science | M Thomas Apple Author Page

“Blood Moon” lunar eclipse across the Americas

August 28, 2026
MThomas

Lunar eclipses occur when Earth moves between the sun and the moon and its shadow is cast on to the lunar surface. In Thursday night’s event 96% of the moon will be darkened by the Earth’s shadow at its peak moment. https://www.theguardian.com/science/2026/aug/27/lunar-eclipse-north-south-america

WordPress has gotten really wonky with the “quotation” formatting, so I hope this one works…

Anyway, I will of course still blog about science in addition to family history and other things I find interesting.

Remembering when I took a writing workshop online a few years ago, and they told me to choose only one genre in order to not confuse readers.

And I still think, nah. I think readers are smart enough to enjoy good writing when they see it. To me, the mark of a good writer is one who can wend and weave between multiple genres. Why limit yourself?

If you don’t like science writing, fine. If you don’t like history, fine. If you don’t like science fiction, fine. If you don’t like random thoughts about life, the universe, and everything…well, then, what on earth are you doing reading my blog? :p

Anyway, enjoy the eclipse if you are able to see it. I’ll keep on writing!

(Also, I really don’t care for this “AI can monetize your blog” BS. I’m not doing this for money. I just like to write. I hope you like reading it!)

Hibernating through space: An old idea, finally possible?

July 17, 2026
MThomas

Ground squirrels reduce their metabolism during hibernation; could humans do it, too, with some genetic tweaks?

Hibernation is extremely complex – after all, it affects every cell in the body – and there are almost certainly multiple switches involved in the process. MIT neuroscience researcher Siniša Hrvatin has identified another brain region that seems to play a key role in the process. In a paper published earlier this year (but not yet peer-reviewed), he and his team targeted a region known as the preoptic area, which plays a key role in metabolism and temperature. By activating neurons in the preoptic area of hamsters, the researchers put them into torpor, lowering the animals’ body temperature to 15C.

https://www.theguardian.com/science/ng-interactive/2026/jul/14/human-hibernation-space-mars

The key would be whether this is possible in humans.

And, of course, whether revival can be timed and automated – or perhaps with robotic (AI) assistance…

Of course, science fiction has posited “sleeper ships” for decades now. The Songs of Distant Earth (Arthur C. Clarke, one of the “Big Three”) is probably the most well-known of the classic sleeper ship stories, but there are plenty of others to choose from…

JAXA finally gets it right with the H3

June 17, 2026
MThomas

Six small satellites developed by universities and other organizations carried by the vehicle also were believed to be successfully separated, JAXA said.

https://apnews.com/article/japan-jaxa-h3-rocket-launch-9c64f2c59b9212d612902e74823b77b5

“Believed to be” successful. Very Japanese.

It’s a start. A late, very much delayed start. But at least it worked (finally).

To go farther than anyone before

April 7, 2026
MThomas

“It is blowing my mind what you can see with the naked eye from the moon right now,” Canadian astronaut Jeremy Hansen radioed ahead of the flyby. “It is just unbelievable.”

https://www.theguardian.com/science/2026/apr/06/artemis-ii-astronauts-record-moon-earth-distance?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other

Just like Apollo 8 in 1968.

History does not repeat, but it sure does rhyme.

To boldly go where Tom Hanks has not actually been…

April 2, 2026
MThomas

https://www.theguardian.com/science/live/2026/apr/01/artemis-ii-launch-nasa-orion-moon-trip-live-updates?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other

Live up dates of the Artemis II mission to “cislunar space” (it will not actually land on the Moon but will take four astronauts farther away from Earth than anyone else so far).

It Came Out of the Sky, Landed Just a Little North of Houston…

March 23, 2026
MThomas

Just four days after a meteor streaked through skies above Cleveland, another one broke apart above Houston.

My favorite quote from the woman whose house was targeted by a meteorite:

“It looked just like a rock, and ain’t no rocks got no business falling out of the sky.”

Um. Yeah. Ain’t no blogger got no business complaining about grammar what don’t make no sense, boy.

My favorite thing about the photo of the meteorite chunk: It was sent to the media from the Ponderosa Fire Department.

Now we’re cooking!

And it went BOOM BOOM 💥

March 18, 2026
MThomas

Rocky objects traveling through space are known as meteoroids, but when they enter Earth’s atmosphere and create fireballs, they are called meteors. Any fragments that fall to Earth’s surface are meteorites.

https://www.nbcnews.com/science/science-news/meteor-boom-ohio-pennsylvania-rcna263876

The Earth is bombarded on a daily basis from outer space.

Just not usually over urban areas during daylight.

In Ohio.

Not a whole lot going on there, apparently.

(On FaceCrap, people are posting things like “The sky literally exploded over Ohio!” Um. No, it didn’t, and that’s not possible. Morons.)

Blood Moon tonight! And..

March 3, 2026
MThomas

https://www.theguardian.com/science/2026/mar/03/total-lunar-eclipse-tonight-blood-moon-2026-what-time-when-date-march-full-worm-moon-sydney-australia-new-york-america

Lunar eclipse, tonight from 6:30 to 11:00…

Except it still raining here in Japan, and we’ll see nothing.

Rats.

At least we’ll visit JAXA tomorrow…

Here we (don’t) go again, NASA…

February 22, 2026
MThomas

Just one day after NASA said it was eyeing a potential March 6 launch date for the Artemis II lunar mission, the space agency said Saturday that complications with the rocket could delay all launch attempts in March from the Kennedy Space Center in Florida.

https://www.npr.org/2026/02/21/nx-s1-5722339/nasa-artemis-ii-march-launch-delay

Looks like you get what you pay for…

(Btw, WordPress, the “quote” field used to have a separate area where you could put a link to the quote’s source. Where did that go? Nothing like helping the spread of unverified fake news…)

Holy smokes, how many months??

February 17, 2026
MThomas

Um. Yeah. Like, I’ve, uh, never done this before…

Back with more science, space, and etc. posts soon!

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