Category Archives: Current events

Happy Back to the Future Day

Posted on October 21, 2015 by Alex R. Howe

Today is the day that Doc Brown and Marty McFly arrived in The Future! So put on your self-lacing shoes, load up the Mr. Fusion, and kick back and enjoy Jaws 19. (Also, try driving in New Jersey for a … Continue reading →

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Court Rules “Happy Birthday” is Public Domain!

Posted on September 23, 2015 by Alex R. Howe

“Happy birthday to you…” It’s a song with five unique words besides the name of the recipient, and everyone’s sung it at every birthday party for as long as anyone can remember. Surely, you could never get in trouble for … Continue reading →

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More on Pluto: Nitrogen Glaciers and a Hazy Atmosphere

Posted on July 26, 2015 by Alex R. Howe

NASA has released its final batch of findings and images of Pluto from New Horizons until the main bulk of the data starts downloading in September, and there’s a lot more interesting stuff to see. Most of Pluto’s appearance is … Continue reading →

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NASA Discovers the First “Earth-Like” Planet for the Third Time

Posted on July 25, 2015 by Alex R. Howe

There’s been buzz in the news about the latest planet discovered by NASA’s Kepler space telescope, Kepler-452b. It’s being hailed as a major discovery. It’s the first ever Earth-sized planet found in the habitable zone of a…boy, this sounds familiar, … Continue reading →

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Pluto Update: Mountains, Moats, and Methane

Posted on July 22, 2015 by Alex R. Howe

New images from space missions are often slow to be released. The Deep Space Network isn’t exactly broadband, and they have to process the images to make them look presentable. But we still have a few new shots of Pluto … Continue reading →

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Weird and Active Pluto and Charon

Posted on July 16, 2015 by Alex R. Howe

The New Horizons spacecraft successfully completed its flyby of Pluto on Tuesday and collected all the scientific data it was planned to without a hitch. On Wednesday, we got our first pick at what these new data revealed. Methane Ice … Continue reading →

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Pluto Update: Pictures and Video!

Posted on July 14, 2015 by Alex R. Howe

Update: New Horizons is alive! The flyby went as planned with no computer glitches. All the data appears to be there. Also NASA TV is working now, and UStream appears to be offline, so click there for the press conferences. … Continue reading →

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Breaking News: Pluto is the Largest Dwarf Planet!

Posted on July 13, 2015 by Alex R. Howe

At this writing, the New Horizons spacecraft is only hours away from its closest approach to Pluto. Except in the unlikely event that it crashes into something (*knocks on wood*) or the more likely event that its computer crashes (*knocks … Continue reading →

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Optimism

Posted on September 15, 2014 by Alex R. Howe

The world needs more optimism these days–what with Ebola in West Africa, a civil war in Ukraine, and multiple wars in the Middle East. Here’s a does of optimism from one of the world’s greatest optimists, Hans Rosling, and yes, … Continue reading →

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NASA finds an ice-cold planet right next door

Posted on April 27, 2014 by Alex R. Howe

You may have heard about the recent discovery of an ice cold “brown dwarf” or “star” right next door in our Solar Neighborhood. The object, which goes by the telephone number* WISE J085510.83-071442.5, is only 7.2 light-years from our Solar … Continue reading →

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