continue Reading →
