May 25, 2026
Li Jiaying, a 43-year-old police officer and mother of three, serves as the payload scientist in the three-member crew who made their way to China’s Tiangong space station on Sunday night.
Congratulations to her!
But is it really important that she is a “mother of three”? I never see anything about male astronauts being a “father of three.”
Presumably she got sent into space because she qualified for the job, not because she has three children. Sexist reporting like this has to stop.
May 5, 2026
Just 300 miles or so across, this mini Pluto is thought to be the solar system’s smallest object yet with a clearly detected global atmosphere bound by gravity, said lead researcher Ko Arimatsu of the National Astronomical Observatory of Japan.
https://www.nbcnews.com/science/space/atmosphere-icy-world-beyond-pluto-rcna343509
The planetoid, called “(612533) 2002 XV93” (good luck remembering that one), was discovered and tracked by three separate observatories in Japan in 2024.
So why is it being only announced now?
Because scientists are cautious folk. They still want other observers to document this in other countries, to increase the validity of their finding.
The fact that the planetoid has an atmosphere (ridiculously thin, something like five to ten million times thinner than that of the Earth’s) came as a surprise.
So is this the famed “Planet X”? Or “Nibiru”?
No worries. It’s not rogue and won’t destroy the Earth in 3600 years. Sorry.
April 14, 2026
“The moon really is its own unique body in the universe. When we have that perspective and we compare it to our home of the Earth, it just reminds us how much we have in common. Everything we need, the Earth provides, and that, in and of itself, is somewhat of a miracle.”
Should have posted this a couple days ago, but better late than never.
Just like this mission. It’s better to delay a mission than scrub it.
And DJT should stop trying to take credit for it. He’s still trying to slash NASA’s budget to practically nothing. Get rid of him already.
More good news like this, please. No more war. Space awaits all of us.
April 7, 2026
“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.”
Just like Apollo 8 in 1968.
History does not repeat, but it sure does rhyme.
April 2, 2026
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).
March 4, 2026
Software that was supposed to point the spacecraft solar panels toward the sun instead pointed them 180 degrees away from the sun.
https://www.npr.org/2026/02/26/nx-s1-5727622/nasa-lunar-trailblazer-moon-new-report-what-went-wrong
It took a year to figure this out.
A year.
To find out that the outsourced company in charge couldn’t even be bothered to test the product. They just happily pocketed $72 million of taxpayer dollars and laughed all the way to the bank.
Another symptom of a nation in decline…
March 3, 2026
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…
February 22, 2026
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…)
February 17, 2026
September 12, 2025
In two separate papers published Monday in the Astrophysical Journal Letters, astronomers zeroed in on the TRAPPIST-1 system, which consists of seven rocky planets that orbit a single star. Both studies outlined initial results from observations by NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope, suggesting that one planet in particular, known as TRAPPIST-1e, may have a nitrogen-rich atmosphere like Earth’s, though follow-up studies are needed to confirm the discovery.
https://www.nbcnews.com/science/space/trappist1e-atmosphere-extraterrestrial-life-planet-earth-conditions-rcna229839
Trappist 1e is in the “Goldilocks zone” in orbit around its star (i.e., not too cold, not too hot, just right). However, the Webb telescope can’t determine whether its atmosphere has any carbon dioxide, hydrogen, or oxygen, only nitrogen. Yet nitrogen is a clear sign that life is possible, because without nitrogen, DNA and other proteins are not possible. Of course, it could be simply a whole lot of microbes. Or even just ammonia.
Closer to home, the Mars rover Perseverance has found evidence of life in the distant past. Maybe. It found evidence that certain rock features may have happened because of microbes.
May.
That’s how science works, folks. A whole lot of maybes.
(I still think we need more catchy names for the Trappists. I mean, come on.
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