Hi Pluto!

New Horizons is a success!  Today's flyby is an amazing accomplishment.  It's hard to believe that we finally know what Pluto looks like in great detail.  As a kid, I loved looking at images of the solar system, but I was frustrated by the fact that our best images of Pluto were so blurry.

That's not a problem anymore!

Say hi!

(NASA)

Billions of miles traveled.  9 years have passed since New Horizons loaunched, and it took many years of planning to even get to that point.  Congratulations to the people who made it possible!

Video: Riding Light

This short film is 45 minutes long, but it's worth a look if you'd like a light speed tour of our solar system!

Orion Embarks on First Test Flight

For those of you who haven't yet had a chance to see it, here's the video of Orion launching into space for its first test flight. 

I hope NASA keeps going and follows through with their plans to eventually land human beings on Mars.  

I know budget concerns can always be problematic, so we'll see.

Wanderers: A Short Film

I don't know what else to say.  This is amazing and inspiring.  I hope we find a way to make this future a reality sometime soon.


Wanderers - a short film by Erik Wernquist from Erik Wernquist on Vimeo.

Landing on a Comet: A Love Song

For those of you who somehow haven't heard the news, a man made space craft has landed on a comet for the first time.  Hello 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko!

The Rosetta mission has been in the works for a long time.  This mission was approved in 1993, and the craft itself was launched in 2004.  You can see a timeline of the mission HERE.  This is an amazing moment, not only for the ESA, but for humanity as a whole.  Let's celebrate!




You can also hear the comet "sing" to you!  Apparently the sound is caused by weak oscillations in 67P's magnetic field.  You can find a more in-depth explanation for this HERE.  Keep in mind, we wouldn't normally be able to hear these sounds.  The frequency has been increased by a fair bit (about 10,000 times) to make your enjoyment possible.




A big congratulations and thank you to all the scientists who made this achievement possible!

Partial Solar Eclipse Coming to North America This Week!

Mysterious Signal From the Perseus Cluster

More excitement brought to you by astronomy!

The Collision of Andromeda and the Milky Way

H is for Heroes

Science fiction is filled with heroes and heroines.  They defeat the bad guys, and keep us entertained in the process.  However, many of them do not fall in line with our more traditional idea of what it means to be a hero.  In our culture, we see heroes as being courageous, selfless, virtuous, and idealistic.  They aren’t plagued by vices.

Instead, science fiction is populated by what we would call anti-heroes.  They may be the protagonists of the story, and they may defeat the enemy, but they don’t usually do it in the clean way that a more traditional hero would.  Anti-heroes might drink too much, or gamble.  They may say crude things and generally be rough around the edges.  They may in fact be wanted criminals.

Image courtesy of
verucasalt82/
DeviantArt

Han Solo from Star Wars (as if I even need to clarify this) and Malcolm Reynolds from Firefly are two good examples of anti-heroes.  They might have their own code that they operate by, but it certainly doesn’t take into consideration what society would like them to be.  They may do some less-than-noble things, but we find ourselves rooting for them.  Why?  And why are there so many anti-heroes?

Space is vast.  There is always a frontier, and where there is a frontier, there’s an element of lawlessness.  When you’re away from a centralized authority, you may have to be a little rough to get things done and win the day.  Or perhaps we have anti-heroes because we recognize that human beings are imperfect.  Sometimes we’re selfish.  Sometimes we bend or break the rules because it suits us to do so.  Sometimes we lie.  The anti-hero reflects our own imperfections.  We want to see them win, because if the little guy who’s made mistakes in the past can triumph, then we can too.  We can relate to them more than we can to the hero who’s never done a dishonest thing, who puts the needs of others ahead of their own at all times.  The traditional heroes are perhaps good role models, but they’re not always realistic ones.

What kind of heroes do you like to see?  Do you prefer heroes or anti-heroes?  Why do we need heroes in the first place?

C is for Colonization

One of the most common themes present in science fiction is colonization.  Even if the process of colonization is not present in a story, you often see humans living on alien worlds, or living on ships and exploring the cosmos.  This exploration/colonization is an undeniable part of our history.  Explorers have always pushed the boundaries of the known world, seeking out the unknown.  Though the exploration of space comes with expenses and challenges different from what has come before, there seems little reason to assume that we will not one day set forth and colonize other worlds.

Movies like Wall-E show humans leaving Earth due to severe pollution making the environment inhospitable to life.  Other scenarios show us spreading out due to overpopulation concerns.  The environment can, after all, sustain a certain number of human beings before we lose the ability to produce enough food to feed us all.  Some scientists estimate that maximum capacity to be about 10 billion people.

How do we go about the colonization process?  Terraforming is the process by which humans make uninhabitable worlds suitable for human needs, and is frequently used in sci-fi, though some scientists question whether such a project would be practical.  Sometimes humans simply look for worlds that are already suited to our biology, though those worlds may have their own life forms that would protest our plans.  We also see artificial environments such as biodomes set up on planets like Mars, or humans living on space stations.

Image courtesy of Shadow-Trance/
DeviantArt

Each method of colonization comes with its own concerns.  Regardless of whether it is practical to alter the environment of another planet, would it be ethical to do so?  If we colonize another world with other living creatures, how will our presence impact them?  What kind of responsibility would we have for those other life forms?  Do you think we really are destined to move between the stars, or will we allow concerns about money or a lack of ambition to keep us on the ground?

Go Galaxy Hopping: Fly Through Thousands of Galaxies in 3D

Video: Let's Go to Space!

The human species is full of differences, and those differences often lead to conflict.  Yet we all share a common interest in creating a better future for us all.  I've always believed that a crucial part of creating that future is venturing into space.

When I saw this video, I knew I had to share it.  It captures my feelings on the subject perfectly.  We may be different from one another in many ways, but our shared sense of curiosity and wonder, our shared humanity, must eventually lead us to the stars.  At least, I hope that's the case.

Video: Star-Crossed Galaxies

Sir Patrick Stewart as Jade Rabbit

Though I know plenty of people have already seen this, I just had to share it here.  Sir Patrick Stewart gives an awesome performance as the lunar rover known as Jade Rabbit.  Poor broken rover.

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Midnight Planetarium Watch Promotional Video

I'm generally a cheap person, but if I had the ability to indulge in buying whatever I wanted, I'd definitely have to buy this watch.  I have no idea what it actually costs, but I have no doubt that it's well outside of my budget.  Still, it's beautiful to look at, and the promotional video is mesmerizing.

Bill Moyers and Neil deGrasse Tyson Talk Science and Religion

This program may be a half hour long, but the time passes quickly.  Of course, that's true with anything involving Neil deGrasse Tyson.

Interstellar-Teaser Trailer

This teaser shows very little of the actual film, but it gets me excited anyway.  I love space, and I'm a proponent of space exploration, so that probably has a lot to do with it.

The description for this film (quoted from IMDB) reads: "A group of explorers make use of a newly discovered wormhole to surpass the limitations on human space travel and conquer the vast distances involved in an interstellar voyage."

I know I'll have to see this one.

Neil deGrasse Tyson and an Awesome Kid

At age 9, this kid is obviously quite intelligent and curious, asking thought-provoking questions.  The future looks bright from here.

Thank You, Voyager-1

Voyager-1 is now officially the first human made object to enter interstellar space.  Here are a couple of videos honoring that achievement.  They're both short and well worth watching.






I already tweeted my #MessageToVoyager.  Here it is.

The Hubble Ultra Deep Field in 3D

These stunning and humbling images leave you thinking about your tiny place in the universe.