February 27, 2025
The best day to see all seven major planets (yes, you read that right, all seven!) is Friday, February 28th.
The link will describe (and give pictures) of where to find them all in the night sky.
Finding Orion is the key to most of them. Knowing where the Pleiades are helps, too.
The next time this “parade” appears will be 2040, so fingers crossed for clear skies!
https://www.skyatnightmagazine.com/news/seven-planet-parade-28-february-2025
November 13, 2024
Jas Tiruvuru, business development manager for Orbit Fab in the UK and Europe, said the company was aiming to successfully demonstrate the technology in space by 2027.
“This will essentially be the first ever satellite to satellite refuelling demonstration funded here in the UK,” she said.
“Once we’ve proven that we can refuel to two spacecrafts we’ll be able to unlock a huge market potential.”
You know, maybe it’s just me, but I think 2027 may be a little optimistic. Just like the figure given in the article for how much the satellite sector will be worth in the future.
Aren’t there too many satellites already?
I’d like to see how this would help us colonize the solar system.
Actually, I’d like to see how they plan to get fuel up there in the first place.
Maybe my novel’s idea of using certain moons of Jupiter or Saturn as giant space gas pumps might help? 🪐
March 15, 2024
This time I figured out how to import the slides directly into mmHmm, and I managed to update my MacOS to Sonoma, which allowed me to use my USB mic (yay). But I also called Ceres a “moon” at some point (it’s not a Moon but a dwarf planet in the asteroid belt near Mars). Oops. Not enough time to edit that bit out or record it again, so just word to the wise! Always fact-check videos, folks. Enjoy!
March 13, 2024
February 15, 2024
The moment we’ve all been waiting for is nearly here!
Bringer of Light is finally set to be released on March 15, 2024! (Click the link to see a book synopsis and two brief excerpts; Smashwords also has an excerpt from the beginning chapters.)
Stop by Draft2Digital to see links to your favorite bookstore online!
UPDATE: I have some difficulty convincing D2D to distribute to Amazon. Therefore, I have decided to publish Bringer of Light directly on Amazon. Stop by here to order for Kindle (released March 15th). Paperback and hard cover are also in the works.
January 26, 2024
Now that I’ve got the manuscript completed, it’s time to search for typos!
Yup. Found some already. Oops.
I figure to rearrange and combine some of the later chapters as well. Look for a publication online in late March!
It’s taken nearly 9 years. Hm. Only 11 years fewer than Adam’s Stepsons.
Fortunately, I have outlined book two and started writing the opening chapters already. Hopefully it won’t take another 9 years to see the continuation of the Bringer of Light story!
December 20, 2023
Aiming the laser at the spacecraft so the transceiver knows where to point back is the most difficult part, Wright said. And because Earth and the spacecraft are both moving, the lasers must point to where the destination will be in a few minutes.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2023/12/19/nasa-laser-video-streaming-space-mars-cat/
“The beam’s so narrow, it can’t just point to Earth. It needs to know exactly where on Earth,” Wright said. “Trying to hit a dime from a mile away while you’re moving at 17,000 miles an hour — that’s the challenge.”
So NASA has been working on this idea for a while now. The invisible laser beam that carried this video file came from the Psyche probe, on its way to the asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter.
Psyche is 19 million miles away right now. The laser beam took 108 seconds to reach Earth.
Mars and Earth are on average 140 million miles apart and can be up to 250 million miles apart depending on the timing of their respective orbits.
I don’t think lasers are the answer here. A good start, maybe, but you can do the math. Having to wait between 10 to 20 minutes, or more, for a one-way transmission (double that for an exchange of messages) would not be ideal for a human settlement in an emergency.
Star Trek style instant interstellar communication is still just scifi. Unless there’s still something out there we haven’t found yet, even quantum communication will take time…
But at least NASA has finally realized that non-science people like cat videos.
🐈 🐈⬛
September 10, 2023
Way back in 2015, my good friend Rami Z Cohen came to me with an idea for a story. He had written two or three scenes about a group of asteroid hunters who stumbled upon something bizarre. The idea of mining asteroids was news at the time (and still is, although probably too expensive right now and not a worthwhile investment until we actually get some people in space who need metals without relying on NASA/ESA/JAXA/ISRO/etc).
I was more interested in philosophical aspects of finding that we are all (as the late great Carl Sagan loved to put it) “star stuff” (he meant carbon being created by supernovas, but we also know that asteroids are the way we got amino acids to rain down on ancient Earth).
So Rami and I began to email ideas back and forth for a few weeks, then we started to flesh out his characters and plot. I wrote a synopsis and outline and we hashed out the background.
Continue Reading
August 23, 2022
“We’ve never seen Jupiter like this. It’s all quite incredible,” said planetary astronomer Imke de Pater, of the University of California, Berkeley, who helped lead the observations.
“We hadn’t really expected it to be this good, to be honest,” she added in a statement.
https://www.pbs.org/newshour/science/james-webb-space-telescope-shows-jupiters-auroras-tiny-moons
The above is supposed to be in “quote” format, but WP really messed up this feature when they switched to so-called “block” mode (which I can’t stand).
Anyway, the image is fairly spectacular, from the new James Webb Space Telescope which is positioned 1 million miles away from Earth (i.e., in the second LaGrange point, or L2).
April 24, 2022
(Note: You won’t be able to see the planets actually looking like these photoshopped images…unless you happen to have a really powerful telescope in your backyard.)
Not sure why I first got this info from a site based in New Jersey. The info about what time of day and in what part of the sky is only relevant to people living in the NJ_NYC area.
Still, it’s an interesting phenomenon that occurs once every few years…
2005. 2016. 2020. And 2022. Not exactly a regular pattern, it seems.
And, no, there is no “spiritual significance” to a planetary alignment. It’s an illusion, an imaginary lining up of the solar system that doesn’t affect you personally. Sorry.
But it’s still fun to watch. Er, if you enjoy getting up before dawn (I don’t).
According to nj.com, “The planetary parade of sorts will occur when Jupiter, Venus, Mars and Saturn all appear to be lined up in a row above the horizon during the pre-dawn hours — starting Saturday morning, April 23. The alignment will also be visible during the next few mornings, and April’s crescent moon will soon join the parade, according to experts from LiveScience and AccuWeather.”
Yeah, lots of web sites are covering this. At least the one I linked above doesn’t have automated videos, flashing ad gifs, and other random pop-ups that drain your smartphone battery.
Click here for more info about the next great alignment (not as impressive as the so-called “Great Conjunction” a couple years ago, but we’ll see more planets in June and July): https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2022/04/17/planets-align-april-venus-mars-jupiter-saturn/7351117001/
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