A little over a month away now! Rather than write a lengthy post, I’m just going to address the main questions people usually have. The sun is going to be 90% obscured at my home. Is it worth traveling to…
Author: nealsumerlin
The First Stars
Standing under a starry sky on Earth, the variety we see among those distant points of light is mostly limited to their brightness. If we peer closely, we can see some color variation as well. In the winter constellation of…
A Consequential Star
What is the most important star in the universe? For us here on Earth, that is clearly Sol, the Sun, our own personal star. Without its warmth and light, life on Earth would not be possible. But what star—a single…
Tagged with: Hubble
A Crater, a Rocket Designer, and a Sci-Fi TV Show
nealsumerlin
Posted in human spaceflight, Mars, Rocket Science, Sergei Korolev, Spacecraft
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A MARTIAN CRATER Korolev Crater on Mars is located in the far north of that planet, in the low plains that surround the northern polar regions. Its site is marked by a red star at the upper left of the…
Dark Skies
When I would take my astronomy students to Lynchburg College’s (now the University of Lynchburg) Belk Observatory in rural Bedford County, Virginia, I was surprised at how many of them had never seen the Milky Way. Growing up in urban…
Tagged with: Bortle scale
A TALE OF THREE ROCKETS
How many rocket engines does it take to lift off on your way to the moon? Five? Thirty? Thirty-three? This is the tale of three very different booster rockets, all of them designed to send humans to the moon, and…
Data in Trickles and Floods
In July 2015 the New Horizons spacecraft flew by the dwarf planet Pluto, taking thousands of images and as many other scientific measurements over the course of a few weeks and days. Views both global and close-up revealed the nature…
In Praise of Darkness
A classic science fiction story (“Nightfall” by Isaac Asimov) was set on a planet in the midst of a globular cluster, its sky ablaze with six suns that prevent true night from ever falling. Once every 2000 years or so,…
Mars, Humans, and Nuclear Power
Getting humans to Mars will be hard. Getting them back safely to Earth will be harder. Let’s look at what it will take. We’re going to get successively more technical as we go, so if you want to bail out…
Tagged with: Nuclear Thermal Propulsion
Blue Moon Blues
Supermoon! Blue moon! Full moon! People do get excited about this, at least if media coverage and social media posts are any indication. Do I? Well, a full moon means I can see to put the garbage out more easily…
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