Tag Archives: astronomy

Kepler Space Telescope Detects an Alien Megastructure 1500 Light Years Away?

Posted on October 15, 2015 by

If you read nothing else between now and January, a recent article in The Atlantic Monthly perhaps should be it. (And then, when you start reading again in January, perhaps you should Google immediately the article’s subject for the rest … Continue reading →

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Does Time Exist? Einstein, Julian Barbour, Lee Smolin, Some Greek Philosophers–And The New Data From The NASA Fermi Gamma-Ray Space Telescope

Posted on June 2, 2015 by

Julian Barbour, Albert Einstein, and Parmenides vs. Anaximander and Lee Smolin. Theoretical physicist, Julian Barbour, believes that what we experience as time passing actually consists of frozen moments of space-time in relation to one another (akin to a flip book). It … Continue reading →

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Life on Enceladus?

Posted on March 12, 2015 by

It appears that beneath the ice of Enceladus, a moon of Saturn, is an ocean with sand resting on its bottom and heat vents reaching 190 degrees. Life around the vents? Possibly. Cassini will get within thirty miles of Enceladus … Continue reading →

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God or the Multiverse: Who or What Banged the Big Bang?

Posted on April 3, 2014 by

Physicists Andrei Linde and Alan Guth “distorted by gravitational waves.” (HuffPost image.) __________ Cosmic background radiation has long been considered by physicists to be the smoking gun evidence for the big bang, but what about the recent discovery of bent … Continue reading →

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The Cosmic Gun Smokes

Posted on March 18, 2014 by

Imagine positing a theory about the origin of the cosmos, then predicting something odd and otherwise implausible that one would find if the theory were true. Then imagine finding it. That’s what happened. This is via USA TODAY and The … Continue reading →

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Image of Earth from Mars (100 Million Miles Away): What Would Augustine Say?

Posted on February 7, 2014 by

Image source: NASA (of course). The rover? Curiosity. __________ The fact that this image was taken by Curiosity raises a question: Given that Augustine included curiosity among the vices in his Confessions (Book 10, section 35), would he have approved … Continue reading →

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Fresh Water! Mars Rover Curiosity Finds 3.5 Billion-Year Old Lake Sediment in Gale Crater That Could Have Supported Life

Posted on December 10, 2013 by

There was some big news yesterday that you might have missed. It appeared in the science section of the The New York Times (December 9, 2013): [L]ife [on Mars], at least in the ancient past, is at least plausible. John P. … Continue reading →

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Curiosity at Rocknest

Posted on July 7, 2013 by

A pretty stunning Mars photo from Rocknest was released by NASA a couple of weeks back. Here it is in the event you missed it. __________ Of course, there’s also something distinctly gloomy about the photo, for it shows a … Continue reading →

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Two Potentially Life Friendly Planets Discovered in Same Solar System 1200 Light Years Away

Posted on April 19, 2013 by

Here’s something to fire the imagination. This is from the science section of The New York Times this week: Astronomers said Thursday that they had found the most Earth-like worlds yet known in the outer cosmos, a pair of planets that appear … Continue reading →

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Astronomer Phil Plait on How to Stop Asteroids

Posted on February 22, 2013 by

After Russia’s nervy meteor encounter last week, the following TED talk by Phil Plait is obviously important:

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Genesis 2: Historic Mars News, December 3rd?

Posted on November 21, 2012 by

NASA plans to reveal news “for the history books” based on data coming from the Mars rover, Curiosity. A press conference is to be held at an upcoming science conference scheduled for December 3-7. This is at Wired: “If it’s going in the history books, … Continue reading →

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The Farthest You’ll Ever See

Posted on October 4, 2012 by

NASA recently released the below Hubble image. It’s a high quality (2 million second) exposure of deep space galaxies, the most distant of which are 13.2 billion light years away. What you’re seeing is not our time, but the universe … Continue reading →

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Mars, the Book

Posted on August 30, 2012 by

A miracle. This is not the American Southwest, but part of Mount Sharp inside Gale Crater on Mars. The (apparently sedimentary) rocks exposed here are more than three billion years old. Curiosity is about six miles from them. Behold the Book of Mars. We’ll … Continue reading →

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Mars and the F-Word (Fossil)

Posted on August 10, 2012 by

Now that Curiosity has landed safely in Gale Crater and directly upon an alluvial fan at the base of Mount Sharp–a mountain likened in its strategraphic layering to the Grand Canyon, my imagination is vexed. I want the rover to … Continue reading →

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Curiosity is John Wesley Powell on Mars

Posted on August 6, 2012 by

Last night, my wife Rachel and I took our two daughters, Lia and Aria, to the Will Geer Theatricum in Los Angeles to see a hippie rendition of Shakespeare’s Measure for Measure. But though the Will Geer production was colorful and I … Continue reading →

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Neil deGrassi Tyson Makes the Economic Case for Reviving the U.S. Space Program

Posted on March 18, 2012 by
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On Earth as It Is on Mars: Curiosity Mars Rover is Heading for the Grand Canyon of Mars, and May Provide Strong Evidence Against Young Earth Creationism

Posted on November 14, 2011 by

Are you curious about Curiosity, NASA’s new Mars rover, scheduled to launch from Cape Canaveral, Fla., this month? Here’s part of a report in the Los Angeles Times about it: Curiosity will take 8.5 months to travel the 354 million … Continue reading →

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Carl Sagan Day: Three Historians Reflect on Carl Sagan’s Life

Posted on November 12, 2011 by

For “Carl Sagan Day” (which is today), this extended reflection on Carl Sagan’s life seems fitting to post.

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Life Perspective Adjustment: A Recent NASA Image of the Earth and Moon from 6 Million Miles Away

Posted on September 7, 2011 by

The below image was recently taken of the Earth and moon by Juno, a NASA space probe currently on its way to Jupiter. Seize the dot.

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The Evolutionary Universe 1, Genesis Literalism 0

Posted on June 15, 2011 by

Question: Five days after the creation of the universe, were there whales? Answer: Obviously not. Why? Because the earth was not here five days after the universe began. And, for that matter, it was not here a billion years after the universe began. The earth … Continue reading →

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