Private space companies like SpaceX, Blue Origin, and Virgin Galactic are revolutionizing space exploration with innovations like reusable rockets and ambitious goals for interplanetary travel. These advancements are reshaping the industry, creating opportunities for more competitors and contributing to job creation. Exciting developments are expected in the near future, bringing us closer to the stars as new tourist destinations.
This week is the BBC's Stargazing Live show: three now-annual nights of live stargazing and astronomy chatter, live from Jodrell Bank. CBeebies are also…
[](https://orbitingfrog.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/11/pia17172fig1.jpg) This image was taken by Cassini, the amazing spacecraft that has been…
Astronomers are sometimes asked to defend public funding of their work. It’s difficult to answer because I really do think that there are lots of things we…
[](http://www.unawe.org/resources/posters/citizen-science-astro/) This is a poster from CAP2013, which am attending in Warsaw. Love the idea and the design.…
Tonight (and last night too) have been your best chance to see this year's Perseid meteor shower. With little or no Moon to wash out the skies, it's a great…
For better or worse citizen science has become a fashionable term, but what is it and why do people like it? Citizen Science is a big component in a larger…
The periodic mention of a 'supermoon' in the news cycle is starting to annoy me. A supermoon is simply not that much bigger than any other Moon! It's…
[](https://orbitingfrog.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/06/m45-pleiades-jack-newton.jpg) Image Credit: Jack Newton There's a cool paper on arXiv today in…
A recent APOD featured this beautiful video of the Northern Lights over Norway. The opening shot is almost exactly how I saw the aurora in 2012. The Sun is at…
The Apollo astronauts narrowly avoided serious health problems, and even death due to exposure to radiation from the Sun. Here’s a plot of the approximate…
Yesterday I toured the site of ITER, the nuclear fusion plant under construction near Cadarache, France. A multinational collaboration is pumping 150 billion…
Wendy Sadler (of Science Made Simple fame) was asking, on Facebook, what explanations people usually gave for Olbers’ Paradox. The slew of answers from several…
It is very difficult for it to be ‘too cold for snow’. I’ve seen several people state this modern myth today on Facebook and it was also said at my bus stop.…
I’ve been at Science Online 2011 in London this weekend. One hot topic of conversation during Day One was science blogging and how it relates to science…
I recently had the opportunity to visit a place called Moundville in Alabama. Moundville is a prehistoric site of the Creek People. In this region, prehistoric…
This one could just be filed under ‘this is really cool’. Also, I can’t believe it has passed me by my entire life. Have you ever heard of a solar furnace?…
Amazing picture here of the Northern Lights from space. Spotted on Digg (link here). The Aurorae are created by the interaction between outflows of energetic…